the kappa kappa gammas on my campus use a red chili pepper as their local symbol. the guy who was the mastermind behind tabasco sauce (mcilhenny) had a daughter who was a kappa at lsu. once she became a new member, the family sent lots of tabasco to the girls and i guess it just took off from there...the kappas now call themselves the "red hot mamas" because of this
edited to add: i learned this during recruitment and thought it was a pretty nice anecdote to share PNMs.