Pizza (1903)

[Frank Abate]

Barry P said:
>>
PIZZA

   Lombardi's on Spring Street claims that it is the first pizzeria in the
New World.
   A further documentation of NYC pizza is the NEW YORK TRIBUNE, supplement,
6 December 1903, pg. 5, col. 2:

   Several years ago the agent of a breakfast cereal, who conceived the plan
of giving public demonstrations of its efficiency as a food, used to say in
the talks which he gave in connection with them, "Tell me what you eat and I
will tell you what you are."
(...)(Col. 4--ed.)
   "Pepperoni rossi," or red pepper, is in great demand. (...)
   Pie has usually been considered a Yankee dish exclusively, but apparently
the Italian has invented a kind of pie.  The "pomidore pizza," or tomato
pie, is made in this fashion.  Take a lump of dough, and, under a roller,
flatten it out until it is only an inch thick.  On this scatter tomatoes and
season plentifully with powdered red pepper.  Then bake the compound.
"Salami pizza," or bologna pie, is made with this under layer of dough and a
combination of tomatoes, cheese, red peppers and bologna.  To use a slang
expression, this might be said to be a "red hot" combination.
<<

Pepe's of New Haven, Conn., claims to be the first, but I never believed it,
and I think the above dashes their claim.  True or not, it's good
marketing -- people line up outside the place and wait an hour or more to
get a seat.  And it's not even comfortable or fancy.  They make a nice
pizza, but nothing outlandishly special, in my view.

Kinda shows how much there is to do in New Haven, I guess.

Frank Abate