Jimmy Nardello’s parents Giuseppe and Angela Nardiello grew these peppers in the mountainous Basilicata region of Southern Italy, in a village called Ruoti - which is a couple hours through the mountains from my great great grandparents’ village of Salento, in the Campania region. In 1887, the Nardiellos moved to Naugatuck, Connecticut - just 15 minutes from Shelton where my family, the Lauriellos moved shortly after. The Nardiellos became Nardellos, and Vincenzo and Angelina Lauriello became James and Julia Laurella. Jimmy Nardello was born in Connecticut and was the only one of 11 siblings to keep up the gardening. My great greats and greats did grow lots of food in Connecticut, but their children and grand children did not. Jimmy passed this pepper - his favorite of hundreds that he grew in his terraced gardens - on to Seed Savers Exchange before he died in 1983. It is a delicious and prolific sweet frying pepper, and it is perhaps one of the seeds I feel most connected to now since I’ve had to reclaim my Southern Italian food heritage due to my family’s assimilation and disconnection from the land. Thank you to Kurt Michael Frieze’s article “Who is Jimmy Nardello?, The Story of the Jimmy Nardello Pepper” #jimmynardello #jimmynardellopeppers #heirloompeppers #fryingpeppers #dryingpeppers #sweetpeppers #freezingpeppers @seed_savers_exchange
