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Many Coloradans have an affinity for green chile. But only a select few have consumed a Sicilian slopper—an open-face Italian sausage sandwich topped with gooey melted cheese, buried under a mound of spicy pork green chile.
Those who have are probably from (or have visited) Pueblo in south-central Colorado, where a unique blending of southern Italian, Mexican, and Southwestern flavors—built upon the foundation of the region’s iconic Pueblo chile—has occurred over time. (Note: There’s also a more well-known, non-Sicilian version of the slopper, which features a hamburger patty smothered in green chile and sprinkled with chopped onion.)
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As unusual as it may seem to outsiders, this Mexican-Italian fusion has become a point of pride to the residents of this multicultural, blue-collar town. “Everything is just made with chile here,” says Lisa Musso Marino, who runs Musso’s Restaurant where the Sicilian slopper is served.
In addition to the restaurant, Marino’s family has owned and operated Musso Farms for five generations. It is just one of many Italian-owned farms in the region that grows and distributes the area’s unique strain of chile pepper called the Mosco—a meatier version of the Mirasol variety that’s been grown in the Pueblo area for more than 100 years. The Mosco was developed by Michael Bartolo, a Pueblo native and former agricultural researcher at Colorado State University’s Arkansas Valley Research Center. While Bartolo’s cultivar was the first to be branded as the Pueblo chile, it and the Mirasol are both referred to as the city’s namesake pepper.
Although not every Italian restaurant in Pueblo features the chiles, nor does every Mexican restaurant use Italian ingredients, the city boasts about a dozen establishments that exemplify what locals fondly refer to as “Pueblo food.” “Is it Italian? Is it Mexican? I don’t know, but it works,” says Cassy Gibbons, manager of the Sunset Inn Bar and Grill, another eatery that serves an Italian sausage slopper. “That’s what makes Pueblo unique and our food so different. You don’t just get Mexican food at Mexican restaurants, or Italian at Italian. We mix it all together.”
The Do Drop Inn’s famous green-chile-laden pizzas are another prime example of the fusion cuisine. Owner Donna MacFarlane-Franz opened the restaurant in 1977 using a pizza dough sweetened with extra sugar that quickly proved to be a local favorite. It wasn’t until years later, though, that she began experimenting with adding fire-roasted green chiles and green chile stew as a topping and as a substitute for traditional pizza sauce, respectively. The balance between the sweet crust and the spicy chiles makes for a unique and flavorful pizza that unintentionally became the restaurant’s calling card.
It would be easy to dismiss this blend of green chile and Italian food as a gimmick—shoehorning the city’s brand into any possible product. But in fact, the integration came about organically through a combination of necessity and accessibility.
In the early 20th century, Pueblo became known as the “Melting Pot of the West” thanks to an influx of foreigners that took jobs at the Colorado Fuel and Iron steel mill. Immigrants from dozens of countries came to Pueblo to work, and the city soon became one of the most ethnically diverse in the state, with more than 40 languages spoken and around 20 foreign-language newspapers published in the city. The mill workers inevitably began sharing each other’s cuisines. Eventually, those cuisines found a common denominator: the green chile.
“You come to another place and you make do with the products that you have available. It changes based on what you can find,” says Vince Gagliano, owner of the historic Gagliano’s Italian Market, a staple of the Pueblo community since 1921. “This area was both Hispanic and Italian a long time ago, the common denominator being that they were all poor. So they made do with what they had.”
What Pueblo had in great quantity was crops of chiles. According to Jerry Carleo, chairman of the Colorado Italian American Foundation, many of the Italian immigrants who relocated to Pueblo were farmers back in their native regions, and so sought out farming opportunities once they arrived here. Among the many crops these farms grew were chile peppers.
At some point—and nobody knows exactly how or when—the Italian farmers not only began incorporating chiles into their traditional foods, but they also learned how to make green chile, the stew, from their Hispanic field hands.
When the steel mill jobs dwindled, many residents turned to opening mom-and-pop restaurants out of economic necessity and brought their family recipes with them, most of which incorporated some type of chile.
In 1994, Pueblo established an annual Chile & Frijoles Festival, held every September in celebration of the green chile harvest. (The festival is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year on September 20–22.) In Pueblo County, the farming of Pueblo green chiles brings in $10 million annually, according to Donielle Kitzman, vice president of the Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce and executive director of the Pueblo Chile Growers Association. The crop also has a broader halo effect on other industries—restaurants, obviously, being one of them.
“The fusion of Hispanic and Italian food has happened over time,” Kitzman says. “That natural relationship of the migrant workers bringing in their food and fusing it with the Italian families that own the farms and grow the chile peppers.”
A government-funded branding and marketing effort behind the green chile industry eventually formed in 2015 under the Pueblo Chile Growers Association. But that came to be only after generations of experimentation in both homes and restaurants, creating Pueblo’s Mexican-Italian cuisine.
“It’s a product we have an intimate relationship with, not only as individuals but as a community,” Bartolo says. “Everybody you meet can tell you a story about how their family uses chile. That’s what’s so special. It’s a thread that binds us all together through generations and time. The chile is a thread in the tapestry of that story.”
Where to Eat Mexican-Italian Food in Pueblo
Gagliano’s Italian Market
This tiny market set in the center of Pueblo’s historic Bessemer neighborhood packs a big culinary punch. It produces 2,000 pounds of Italian sausage each week, 600 pounds of which is combined with roasted green chiles. Owner Vince Gagliano also makes green chile meatballs, and his mother, Josephine, makes sausage-filled bread rolls, while his 85-year-old father Anthony works the register.
Order: The Bada Bing, house-made Italian sausage, ham, salami, mozzarella, and green chiles rolled in dough, baked, and sold in loaves by the pound. 1220 Elm St., Pueblo
Do Drop Inn
Famous for its sweet crust pizza, Do Drop Inn began incorporating green chile into its pies after owner Donna MacFarlane-Franz learned how to make the stew from her Hispanic neighbor. The original location in the heart of Pueblo features a mosaic floor with tiles imported from Mexico, while its second outpost lies in the business district of Pueblo West.
Order: Pueblo’s Favorite, beef, tomatoes, onion, and fire-roasted Pueblo chiles, or Bessemer’s Pizza, sausage, tomatoes, black olives, and onion with green chile as the pizza sauce. 1201 S. Santa Fe Ave., Pueblo
Sunset Inn Bar & Grill
Founded by the late Chuck Chavez and his wife, Gerda, the Sunset Inn is renowned for its sloppers, based on a green chile recipe created by Chuck’s mother Rosemary Chavez. The establishment gained fame 14 years ago after winning a Food Wars segment on the Travel Channel against another slopper hot spot, Gray’s Coors Tavern. Look for Gerda, who still waits tables at the restaurant.
Order: The Italian sausage slopper, a pork sausage patty with house spices and Swiss cheese, served smothered in pork green chile with or without a top bun. 2808 Thatcher Ave., Pueblo
Musso’s Restaurant
Lisa Musso Marino now operates this 13-year-old offshoot of Musso Farms. Many items feature the homemade Sicilian sausage kicked up with green chiles. In addition to a substantial menu, the location also sells a wide variety of green-chile-infused goods, including 18 different types of green chile dried pastas.
Order: The Sicilian slopper, an open-face spicy sausage sandwich smothered in homemade pork green chile and your choice of cheese, and the Fugeddaboudit, a sausage sandwich with roasted chile strips, provolone, American, and Swiss cheeses. (If you’re concerned about your cholesterol… “Fuggedaboudit!”) 35250 E. Highway 50, Pueblo
La Forchetta da Massi
Chef and owner Massimiliano Innocenti and his wife Daimi traveled from Milan, Italy to open this upscale Pueblo establishment in 2016, aiming to bring traditional Italian cuisine to the area. But even they couldn’t escape the draw of the Pueblo green chile. After the restaurant featured a green-chile-infused ravioli dish for a few days in recognition of the Chile & Frijoles Festival, locals kept coming back demanding its return to the menu, where it’s remained ever since.
Order: Ravioli Pueblo, portobello mushroom ravioli with sausage and Pueblo chile in a creamy fontina sauce. 126 S. Union Ave., Pueblo
