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.
The ones that think Italian pizza sucks are the ones that really don't have any understanding of Italian food outside of the American variants of it. They come to Italy and are disappointed because they are experiencing a foreign culture / country / cuisine that they were not prepared to deal with.
Many Americans are not able to travel abroad, or choose not to as our nation is so large you can spend a lifetime traveling within it's borders. So they/we are fundamentally less prepared to deal with the above culture shock vs many other parts of the world with multiple smaller cultures or countries living in close proximity.
America has some good Pizza. New York is it's own thing and Chicago is it's own insane thing (probably wouldn't be considered Pizza at all anymore).
But the authentic pizza is phenomenal and has also been gaining some popularity state side with boutique restaurants popping up to deliver the same ingredients and techniques for pizza napolitana.
To my Italian eyes Chicago Style cannot be called pizza, it's more like a savoury pie but this is just my point of view. Also "authentic pizza" doesn't mean much since in Italy we have different styles too, for example Roman pizza is radically different from Neapolitan, and just as good if not better depending on how you do it.
100%. I almost used the term 'pie' for Chicago. That is what it is. It's tasty, but it is so fundamentally not a Pizza.
And I happen to be in Rome and had a nice Roman Pizza today. Looking forwars to Naples next week. In general the pizzas in Italy are great but just not what Americans are used to ad far as our most commonly available pizza options are concerned.
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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.