Why people love Colorado鈥檚 signature chile pepper, according to the man who developed it

In The NoCo

Why people love Colorado鈥檚 signature chile pepper, according to the man who developed it

By In The NoCo,

Published December 27, 2024 at 5:35 AM MST

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Mike Bartolo, a man in a green shirt and olive green Colorado State University ball cap, stands in a corn field holding two green chile peppers, one in each hand. — "Everybody will have a certain idea what the perfect prototype of a chile pepper is," says retired CSU agriculture specialist Mike Bartolo. "I guess the test is in if people are going to be able to use it and incorporate it into the dishes that they truly love."

These shorter, colder days over the midwinter holiday are the perfect time to break out that bag of roasted Pueblo chile peppers some of us have kept stashed in the freezer since the fall. They're just waiting to be turned into a big batch of spicy green chile.

And for many pepper aficionados, only the Pueblo chile will do.

But the popularity of these Colorado-grown peppers is a relatively recent phenomenon. Farmers in Pueblo and other parts of Colorado have been growing different kinds of peppers for decades, but the state of chile until the early 2000s.

That鈥檚 when , an agriculture professor with Colorado State University, developed the unique of the Pueblo chile. And in a few short years, they鈥檝e become a .

Host Erin O鈥橳oole spoke with the now-retired Bartolo earlier in the year to learn more about why chiles are such a point of pride for some people. It was one of our favorite science-related interviews of 2024, which we鈥檙e revisiting this week.

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In The NoCo

KUNC's In The NoCo is a daily slice of stories, news, people and issues. It's a window to the communities along the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The show brings context and insight to the stories of the day, often elevating unheard voices in the process. And because life in Northern Colorado is a balance of work and play, we celebrate the lighter side of things here, too.

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Erin O'Toole

As the host of KUNC鈥檚 new program and podcast In the NoCo, I work closely with our producers and reporters to bring context and diverse perspectives to the important issues of the day. Northern Colorado is such a diverse and growing region, brimming with history, culture, music, education, civic engagement, and amazing outdoor recreation. I love finding the stories and voices that reflect what makes NoCo such an extraordinary place to live.

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Ariel Lavery

Ariel Lavery grew up in Louisville, Colorado and has returned to the Front Range after spending over 25 years moving around the country. She co-created the podcast Middle of Everywhere for WKMS, Murray State University鈥檚 NPR member station, and won Public Media Journalism awards in every season she produced for Middle of Everywhere. Her most recent series project is "The Burn Scar", published with The Modern West podcast. In it, she chronicles two years of her family鈥檚 financial and emotional struggle following the loss of her childhood home in the Marshall Fire.

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Brad Turner

Brad Turner is an executive producer in KUNC's newsroom. He manages the podcast team that makes In The NoCo, which also airs weekdays in Morning Edition and All Things Considered. His work as a podcaster and journalist has appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition, NPR Music, the PBS 暗黑爆料hour, Colorado Public Radio, MTV Online, the Denver Post, Boulder's Daily Camera, and the Longmont Times-Call.

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