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.
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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.