This is true, however, the Plant Protection Quarantine division of the
USDA has banned the import of lemon peppers until further notice. This
is due to the fact that they can carry a citrus canker, which currently
destroys citrus crops in California and Florida. This is not the first
ban, but this one is expected to last a long time.

Technically, it is still legal to sell them if it can be proven they
were imported before May 2002, and if they test negative for the canker.
The USDA can seize pretty much whatever they want.



Or is it Sichuan Peppercorns? Oh well....
Frank

Dimitri wrote:

> > wrote in message
> om...
>
>>what's the deal with lemon pepper? is this just a mixture
>>of some lemon stuff and some pepper? or is there a
>>vegetable called a lemon pepper?
>
>
>
> Where have you been hiding?
>
> Lemon Pepper comes from the lemon pepper tree. Although it was originally
> cultivated in Asia Minor, Marco Polo brought back some cuttings from the
> tree to Italy along with the now famous spaghetti plants.
>
> About 100 years later there were fields of semolina spaghetti growing
> throughout the region simultaneously the lemon pepper trees had flourished
> in the moist climate of the boot and the harvests were growing as was the
> popularity of the lemon pepper spice.
>
> The little lemon pepper berries are usually allowed to ripen and dry right
> on the tree in the late summer. The tree beaters come along with very long
> sticks and pieces of cloth which they lay under the branches. They then hit
> the branches with the sticks so the berries fall off onto the cloth.
>
> In the very early years the berries were ground into a fine powder and
> inhaled into the nose much the same as snuff. They even had very ornate
> lemon pepper boxes for the powder. Unfortunately the buzz was so great that
> the powder became addictive.
>
> Legend has it that one day an Italian had too much wine and accidentally
> spilled some of the powder onto a piece of veal, and that was the birth of
> the use of the powder as a food flavoring agent.
>
> Dimitri
>
>