Shish k"ofte turned into pizza

[Dennis R. Preston]

Lynne,

The key words are "as we know it." My grandmother-in-law brought the recipe
for pizza with her from Sicily at the turn of the century (long before Rudy
looked for it). (20th, not 21st). It was, admittedly, more "bread-like" and
had very simple toppings (olive oil, garlic, tomato sauce), but it was
unmistakably pizza. (She never lived in CN.)

Although genrrally a monogenetics person on most linguistic facts, on this
foodways matter my guess is that many local modifications of various
Italian homeland recipies were seen as the "original" once they were passed
around (and modified) in the US.

dInIs

>Rudy Troike wondered:
>>         I wonder, from the testimony of various contributors, how recent
>> gyros may be in Greece itself. I have long wondered whether pizza, like
>> fortune cookies, might be an American invention. On my first visit to
>> southern Italy in 1962, I couldn't find it, and on a later visit to
>> northern Italy in 1973, the only place I found pizza was at a tourist
>> restaurant, where it was cooked with a very thick, hard crust, and had a
>> raw egg added on top after cooking.
>
>When I was a kid, I learned that pizza (as we know it) was invented in
>Connecticut.  I have no idea about any of the details, but that was the
>story that was passed around my schoolyard.
>
>Lynne


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736