The History of Sausage and Peppers

Sausage and peppers has no documented inventor, birthplace or birth year. It comes from Southern Italian home cooking. It became an Italian-American classic once immigrants brought it to cities like New York, and feasts such as San Gennaro made it famous.

If you've heard "New York, 1927," the real date nearby is 1926: the year of the first Feast of San Gennaro in Manhattan's Little Italy. The festival popularized the dish, but sources do not say it started there.

1. Ancient Rome

   Seasoned pork sausages

   Roman writers describe Lucanian sausage (lucanica), named for Lucania in southern Italy. It is an early ancestor of many Italian pork sausages, not of this specific dish.

2. After 1492

   Peppers reach Europe

   Capsicum peppers are native to the Americas. Over the following centuries they became central to cooking in southern Italy.

3. 1800s

   Sausage meets peppers at home

   Pork sausage cooked with peppers and onions is part of Southern Italian home cooking. No record names a first cook or first year.

4. 1880s–1920s

   The great migration

   Millions of Italians, largely from the south, settle in American cities. Neighborhoods such as Mulberry Street in Manhattan fill with families from Naples and the surrounding area.

5. 1904

   Most Precious Blood Church

   The Little Italy church that became the National Shrine of San Gennaro opens; it later receives a relic of the saint.

6. 1926

   The first Feast of San Gennaro

   Neapolitan immigrants hold a one-day block party on Mulberry Street for the patron saint of Naples. It returns every year after.

7. Mid-1900s onward

   Street-fair staple

   As feasts grow, sausage-and-pepper heroes from griddle stands become a signature food of Italian-American festivals, boardwalks and ballparks.

8. Today

   An 11-day, 11-block feast

   San Gennaro now runs for 11 days each September, with several sausage-and-pepper stands along Mulberry Street.

Italy has made fresh pork sausage for a very long time. Roman writers already described a seasoned sausage named after Lucania, a region in the south, and the word survives in names like luganega. Fresh sausage seasoned with salt, pepper and often fennel seed remains everyday food across much of the country.

In southern home kitchens, sausage was often stretched with vegetables — peppers, onions, potatoes, greens — so a little meat could feed a family. That habit of cooking sausage with whatever was in season is the true ancestor of the dish. You can taste the Italian version in our salsiccia e peperoni recipe.

Peppers are not originally Italian. Capsicum peppers are native to the Americas and reached Europe after Columbus's voyages. Over the following centuries they took hold in the warm south of Italy, where sweet peppers and chili peppers alike became kitchen staples.

That means the dish is, at heart, a meeting of an Old World sausage tradition with a New World vegetable — and then it crossed the Atlantic again with Italian immigrants.

From the 1880s, millions of Italians came to the United States, most from the south. In New York, families tended to cluster by home region; Neapolitans settled heavily along Mulberry Street. Neighborhood butchers made the fresh sausage people knew, and cheap, filling dishes like sausage with peppers and onions fit working-class tables.

Over time, Italian-American cooking developed its own identity — bigger portions, more meat, the hero roll. Read more on how the two cuisines differ in Italian-American vs. Italian food.

The Church of the Most Precious Blood opened in Little Italy in 1904 and became the shrine of San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples. In 1926, Neapolitan parishioners held a one-day block party in his honor. It came back year after year and grew into an 11-day, 11-block festival each September.

The religious procession and mass remain the heart of the feast for many families. But for millions of visitors, the smell of sausage, peppers and onions on a griddle is San Gennaro. Find feasts near you on the festivals calendar and learn the saints' days in Italian feast days.

• Cheap at scale. Sausage, peppers and onions feed a crowd for little money.
• Built for a griddle. Everything cooks on one flat-top and holds well for hours.
• Eats while walking. A split hero roll turns a plated dish into handheld food.
• The smell sells it. Caramelizing onions advertise a stand half a block away.

From feasts it spread to boardwalks, ballparks and backyard cookouts. Make the stand-style version with our sausage and peppers sandwich, or start with Larry's signature sausage and peppers.

“It was invented in New York in 1927.”

Unsupported. No source names an inventor or year. The well-documented New York date is 1926, the first Feast of San Gennaro — a festival, not the birth of the dish.

“It's an ancient Roman recipe.”

Partly true at best. Romans made seasoned pork sausage, but bell and sweet peppers did not reach Europe until after 1492.

“Nobody in Italy eats it.”

False. Salsiccia e peperoni is cooked in parts of Italy. The hero-roll sandwich with grilled onions is the distinctly Italian-American form.

“One region owns it.”

Too simple. It is associated with Southern Italian cooking broadly; no single region holds a documented claim.

See where every other Italian dish came from in the history of Italian food. Read the full sausage and peppers guide, cook every version with the recipe guide — variations, methods and equipment, master the techniques, or see the dish on screen in sausage and peppers in pop culture.

Dated facts about the feast come from these sources. Statements about early origins are hedged because no primary record documents a first recipe.

• The Feast of San Gennaro — official history
• Lower East Side History Project — The Importance of NYC's San Gennaro Feast
• Whetstone Magazine — San Gennaro: A Gastronomic Celebration of Immigrant Foods
• MTA Away — Guide to Little Italy's Feast of San Gennaro
• Wikipedia — Feast of San Gennaro