My Uncle (WWII veteran of the Italian Campaign) says no-he was in Messina, Anzio, Naples, Pisa, Rome, and Florence, and says he NEVER saw it prepared or eaten. Granted, Italy wasin the middle of a war, but oddly, this jibes with something I read years ago-this guy claimed that pizza wasinvented by an Italian-American restauraneur in NYC, around 1920!
Does anybody know the truth? Was pizza actually inventedin America?
Next thing ya know, we’ll findout that spaghetti and meatballs isn’titalian!
If you can believe The History Channel, by way of one of their shows on American Eats, pizza originated in the USA in the Italian sections of New York, Boston, and other East Coast cities around the turn of the 20th century. It spread to other major USA cities (like Pittsburgh and Chicago and others in the Mid West) before the WWII returning soldiers from the Italian campaign had the appetite from having eaten it in Italy. That spawned the spread from the East Coast across the country.
Some source I read said that Pizza dates back to the Roman legions and their need for food in the field that could be cooked on their shields. That sounds a bit apochryphal, but I heard/read it nonetheless. Of the Italian locales where it must have been imported to the USA, I think Naples stands out. There again, I have no firm evidence to present, nor cites to link to.
I heard that Marco Polo brought back noodles from China to Italy, so at least the spaghetti part of your fear is based in “fact.”
The first pizzeria in the US:
http://www.italystl.com/ra/960.htm
Of course, great pizza and New York are almost synonymous.
Not that New York invented pizza; that honor belongs to the southern Italian city of Naples. But New York did introduce the now-ubiquitous dish to the United States. And the person making the introduction was a Neapolitan: Gennaro Lombardi, a baker who emigrated from Naples in 1895.
Lombardi started making pizza in a bakery and selling it by the slice in the most famous Little Italy, the one on Manhattan’s Lower East Side along historic Mulberry Street. He used the same dough recipe that his father and grandfather had used in Naples.
Because his pizza slices sold better than his breads and pastries,
Lombardi abandoned the bakery and, in 1905, opened his - and the country’s - first pizzeria.
If by “pizza” you mean the “now ubiquitous” tomato and cheese pie, it was definitely Naples:
http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2002/11/09/f209.raw.html
The Neapolitans say they invented pizza in 1871, when a flat dough covered with cheese - mozzarella di bufala - tomato and basil was served to Princess Margherita, wife of Italy’s King Umberto I. The white cheese, red fruit and green herbs also symbolized the Italian flag.
My great-grandfather (from Italy) refused to eat pizza. He had never seen it in Italy and swore it wasn’t Italian. Nevertheless, I think he was wrong. He was just from the wrong part of Italy.
By the way, the “spaghetti is Chinese” thing is a crock.
Umberto wasn’t King until 1878, so the date is obviously a misprint. It was actually served to the Princess in 1889. There are indeed cites from the period.
But pizza is actually cited in Italy from the 1870’s. It’s probably just not what we would think of as pizza today.
Of course you could always have read the original 2001 article by SDStaffDex at Who invented pizza? and the follow-up thread at Pizza in America
Moderator’s Note: Delivering this one to General Questions.
Really? The Italians invented pasta/noodles/spaghetti before having made any contact whatsoever with China?
Related: there was a few stories in the British papers a few weeks ago suggesting evidence that Lasagne was being prepared in the UK way before in Italy (which would mean we also had pasta too, correct?)
I live in the hometown of pizza. I will bet you one hundred million billion dollars that pizza was born here =)
On a side note, at the recent local pizza contest a japanese dude won, putting the Italians to shame. Kinda funny if you think about it. Japenese…pizza?
They certainly did. China also had the noodle since ancient times, but it was invented in multiple places at multiple times.
I think Cecil did a column on this.
You laugh now, but the Japanese have owned that most quintessentially American of prizes for a few years–the World Hot Dog Eating Championship (takes place at Coney Island). This is obviously part of their inscrutible plan to take over the world’s culinary traditions. We must stop them before burgers and fries are replaced with bluefin tuna sashimi and perfectly-poached octopus in lightly seasoned sushi rice and a side of fine sake with–uh, never mind.
This is curious. The date (1871) comes from the VPN Discipline and Specifications Manual. I’m not sure if this means that the pizza Margherita was created 18 years before the Princess actually tried it, or the Napoletanos are pulling a fast one (I’m Sicilian, so I can’t be objective about it 
). Anyway, here’s a cite from the VPN newsletter:
http://www.verapizzanapoletana.org/vpn/newsletter/2.htm
We are in 1871, when the pizza Margherita is born in honor of the Queen of Italy, fixing indelibly the relationship between Naples and pizza.
Pizza was already a popular dish among the poor, but in 1889 when Princess Margherita of Savoy tried and liked the pizza created for her by Pizzeria Brandi’s Raffaele Esposito, the pizza was elevated to new heights of popularity and prestige.
During a visit to Pompeii (which, as alterego can tell you, is quite close to Naples), I overheard a tour guide say that the ancient Romans had invented pizza. She claimed that the bakery at Pompeii was the site of the first pizza in history.
I suspect that she was referring to the basic combination of a flat bread with a layer of cheese, which I imagine the Romans could very well have cooked (no tomato sauce, of course)–though I’m skeptical about whether or not the Pompeiians invented it.
As has been discussed here and in Dex’s column, the modern pizza was probably developed in Naples. Neapolitan immigrants introduced the pizza to the United States (many Italian-Americans are of southern Italian origin).
Nowadays in Italy, you can get a pizza just about everywhere–even in Milan. However, Italian pizzas are usually a bit different from the American style–not nearly as thick or loaded with toppings. I know some Americans don’t like the comparitively thinner Italian pizzas, but personally I prefer them.
But as I’m treading on IMHO territory, I’ll stop there.
Pizza was definitely invented in what is now Italy but Italy did not exist as a single country then. Pizza evolved in Naples from a sort of pie the Spaniards brought from Aragon (Naples belonged to Aragon for a couple of centuries). The Spaniards brought the pies and the tomatoes and the Napolitans put them together.
Since Qadgop couldn’t be bothered to do the search (no slander on Qadgop–he does plenty enough around here compared to my occasional posting), here are the Master’s words on the subject.