The Italian Wax Pepper — A Brief History
How a pepper was brought by one group of immigrants (and ended up named after another) during California’s Gold Rush
The history of the ‘Italian Wax Pepper’ is not a clear, perfectly understood one. Rather, it is still subject to some debate, and its origins are a bit clouded by the vagaries of Time. However, the most commonly told narrative begins with one of the most important events in its parent state’s history, the California Gold Rush.
The Gold Rush created a frenzy that was not just limited to the United States of America, but it brought many people from many nations to the territory (which quickly, due to the large influx of people and wealth, became a state). Notably for the story of the Italian Wax pepper, a significant population from Chile.
Word of the Gold Rush reached South America, and Chile specifically in 1848 (pretty quickly after gold was discovered). Perhaps most notably in the fall of that year, when the brig J.R.S. made port in Valparaiso, Chile, carrying Californian gold, and the Adelaide and Correro de Talcahuano followed shortly thereafter (carrying even more gold dust). This image of Californian riches captivated many Chileans, and subsequently many Chileans began heading north, becoming one of the first groups of migrants to make it to California (during the Gold Rush anyway).
As best we know, in January of 1848, there were only two known native-born Chileans in California. Within a year, that number was in the thousands, or according to some estimates, the tens of thousands. According to official records, from autumn of 1848 to the spring of 1849, the Chilean government issued around 3,000 passports to emigrants bound for the golden hills of California (note: the journey took around six weeks by sea). Many more Chileans departed the country without bothering with formal documentation, which led the government to give up on the idea of enforcing the passport laws.
Some of the new arrivals were immigrants from Europe who had previously set up shop in Chile, while others were native born Chileans. Some had moved to California to supply miners with tools, clothing, booze, and all the other sundry needs they might have (as they say ‘In a gold rush, sell shovels’). Others came to do the mining and digging themselves, brought like many others by the allure and dream of riches.
The Chilean immigrants worked and eventually settled in and around the foothills surrounding the San Joaquin valley. This was not an immigration and settlement without incident however, rather it was marred by xenophobic feelings and outbreaks of violence, notably including the so called “Chilean War” in Calaveras County. As a short summary of the incident (since it’s not the focus of this post), in December of 1849, American miners in Calaveras County drew up a local mining code that called for all foreign miners to leave the county within 15 days. Of course this was not an idea welcomed by the substantial foreign (particularly Chilean) population in the area. After negotiations and attempts to find legal recourse broke down, the resulting violence led to several deaths, and ended with the expulsion of the Chilean miners from their claims (along with other punishments for many of them including executions, lashings, and mutilations, particularly ear-cropping).
In spite of this, the Chileans still ended up settling in areas like San Jose, San Francisco, Sonora, Sacramento, and Stockton. These Chileans, as immigrants are often wont to do, added to California’s cultural landscape, including introducing new and interesting foods. One of these introductions was a cultivar of capsicum baccatum then often referred to as the Chileno Pepper.
The Chileans were likely quick to adapt to the Sierra Nevada mountains as home not just because of their hunt for gold in the area, but also because of the familiar geographic landscape. Chile is a largely mountainous country, and though not as tall as the Andes, the Sierra Nevada range has similar mountains, foothills, valleys, and a proximity to the sea, and must have felt fairly familiar, or at the very least, not totally alien.
Surely once the Chileans arrived in the mountains to find gold, it must not have taken long for them to find pockets and valleys in the foothills and near their camps where they could plant their peppers to bring back the flavors of home. Once harvested, Chileans tended to eat the peppers in a ‘pebre’ type of salsa (though that is usually made with Aji Cristal), fresh, or quite often, they were dried and then crushed into a powder. It was this need for crushed aji that likely brought the Italians into the story.
During the first century of California’s history (though especially from the 1850s — 1880s) Italians were the largest immigrant group in the State. In the foothill counties where our aforementioned Chilean miners were settling (like Calaveras, or Amador), many of these Italian immigrants came northern Italy, especially Liguria. Early in the history of the California Gold Rush, some of these Ligurian masons made a name for themselves cutting out the mining roads and building the mines, and otherwise working in stone. Importantly for our interests, these Italians did the same thing that the Chileans did, and indeed that almost all migrant communities seem to do, and they started gardening and farming, especially the varieties they brought from home. Likely due to the fact that Liguria is also a fairly mountainous and hilly terrain, they were quite adept at growing in the Californian terrain, and found some success. Since these frontier mining areas were a good distance from previously established settlements and towns, it was harder to come by fresh vegetables and fruits, and so these small farms had plenty of business.
More importantly, the Chilean desire for crushed chilies led them to construct several chili mills. The Chili mills are similar in design and structure to other stone mills, like one might see for flour, with two large, flat, circular stones, one placed on top of the other. The peppers are then inserted between the stones, and as the stones are rotated, they crush the fruits into a powder. This need for worked stones for their mills was likely part of what brought the Ligurian stonemasons and the Chilean miners together, and indeed what likely introduced the ‘Chileno’ pepper to the Italians. This is pure speculation of course, since a particular instance of gifting fresh peppers or seeds from a Chilean to an Italian was not documented, or at least has yet to have been identified.
What we do know however, is that at some point in the later half of the 19th century, Italians started growing this Chilean pepper in their farms and gardens. During this period, the pepper began to spread further throughout the Northern half of the state, becoming more and more ubiquitous among Italian growers. At some point, the pepper began to be more associated with the numerous Italians growing it, rather than the Chileans with whom they had originated. Thus, at some point the name changed to reflect this association, and it began to be called the ‘Italian Wax’ pepper, rather than the ‘Chileno’ or ‘Chilean’. As commercial seed vendors and producers began to rise and develop in the early 20th century, the name ‘Italian Wax Pepper’ was already the standard, though when exactly the shift happened remains to be further investigated.
To be sure, this origin story is still debated, and is not by any stretch a concrete, decided fact. Some claim that the pepper was brought by Italians who had migrated to Chile, and from their to California, and so the pepper was always Italian. Some claim that the fruit came directly from California along with the immigrants from there, though the species it belongs to capsicum baccatum has never been particularly popular in Italy (nor can we find a similar pepper to the ‘Italian Wax’ in Italy today, or among other Italian diasporas in the United States, like Chicago or New York, or Boston), rather Italians tend to prefer capsicum annuum.
What we know for sure though, is regardless of where it came from, or how it got there, the ‘Italian Wax’ grew to become fairly ubiquitous throughout Northern California, especially among the Italian communities, and continues to be grown and enjoyed today, though like many historical cultivars, it has faded and been largely replaced in most people’s diets by more generic, commercially available, grocery store pepper varieties. Hopefully, the ‘Italian Wax’ or ‘Chileno’ can experience a renaissance of sorts, and brought back into the minds and diets of Northern Californians, and people more widely. This way, we can have an interesting link to the past, and more interesting and varied dinner plates to boot.
Want to know more about the Italian Wax Pepper? Check out its page on Foraje, here. If you know something we don’t about it, or think we’re wrong about something, tell us! If you’re growing the Italian Wax Pepper, create an account and add it to your crops, tell us if you’re selling them, or share your pictures!
If you’re just plain interested in agricultural biodiversity, gardening, farming, or just eating food, Foraje is the place to find and share more information about the interesting things living and growing in our world. Especially peppers (for now…).
This story was also posted on Foraje’s Official Blog, and can be found here.
