Sun, Sep 13
|Main Stage @ The Plant
From Seed to Story: The Malagueta Pepper and the Roots We Carry
Falani Spivey from Byrd's Nest Box discusses the fiery malagueta pepper as a living link to ancestral foodways, migration, memory, and resilience. Blending documentary film with heritage farming, she explores how cultivating a single crop can preserve centuries of migration, memory, and flavor.
Time & Location
Sep 13, 2026, 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM
Main Stage @ The Plant, 220 Lorax Ln, Pittsboro, NC 27312, USA
About the event
Join Falani Spivey, owner of Byrd's Nest Box, for a talk that digs into the fiery little malagueta pepper — a small but mighty fruit with deep roots across the African diaspora, from West Africa to Brazil and now North Carolina. As a documentary filmmaker, oral historian, and heritage farmer, Falani grows the malagueta on her heritage farm as a living link to ancestral foodways, tracing how a single pepper can carry migration, memory, and resilience across centuries.
From harvest to hot sauce, she transforms her peppers into a line of products honoring Red Town — an unincorporated historic Black sawmill community in Bunn, NC Part growing guide, part storytelling session, this talk explores what it means to cultivate history — one plant at a time.
About the Speaker: Falani Spivey, Nostalgic Farmer & Filmmaker
Falani Spivey is a nostalgic farmer who has relocated to rural North Carolina to revive her great…