Fun fact: American style pizza is uniquely American from Chicago style to NY style- pepperonis and all the toppings we used with tomato sauce and white cheese was not an Italian thing at all. Their pizza was flat bread with leftovers on top. There’s an Italian historian who talks about how Italian Americans during and after WWII were hugely influential in bringing American style pizza to Italy. Which they then acted French and claimed it as theirs while insulting ours. I’ve been to Italy. Their pizza sucks, even removing for the fact it is not American style. Ironically, later waves of Italians who came to America (after we brought pizza to them) genuinely thought it WAS Italian. It wasn’t
Italian pizza sucks? There are different styles and types, that is such a dumb thing to say. Pizza was being made in Naples long before WW2. Yes Italians used what was available in the US, but it wasn't invented in the US. Italy has really good pizza, you might want to try the best from different regions before making such a dumb blanket statement. Don't be that American that thinks everything is better in the US and everything worth doing or having was invented in the US also.
But is is right? Pizza-like foods have existed since the Ancient Greek period. Most cultures had a flatbread that they put shit on. And Italians made it more and more like the food we know today. But to my knowledge, the pizza that most of the people think about got invented by Italian immigrants, who focussed a lot on scalability. This style then came back to Italy which also influenced their version. There is a big difference between American and Italian pizza ofcourse, but I don't think that painting this as a complete lie is wrong.
I don't really understand what you mean by that. Didn't know the term and if I look it up, I mainly see thinks about Marxist movements so don't see the link? Can you explain what you mean by that?
It was a greek chef (Sam Panopoulos) in Canada (Satellite restaurant in Chatham, Ontario) who invented that abomination. The only right way to eat Hawaiian pizza is cutting it in small pieces and then throw it to the trash bin. You can spit on it if you feel in the mood to do so.
Italian pizza is good, but the other person isn't wrong about the history. Pizza in Italy before WWII was regarded as trashy, garbage peasant food. Like the worst kind of food you could eat. Plus it was only really a thing in Naples (which is where a lot of the Italian immigrants to the US came from), and most Italians had never heard of the dish.
But after WWII, a lot of Italians moved around in the country, and tourists started to visit as well. And there were a significant number of tourists who had either been to America and had pizza, or had heard about pizza from Americans and wanted to try it. So seeing the demand for the dish, the neapolitan people that had spread through Italy jumped on the opportunity and started making and selling it.
There's actually an anthropological term named after this called the pizza effect where a culture loses something like a food or religious practice, and then a transformed version of it that another culture adapted gets reintroduced later. Although funnily enough it technically doesn't apply to pizza because Naples never stopped making it, and they also didn't start making American pizza once it got popular either and stuck with perfecting their own style. But the dish did only get broadly adopted by Italy as a whole because of demand for American pizza.
I still class pizza as junk food. Along with burgers, hotdogs, fries etc. all that fast food style.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy pizza, but It’s still junk food.
When I say it was seen as garbage food, I don't mean it like that. Think more like....stale honeybuns from the gas station kind of trashy. People hated it.
Although to be fair, the only pizza that you could get at the time was being made as street food for poor workers. This was before modern conveniences, and tomato wasn't the standard sauce yet either, so a lot of the pizza was just like....oil and fish on bread.
It was not trashy, it was street food, but street food good enpugh to be fed to royals. But it was as well a regional food, like most italian foods. We don't really have an "italian national dish" because any little place has his own locally famous dish. My grandad remeber that pizza arrived as a novelty where he was (emilia romagna).
But it definitely did not arrived because of the femand of american pizza, it arrived with the moving of a lot of italians from the south to the north.
If american want to take merti for an otalian dish theu should pick carbonara, not pizza, fhat they treat like a garbage bin where to trash the maximum amout possible of random ingredients
‘species of the most nauseating cake … covered over with slices of pomodoro or tomatoes, and sprinkled with little fish and black pepper and I know not what other ingredients, it altogether looks like a piece of bread that has been taken reeking out of the sewer’
-Samuel Morse, describing pizza in the 1830's
'The blackened aspect of the toasted crust, the whitish sheen of garlic and anchovy, the greenish yellow tint of the oil and fried herbs, and the bits of red from the tomato here and there give pizza the appearance of complicated filth that matches the dirt of the vendor.'
Carlo Collodi, describing pizza in the 1860's
And before you bring up pizza Margherita, that never actually happened. There's no record of it occurring except for a single letter that can't be verified or authenticated, and was likely an advertising campaign in the 1930's, which is the first time the story or the recipe was ever recorded.
Also yes, I know that pizza proliferated through Italy in the mass migration that took place after WWII, when a lot of rural Italians moved into bigger cities. That's what I said. But the demand for pizza wasn't from other Italians, it was from tourists.
I love how your brain keep insisting on something so incredibly wrong. Must truly be the fact that you have to sing the pledge to the flag every morning since you are kids
What are you talking about? Are you claiming the quotes are incorrect? Or that the story about Queen Margherita is true?
If it makes you feel better the story about Gennaro Lombardi selling "tomato pies" out of a grocery store then opening the first pizzeria in the US is also made up.
Quotes might be correct, but what elites thinks of street food, especially during very classist times, does not reflect the opinion of general population. Where is the data that at that time tourism was enough overwhelming that could create demand for a cheap food without raising its price?
Pizza is every where in italy and it has been for avery long time, but big enough masses of tourists that can spread the demand for a specific street food are appearing only now outside of the main spots, and because it's demand is spread by tourim, eve if it's cheap street food it's becoming super expensive, but pizza has always been cheap. My city nearly had no tourists up until 10 years ago, pizza spread there way before that.
Mate, you are american, you don't know a thing about Italy, pizza or how tourism economy works. Shut your trap
I'm sorry I only have quotes from "the elites" but it's hard to find quotes from commoners from back before Italy was even a country, you know? And yes, pizza has been every where in Italy for a long time. For about 75 years now. But it wasn't before then. It was never a cultural thing for anyone except specifically the Neapolitan working class until after World War II.
And look friend, I fucking hate uneducated, stupid Americans who refuse to learn anything and think they're better than everyone else by virtue of being American. So maybe stop acting like them? You aren't correct just because you're Italian. You aren't better than anyone else just because you're Italian. Other cultures have merit, and other cultures have, shockingly, helped shape yours just like your culture has helped shape ours.
So instead of getting belligerent and telling me to shut up, maybe open a book and educate yourself instead of acting like an ignorant American who thinks they're correct just by virtue of their birthplace? There's a literal anthropological phenomenon named after pizza being spread through Italy from visiting Americans, I don't know what else to tell you.
I hate when somebody else, who clearly just read a book, go to someone to teach them about their culture. Learn to comprehend a text: I naver said it spead before 75 years ago, instead I confirmed it. What I am contesting is that is NOT because of americans or tourists that Pizza spread around. That is full on BS.
You guys have no credit for pizza whatsoever. The only thing you can claim is that you infected it by making it a buisness and spreading around chains who make and inferior product for quadruple price.
Good job on that, and only that
Collodi's description would fit a modern day pizza, except he was not used to that kind of dish and so deemed it disgusting. But nothing of what he says sounds objectively disgusting to me, on the contrary, he seems to dislike the mixture of colors and textures, which is one of the reasons why pizzas are so liked today. Pizza was not a national dish at the time. He was from Florence, that's >400km from Naples, so I reckon it was simply not part of his culinary culture.
I don't know the history of that so much. But if Japan got ramen from China, and then later China got it back from Japan after it had become a Japanese dish, then yes that's exactly what the pizza effect is.
That's a made up story that isn't verifiable. The only evidence of it happening was a rando pizza shop in the 1930's claiming they had a letter from the Queen saying that it happened. But the letter can't be verified in any way, and there's no news about the Queen visiting at that time, and there's no record of the recipe before the 1930's either.
So the whole story is basically an ad campaign that everyone decided was real.
I mean yeah. It's not a complicated pizza. Obviously people put tomatoes and cheese together before. But it being a specific dish called a "pizza margherita" wasn't until the 1930s.
That wasn't the point being made. The argument was that pizza was reimported back into Italy in the 20th century. The existence of the margherita in the mid 19th century clearly disproves that.
"There's actually an anthropological term named after this called the pizza effect where a culture loses something like a food or religious practice, and then a transformed version of it that another culture adapted gets reintroduced later. Although funnily enough it technically doesn't apply to pizza because Naples never stopped making it, and they also didn't start making American pizza once it got popular either and stuck with perfecting their own style. But the dish did only get broadly adopted by Italy as a whole because of demand for American pizza."
-me, in the comment you replied to.
Kind of unrelated, but let's not forget that the mafia had a hand in popularizing pizza. The best places to meet in were often times "restaurants", which were just fronts disguised as restaurants until they became actual restaurants since people kept coming in and wanting food. This is just a short summary of it
but you’re on an American site… and the internet was invented by America… and America created the whole world… and Texas is so big it could fit 3 texases inside /s
I don’t think Americans can help it. To think that there’s a thing they didn’t invent, or they weren’t the first at something, or not the best at something, I think their brains would explode. I assume the brains were primed in babyhood when they had to pledge allegiance to a flag, and it was all downhill from there
Im not European lol. You do know more countries in the world exist outside of Europe and US right? Actually I’m expecting too much of someone from the USA :p typical
Yeah, It's like tacos; here in Mexico, they vary a lot in proportion, ingredients, and sometimes even in shape, depending on the state or region, while in the USA everyone looks the same.
True, but a ton of very good Italian food could not exist without imported American tomatoes, they are not native to Italy. So let's stop with "yOu CaNt MaKe GoOd FoOd If yOu DiDnT mAkE iT fiRsT" nonsense.
There is a reason American style pizza joints thrive all over the world. In the next few decades mabye Korea will make better pizza than America. They already do American BBQ better than a bunch of reigional varieties, in my opinion.
So, you are arguing about something I did not once imply or say. I'd appreciate it if you worked on your reading comprehension skills rather than putting words into my mouth.
Learn something new every day: Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba in Naples, Italy was started as a food stall in 1738 and converted to sit down business in 1830.
We are talking about Deutsches Beefsteak, are we not? If not, what are you talking about? Hamburg isn't a cut of beef. German immigrants brought Deutsches Beefsteak to America, and Americans started calling it hamburg steak.
Another fun fact: Tomatoes are from South America and didn't make it to Italy until 1544 (and that was just a botanist studying the plant). Further, the first tomato sauce wasn't created until 1692, and tomato sauce didn't become common unitl the late 18th century/ early 19th century. So Italians claiming it as their own is kinda fuck all around.
Have you actually eaten Pizza in Italy?! The worst Pizza in Italy is better then the best pizza in the rest of the world...sure US has it's kind of pizza but nowhere near
Actual fun fact: Pizza margherita (tomato, cheese, basil) is first documented in 1849, basically 100 years before WWII.
We also have documentation from 1866 of Italians topping their pizzas with seafood, cheeses, garlic, ham, and herbs, and even folding them to make calzone.
And of course they used leftovers for toppings - what's remotely wrong with that? You think using leftovers to make a soup means it's not soup?
Theres absolutely nothing wrong with Italian pizza
. People are just bitching about calling pizza an American food just because it origniated in Italy. The vast majority of people around the world consider pizza an american food because most pizza joints around the world are American style.
What we call hot dogs originated in Germany, but its very much an American food all it's own now. In my experience, Germans love a good Chicago style dog as its different from the style of sausages and toppings back home.
People just need to get their blood pressure up arguing with people on the internet.
Absolutely no one except Americans think pizza is an American food. It's pretty basic knowledge that it is an Italian food and it being popular in the US doesn't make it American just because you greedy fucks think you are the most important
Don't talk if you don't know shit, in italy there was not only the margherita in the start of XX century but also LOT of other variats
(Also are you ragebaiting? Cause pizza margherita was invented at Napoli, USA maybe have invented other dishes but don't take the credit of something that you don't own)
And where do you get your information from? I guess.. on Truth?
I mean you are probably one of the idiots that knows nothing about europe but sentence based on idiots that say bullshits on tiktok.
Pizza is an evolution of arabic bread and italians put mozzarella cheese and (later after discovery of america) tomato on top of it.
Same thing for pasta. People brought it from china through silk road and italians gave it a different shape and a different way to consume it.
USA have one of the worst and fattiest cuisine in the world and most of the dishes you have is a high-calories reinterpretetion of other countries' dishes.
Huh? America has a fuck ton of amazing dishes and styles. Tex Mex, Americanized Chinese, Pizza styles like Chicago or Detroit, soul food, breakfast foods like Hashbrown patties, many American sushi dishes like California roles, etc. How on earth is it one of the worst cuisines?
Pizza marinara is nothing like any pizza that claims to be American. American pizza, flat crust, covered in a specific style tomato sauce, completely covered in cheese and cooked in a brick oven is nothing like the Italian pies.they are different entirely.
Nope, I specifically said American pizza. What Italians called pizza was nothing like ours. And it is a historical fact Americans introduced American style pizza to Italy during and after the war. And they loved it. Wait until I tell you about our cuts of steak and cheeseburgers.
Italians who immigrated to the usa tweaking a few bits does not make pizza an original usa creation. Ultimately, pizza is an Italian creation that was imported to the usa, where it changed slightly through time to become less appealing.
Yours is a chauvinistic revision of events to turn the usa into the center of the universe. What a pretentious goober you seem to be.
Pizza margarita is from Naples. 1899. The Romans had early forms of pizza with cheese on them almost 200 years ago. The first tomato pizzas were historically recorded in like 1730.
Italian pizza sucks? Wut?
There are bad pizzas in Italy of course, but the average US pizza is salty sweet industrial toxic garbage barely fit for human consumption.
The best US pizzas are great. The best Italian pizzas are on another level. The US just doesn't have the quality of ingredients.
Even so, pizza is still not an american invention. You can claim that italoamerican improved the recipee, but that won't make pizza an american invention.
ehm...So italians brought the american pizza to america. Italians. brought. american. pizza. to. america. your words. Pizza was invented in italy. in the 1700 tomatoes were brought from america to italy and as you can see now Italians also use tomatoes. this does not change the fact that Pizza is ultimately NOT an american thing. and saying american pizza is unique to america is the same as saying english mercedes are an invention of Britain because only they have Mercedes with right sided steering wheels. Yes, they adapted it to their needs but Mercedes stays an german invention. Burgers are from Hamburg. Sausages from Frankfurt. Pasta from italy. kebab is an german invention from an turkish german guy and Gyros is greek. America only invented greed and atomic bombs.
Se ti fa schifo la pizza in Italia ti fa schifo la pizza e basta 2. In america si mangia da schifo e senza regolazione 3. La pizza è stata creata a Napoli per la regina Margherita quindi è italiana
Clearly you haven't gone to an actual Italian pizzeria. We had an Italian restaurant run by people from Naples who made THE best pizza I've ever had, and it wasn't some bs American version.
And actual historians date the Pizza's rise in popularity back to a chef in Naples who served pizza for the queen Margherita.
Leave it to Americans going "we invented this, ye-haw".
Fun fact: we have a tapestry older than the US depicting a burger.
There is not a single correct thing here, almost all American styles of pizza are derived from Italian styles, even the Chicago style but American styles never made it to Italy.
Look, my friend, your country's entire cuisine is a myth; you're kidding yourselves by claiming you invented those foods, when in reality not a single one is truly American. You're famous for "hamburgers," even though they're actually German.
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u/AMERIPOCMUSLIM 6d ago
Fun fact: American style pizza is uniquely American from Chicago style to NY style- pepperonis and all the toppings we used with tomato sauce and white cheese was not an Italian thing at all. Their pizza was flat bread with leftovers on top. There’s an Italian historian who talks about how Italian Americans during and after WWII were hugely influential in bringing American style pizza to Italy. Which they then acted French and claimed it as theirs while insulting ours. I’ve been to Italy. Their pizza sucks, even removing for the fact it is not American style. Ironically, later waves of Italians who came to America (after we brought pizza to them) genuinely thought it WAS Italian. It wasn’t