I am writing an article (non-scholarly, with no particular idea of where ir if I’ll publish) entitled “A Pizza History of America.” I’d like to get the reminiscences of at least a dozen people regarding the three following questions:
–Where and when do you first remember eating pizza?
–Where and when do you first recall seeing or hearing pizza referred to in a movie, on television or in a song on the radio?
–What experience, if any, have you had working in a pizzeria?
If this is ever published in a magazine, I will credit (by name and city, or by online handle) any participants whose answers I use. And before it becomes an issue, there is little chance of me making any money off of this project and no chance whatsoever of any helpful correspondants of making any money from it; my grateful smile is all I have to offer.
First reference I can recall was the song “That’s Amore” (sung by Dean Martin) back in the early 50’s. I didn’t know “pizza pie” at the time and thought he was saying “piece of pie.”
I had my first pizza to eat in the late 50’s or early 60’s.
A recent History Channel program on “American Eats” said that the earliest pizza places were in New York near the turn of the 20th century. The Atlantic coast cities had them soon afterwards, and Chicago still later. It took the migration of Italians into other cities for the pizza to move inland, but WWII brought the taste for pizza to most of America, by way of soldiers returning from the Italian campaign.
Domino’s and Pizza Hut were among the first national chains.
Maybe more could be found on History Channel’s website. I haven’t looked.
Where and when do you first remember eating pizza: As a kid growing up in Tennessee in the late eighties, we used to eat pizza as our Friday night dinner every week.
Where and when do you first recall seeing or hearing pizza referred to in a movie, on television or in a song on the radio: Um… the heroes of my favorite cartoon as a kid, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, lived on a diet of pizza. that’s as early as i can remember.
What experience, if any, have you had working in a pizzeria: None.
–Where and when do you first remember eating pizza?
When I switched schools in the 7th grade, the new school served cheese pizza once a week for lunch. (Tennessee, fall of 86)
–Where and when do you first recall seeing or hearing pizza referred to in a movie, on television or in a song on the radio?
Probably either ET (which I didn’t see until it came out on video) or Goonies, when Chunk smooshes the pizza agains the glass at the beginning of the movie. I probably saw ET on video before I saw Goonies for the first time, but I have no recollection of what year either one might have been. (Also Tennessee, likely mid to late 80’s for either one).
–What experience, if any, have you had working in a pizzeria?
I remember knowing what it was in the late '50s, but it wasn’t something my parents took to. An early name I associate with it is Chef Boyardee.
The chains (Pizza Hut and Shakey’s are the two most prominent in my memory) swept through Houston in the late '60s, about the time my friends and I became automobile drivers, so that’s when I probably first started eating pizza regularly.
It was big news when Domino’s came to Austin in 1975.
I never had pizza while growing up. The chain restaurants weren’t yet in Alaska, so we didn’t have McDonalds or any of the other toxic food chains either.
The first pizza I ever ate was in Fairbanks, AK, while attending college in about 1966. I met a girl from NYC and she, of course, was very familiar with the dish. We went to a restaurant called “The King’s Cup” in downtown Fairbanks and she insisted on cheese pizza. It was absolutely great, handmade and thick with cheese. I was hooked for life.
I remember eating domino’s, Pizza Hut and Little Ceasar’s pizza a lot when I was growing up in the 80’s. Pizza was mentioned a lot on TV since the owner of Little Caesar’s also owns the Red Wings. My only pizzeria work experiance was the 6 months I worked at Little Caesar’s in high school. I don’t think I’ve ever had another job that included quite that much pot smoking.
I can’t recall the first time I had pizza…surely it was around 3 or 4, if not earlier. My mom and her father make Old Forge (PA) style pizza: thick, solid crust, cheese, sauce, then toppings, always rectangular, and with pizza frita afterward, if you’re lucky. I didn’t have a slice of store-bought pizza until I was about 9 or 10. While I’ve never worked in a pizzaria, I have made LOTS of pizza in my time. They us a similar recipie at the restaurant run by a cousin’s family, Revello’s, supposedly among the more popular pizza places in the Lackawana Valley.
Grew up eating it. NY. My father claims twas invented in Hartford, CT. Might be right. Some of the older joints around here use the variant name apizza, which might be useful in your searches. Further information on request. Oh. And avoid any digressions on Famous Ray’s, Original Ray’s, Famous Original Ray’s, Original Famous Ray’s, because your head WILL explode. First popular use… Before TMNT, there was the concept of “pizza parties”, which were like sleepovers but with pizza.
Something else I remember reading about somewhere (how’s that for a source?) is that pizza originated in Roman times when the soldiers needed something they could cook on their shields in the countryside. Probably apochryphal, but I read that somewhere.
That History Channel show (a two-hour one followed by another 2-hour one called “More American Eats”) was on here recently, within the past month, and also covered the origins of hot dogs, hamburgers, fried chicken, barbecue, breakfast cereal, and even the varieties of chocolate. There’s another set of similar programs on drinks (cola, coffee, beer, etc.) that I saw longer ago – may not have been History Channel.
But if you’re wanting this research to have any clout, I suspect you’d want to have seen these other programs before you publish.
First ate pizza in my mother’s kitchen, but that was in England, so you might want to ignore that for your American pizza history.
I first saw pizza televised in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, of all places.
I’ve worked in three pizza joints- first Slice of New York, which is now Pasquale’s, a small family run place in East Orlando; then, at Papa John’s UCF, the busiest Papa John’s store in the world with over $2 million in sales annually; and finally, at Kelsey’s UC7, another small mom & pop type deal.
About two and a half years of experience, all in.
At all three I delivered, and at Kelsey’s and SONY I also did a lot of line cooking.
First ate pizza in my mother’s kitchen, but that was in England, so you might want to ignore that for your American pizza history.
I first saw pizza televised in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, of all places.
I’ve worked in three pizza joints- first Slice of New York, which is now Pasquale’s, a small family run place in East Orlando; then, at Papa John’s UCF, the busiest Papa John’s store in the world with over $2 million in sales annually; and finally, at Kelsey’s UC7, another small mom & pop type deal.
About two and a half years of experience, all in.
At all three I delivered, and at Kelsey’s and SONY I also did a lot of line cooking.
I’ve never heard of Old Forge-style pizza…except in Old Forge. I was born, and most of my family still live, in the Lackawanna Valley. When I go to visit I try to get down to Old Forge to get a pizza (or three). The place I go is called Ghigerelli’s (or something similar, I can’t spell). Great pizza!! You can get red or white, I prefer white. They make it as sort of a stuffed pizza with no tomato sauce, plenty of cheese, oregeno, onions, garlic, and olive oil. Great! (yes, it’s worth repeating)
My parents have memories they repeat with relish about going there back in the 50’s. It was a bar that became popular for their pizza. Most of the pizza places apparently were bars that made homemade pizza from their own family recipes. Back then, at least at the place I mentioned above (I’m not going to try and spell it again) you could not order a whole pizza and they did not have carry out, you sat at a table and ordered your pizza by the slice.
That saying, I had pizza very young, and I never found anyplace that could really rival the pizza in Old Forge.
One thing that always puzzled me was the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor, where they made it seem that pizza dated back to the Gay 90’s (as in 1890’s) by way of their decor and the font on their signs and such. The tables had the old-timey look and the schooners of beer (including dark beer which was too fine! – bock beer I guess it’s called) were frosty cold and the pizzas were among the best I ever had. The last time I can remember a Shakey’s would have been in the 70’s or 80’s. But, the idea of pizza being that old didn’t square with the fact that I never even heard of pizza until I was nearly grown. That’s why I tend to believe what that History Channel show presented as the origin of American pizza experiences.
Other parlors I can remember:
Sir Pizza
Pasquale’s
Pizza Inn
Papa John’s
Roma’s
Little Caesar’s
Obie’s
and any number of Mom-n-Pop places
Back in the 70’s there was a guy at work who sold the Pepe’s kits, which made as good a homemade pizza as any available at the time. And only a very few of the sto-bought pizzas were worth the trouble, but I favored Totino’s for some reason. Tombstone wasn’t all that bad either.
These days we get delivery and it may have been years since we fixed a sto-bought.
I dropped out of college after a year and started working for Dominos pizza as a driver. I became an assistant manager within 6 months but after seeing alot of corruption around me (at least in the store I worked in) I decided to become a driver again (where I could make 3 times the money) and go back to college. I worked a total of four years at Dominos when they “let me go” . I then worked for Pizza hut for another four years. Yes it took about eight years to finish a four year degree, but I did finance the whole ordeal myself. I was employed extremely part time for about 8 months aftward in the field of my degree but then a friend talked me into buying a pizza shop with him. He assured me that if it wasn’t everything I thought it would be, he would buy me out in two months. Some deals went bad with his personal finances and long story short, I ended up being the sole owner of a whole in the wall pizza shop. I had my full life savings in it and at this point had to sink or swim, and believe me, I felt like I was in the middle of the ocean. I started out doing over 100 hours per week and after some time whittled it down to 85 hours per week. I took no days off except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and I don’t quite remember but I found two other days during the year that I could use as an excuse to stay home. I sort of had to die inside to handle this. It was a big jump going from part time to what felt like a sentencing at a pizza parlor. I had the pizza parlor for four years, and the entire time I had a fear of failure. It turned out to be successful, not filthy rich successful, but I turned out a descent profit every year there. Oh yeah this is in Vegas and oddly enough every New Yorker who visited my pizza place said it tasted most like what they remembered back home. I wasn’t even trying for that. I was just trying to survive.
That was MrNvme, and I met him at his pizza place. My family had pizza every friday night and now my parents own the pizza place. I have to agree that ET was the first reference to pizza in movies that I remember. My kids have pizza sauce running through their veins.
I probably had my first pizza around 1977 at age three. My dad didn’t like chain pizzas, so we were always having pizza at little personnly owned places with names like Dom’s pizza, Frank’s Pizzaria, or Tony’s Italian. Then when I was around 8, Downtowns were pretty much dead, and so were all the places like that, so we started going to Shakey’s(Man I so loved watching them make the pizza through the window, I miss that :(). AFter Shakey’s in town died we just hit Pizza hut or Godfathers as often as we could talk dad into it. My mom also made pizza’s the whole time as well.
And Oh yeah I really miss Village Inn Pizza from my days in college in Ann Arbor, by far the best chain pizza I ever found, and they would deliver to us drunken college students till 4AM.