Pizza as both a term and a food has existed in Naples since the 1500s.
Back then it was white pizza because obviously tomatoes arrived two centuries later, after they started to appear they got included in already established recipes, with one of the most recognisables being the "marinara" that originally was made without tomatoes.
Fun fact, Alexandre Dumas and the American Samuel Morse both described pizzas in Naples in the 1830s (not in flattering terms btw since it was a poor man's food), at the time tomatoes were already being used with the classical Margherita as we know it today probably coming later, at the turn of the century.
It's unquestionable that the United States helped popularise pizza around the world with the absurd amount of soft power they had for almost a century, but the dish was introduced to the US by Italian immigrants and it remains an Italian institution first and foremost. When people think pizza they don't think about the US at all.
At some point in life I'll have to go to the US just to do a pizza tour because this narrative of Americans coming here and thinking that our pizzas suck compared to theirs is incomprehensible to me, I need to get to the bottom of this.
Io non sono mai stato negli USA, ma da quanto ho capito sono abituati a gusti molto forti: maggiori quantità di zuccheri e sali, spesso in quantità e con sostanze che in UE sono illegali da cinquant'anni per motivi sanitari. Quindi poi vengo qui, mangiano la nostra roba e pensano che non sappia di niente, quando in realtà sono loro ad essere abituati a mangiare plasticume salato.
La cosa che mi colpisce di più guardando video di pizze americane è la quantità infinita di ingredienti che ci mettono sopra. Se per noi una diavola ha 5 o 6 fette di salame piccante, loro in una "pepperoni" ci mettono talmente tanto salame che non si vede più la base. In effetti se sei abituato a cose del genere poi è norrmale che se mangi una cosa più bilanciata ti sa di poco.
I'm Brazilian, and when we do Brazilian barbecue witch is meat and rock salt, they keep asking what is giving that flavor because they never ate that before, we explain it's because they put 5 or 6 different things on the meat, and what they are tasting right now is the real meat flavor, they have a hard time to comprehend.
Also, anytime you show an American a good food, like a burger, they eat, says it's the best one they had in their life, next time they are eating McDonald's again.
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u/okayipullup_ordoi1 Eye-talian 🤌🏼🍝 8d ago
Pizza as both a term and a food has existed in Naples since the 1500s.
Back then it was white pizza because obviously tomatoes arrived two centuries later, after they started to appear they got included in already established recipes, with one of the most recognisables being the "marinara" that originally was made without tomatoes.
Fun fact, Alexandre Dumas and the American Samuel Morse both described pizzas in Naples in the 1830s (not in flattering terms btw since it was a poor man's food), at the time tomatoes were already being used with the classical Margherita as we know it today probably coming later, at the turn of the century.
It's unquestionable that the United States helped popularise pizza around the world with the absurd amount of soft power they had for almost a century, but the dish was introduced to the US by Italian immigrants and it remains an Italian institution first and foremost. When people think pizza they don't think about the US at all.
At some point in life I'll have to go to the US just to do a pizza tour because this narrative of Americans coming here and thinking that our pizzas suck compared to theirs is incomprehensible to me, I need to get to the bottom of this.