According to one Victorian reporter "The pizza shops are about the filthiest in Naples, and whoever knows Naples will admit that is saying a good deal."
So the 16thC humanist-poet Benedetto di Falco wrote "Focaccia in Neapolitan is called pizza," eh? I assume you're paraphrasing others' paraphrases and fake quotes. If a source is mentioned, they usually refer to Di Falco's 1535 book, " Descrittione dei luoghi antichi di Napoli e del suo amenissimo distretto." I looked through the original Italian/Ligurian/Greek/Latin text in the internet archive, and there's no mention of focaccia or pizza I can find. It's full of other crazy stuff, like beheadings and the career of Hermolaus Barbaro, "a boxer and farmer of pine nuts."
The true source is Di Falco's Rimario, his rhyming dictionary, also published in 1535, in the references for things that rhyme with -accia and -izza. You can find a scanned copy online.
Totally fair comment. I usually go back to primary sources, but in this case, having seen it in a couple of secondary sources I treated it as fact. That was sloppy of me and I will endeavour not to make such a mistake again.
My mother told me the story that my grandfather, fresh from WWI, told his wife he had the most delicious tomato pie in Europe. So, my grandmother did her best to make tomato pie (like apple pie only tomatoes!) he meant of course pizza!
And what about Frank Pepe and the way he brought many Southern Italian workers to New Haven and fed them with the pizza he made in his pizzeria. It was cheap food, he soon bought cheap living spaces for these laborers who worked in the fledgling industrial time of New Haven. His pizzeria was soon followed by Sally’s and Modern. It was an era, a migration, and their pizza is unique and delicious. (See the movie/documentary, “Pizza, A Love Story.” By Gorman Bechard)
Thanks for not adding to the mix the widely debunked legend of the Margherita invented for the Queen... After all, you already proved with the London traveler passage that mozzarella and tomato were going already together way before the pizza supposedly was presented to the queen.
Thank you for this. I love pizza. I can eat it everyday. In fact when I was a young man and didn’t have tons of money it was what I ate for lunch for what it must have been a year at least. I enjoy trying it from places every where but do have a fav. local place. Pepperoni is my topping. I don’t play around with Dominos or any of those other bastardized chains. I can tell when the cheese is cheap. I’ll make my own too but I’d prefer to just get it delivered. I really appreciate this piece or slice should I say!
Well, that's the way that history works -- The Italians couldn't really make pizza until they had invented tomatoes...
Weren’t tomatoes invented in Mexico?
As someone who spent two of his teenage years working in a Pizza Hut and periodically getting his arm burned by the oven, I appreciate this.
So the 16thC humanist-poet Benedetto di Falco wrote "Focaccia in Neapolitan is called pizza," eh? I assume you're paraphrasing others' paraphrases and fake quotes. If a source is mentioned, they usually refer to Di Falco's 1535 book, " Descrittione dei luoghi antichi di Napoli e del suo amenissimo distretto." I looked through the original Italian/Ligurian/Greek/Latin text in the internet archive, and there's no mention of focaccia or pizza I can find. It's full of other crazy stuff, like beheadings and the career of Hermolaus Barbaro, "a boxer and farmer of pine nuts."
The true source is Di Falco's Rimario, his rhyming dictionary, also published in 1535, in the references for things that rhyme with -accia and -izza. You can find a scanned copy online.
Totally fair comment. I usually go back to primary sources, but in this case, having seen it in a couple of secondary sources I treated it as fact. That was sloppy of me and I will endeavour not to make such a mistake again.
Benedetto has it in Italian under -accia “Focaccia in Naples is called pizza” and in Latin under -izza “Pizza is called focaccia by Neapolitans.”
Here’s the source: https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Rimario_Del_Falco/d_zBfbed8VoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=focaccia+di+falco&pg=PP53&printsec=frontcover
Thank you!
I sent you a link to my podcast story on the History of Pizza . . . amazing how many angles there are.
Ah great - thank you! Yes, I could easily have written ten times as much about this, but time and word count constraints prevent me!
Back to the ancient Romans, evidence was recently discovered of what appears to be an early pizza at Pompeii c. AD79 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66031341
That's not a pizza at all. It's a mensa, a typical bread plate that Romans used to lay other foods on top. It's not the same thing.
My mother told me the story that my grandfather, fresh from WWI, told his wife he had the most delicious tomato pie in Europe. So, my grandmother did her best to make tomato pie (like apple pie only tomatoes!) he meant of course pizza!
And what about Frank Pepe and the way he brought many Southern Italian workers to New Haven and fed them with the pizza he made in his pizzeria. It was cheap food, he soon bought cheap living spaces for these laborers who worked in the fledgling industrial time of New Haven. His pizzeria was soon followed by Sally’s and Modern. It was an era, a migration, and their pizza is unique and delicious. (See the movie/documentary, “Pizza, A Love Story.” By Gorman Bechard)
See the movie/documentary, “Pizza, A Love Story.”
Or better yet, head down to Wooster street.
Thanks for not adding to the mix the widely debunked legend of the Margherita invented for the Queen... After all, you already proved with the London traveler passage that mozzarella and tomato were going already together way before the pizza supposedly was presented to the queen.
Thank you for this. I love pizza. I can eat it everyday. In fact when I was a young man and didn’t have tons of money it was what I ate for lunch for what it must have been a year at least. I enjoy trying it from places every where but do have a fav. local place. Pepperoni is my topping. I don’t play around with Dominos or any of those other bastardized chains. I can tell when the cheese is cheap. I’ll make my own too but I’d prefer to just get it delivered. I really appreciate this piece or slice should I say!
Missing all the Chinese side of the story... And many more things. Peccato
pierluigi.zanatta@gmail.com
What's the Chinese side?