How the U.S. made pizza popular (in Italy)

Eye opening. Well done.

I'm a lover of Italy but not Italian myself and so have no dog in the fight. But your thesis does pass the sniff test. Italians are a bit "the lady doth protest too much" when it comes to vehemently "defending" their food, its many arbitrary rules that they break themselves ("we can break them, we know what we're doing" like the rest of us have the palettes of junkyard dogs) and how many New World ingredients are now instrumental for various Italian cuisines; chili peppers in Calabria, tomatoes in Campagna (and everywhere else, really), potato gnocchi, and as an Ethiopian is does kinda tickle me when they treat coffee as if it's their own invention.

The notion of food needing to be defended has always struck me as odd. It's food. Protect your old buildings, your old churches, preserve your natural harbours and your green spaces; but if I want some dried paprika on my carbonara pasta today, that's none of your damn business. I haven't heard such talk from any other culture so it's always hit me as very odd. REAL Italians are super respectful though and don't call you or Mary any rude names when you do such things unlike the Italians on TikTok :)

Probably I will go beyond the actual topic. Speaking as a non typical Italian, as my mom comes from the far east of Russian Federation, I feel bored of the iconic Italian chauvinistic attitude toward food, it is something of predictable to the edge of disturbing to me. Just imagine to be annoyed during almost the whole dinner by a tablemate who just kept complaining that the bacon in the carbonara wasn't chopped into the right dimensions. I think the idea of a glorious culinary tradition that allegedly places Italy at the top of the world, somehow triggers the conformist side hiding behind the average Italian (it must be without cream, it must be with guanciale, and so on), and beside this, it is a sort of solace for the loss of the greatness of Roman Empire. Statements like "while we were building the Coliseum, you were barbarians living in swampy forests" are quite typical in low profile confrontations with countries that today are a step ahead. Of course not all Italians bear such provincialistic traits, and let's face it, far from a small minority of Italians know what a decent cuisine is. Maybe I went too far, and some fellow countrymen of mine could get upset, though not as much as when they'll get to know that yes, once in my life I tasted pizza and pineapple without suffering of a heart stroke...

Bro why are you doing that french r when pronouncing italian words. We have the same r as spanish

Thought this might be an interesting, factual look at an idea that I hadn’t been familiar with. It turns out it’s pro-immigration, no-borders polemical nonsense.

That being the caseC I can’t trust a single thing that was said. What a waste of time.

Disliked.
But nice video.

my father is from italy, from torino, and when he was growing up, and right up until when he came to the US in 1970, he said there was no pizza there.

The problem with such videos is that they seem to be based on a single source, which may be biased towards a certain agenda or pattern. This is not scientific. Traditional cuisine is indeed a complex theme. But what people used to eat in those regions before? In many Italian regions, there are tens of local dishes not related to Naples. Are those also fake? And how the poorness of that region is an argument? Does it mean that poor countries cannot have traditional meals? A much deeper approach is needed to answer such complex questions.

I think you're missing the point of what italian feel is italian or what a tradition is. The carbonara story is emblematic: there's a war, no one has anything decent to cook with other than some mediocre american stuff, they try to do something with it and make this predecessor. Once they have more money and means to cook well they say "hey that idea wasn't bad, let's improve it with better italian ingredient" and they went on to use the traditional roman ingredient (you can find guanciale and pecorino also in amatriciana which is a 400 years old middle Italian recipe) to create the best pasta ever. That sounds like the most italian thing ever to me, to make something great out of nothing and keep improving it to perfection. The parmesan isn't like it once was beacause they felt it need improvement as well. I don't think anyone feels the need to improve pizza or carbonara instead nowadays. The italian cuisine is about great feelings and ideas and about great love and respect for food, that's why we don't want to see our dishes spoiled

In 50 years, we will say that sushi is a typical dish of Milanese cuisine

This is a real lesson not just about food making history but nationalism and how fake traditions and fake ideas of cultural superiority can infect the mind of a society and turn it toxic.

Japan has a similar "mystique" of historical fiction when infact ninjas came from an early 19th century book and samurai used bows,and katana were largely just a unremarkable side weapon until modern times glamorized it.

And of course America's pledge of allegiance didn't even exist until like 50 years ago and playing it at sporting events didn't exist until like 2009.

🙏 Such a Brave Man indeed , dare analyzing Proud Italian Cooking , Dishes & Coffee! Love this episode about Italian cuisines very much! Can also smell those freshly baked Italian pizza & freshly brew Italian coffee! 😊🌷🌿🌎💜🕊🇮🇹

People of the world could barely feed themselves before modern industrialization and be lucky to just eat grains. Most food dishes only took root a hundred years ago and improved over the years even in the oldest countries.

Things like tomatoes and corn and peppers were probably introduced to Italy when the Kingdom of Sicily was a Spanish viceroyalty in the south and Spain held territories in the north as well under the HRE during the 1500s-1700s period.

Things like tomatoes, corn (polenta), vanilla, zucchini/squashes, peppers, and certain beans came from what is today Mexico. Cacao too, although its origins are likely in South America. Potatoes also came from South America making them front and center of cuisines from Ireland (Irish potato famine), to Germany to Russia. The name vanilla, is actually of Spanish origin--the name for bean pod in Spanish is "vaina", its diminutive is "vainilla" which is actually the Spanish name for vanilla--the word was then most likely anglicized in the English speaking world. The name for tomato is actually of nahuatl Aztec origin, know by them as "tomatl". The word for chocolate is also of nahuatl Aztec origin, known to them as xocola-tl or chocola-tl.
Fun fact, the native cactus known as nopales in Mexico, now also grow in the wild in Italy.

The Kingdom of Sicily had a commonality with the viceroyalties Spain established in the Americas during the same period--particularly modern day Mexico that was then known as the viceroyalty of New Spain. In fact while New Spain had mostly Spanish viceroys as in Sicily, it occasionally had French and Italian viceroys--namely from Sicily. And sometimes viceroys were transferred across viceroyalties between the Americas and Europe. And when the Spanish king expelled and exiled the Jesuits from Mexico/New Spain, they were resettled in Italy. Understand that many Jesuits, whatever country they were in, like other monastic and convent orders, usually came from the aristocracy. Usually an older daughter or a child that stood to inherit nothing. So these were Jesuits born in Mexico and brought up in the Catholic monastic life there.

je wilde italianen boos maken maar je heb niet eens de pasta gebroken

It's like the taco fever 😅

I leave aside whether Grandi's theses are true or not, what I want to emphasize is this: what is now called true Italian cuisine is a "reformed" Italian cuisine, born between 1850 and 1950, very different from the previous Italian cuisine, just read the ancient cookbooks. My fellow citizens do not know this and fly the flag of a gastronomic orthodoxy that reduces instead the richness within our culture.

The frikandel has the funny property that the input is hardly distinguishable from the output.

There are comments I'm reading here that look as if they did not even listen to the video.

Music is too loud, it's hard to hear your voice

sounds like good marketing to me... they should keep doing it

well, the message behind the video of transformation of food in different country IT's right, but this transformation has not an exclusively newyorkese origene, for example I'm from Napoli and It's normal to eat here pizza with entire tomatoes like the one in a salad instead of tomatoes sauce, but this kind of food is not appealing for tourist so the restaurants in the most tourist street doesn't even propose it.
In my voyages in France, Spain, Germany and Czech republic, I tried different foods and even italian food from a tourist perspective, even the bread in the Pizza had a completely different taste, for example the france bread is without salt, that's impossible in italy where salt is in every type of impasto in high doses, the taste of breade completely change thanks to salt, you can immagine how complicate recipes would change if even the bread is different
It doesn't apply exclusively to italian food, even the MC Menu at MC DONALDS it's different in italy from a France MC or a german MC, only recipes for MC burger are different in every country because people tastes change in very country

Takeout / delivery pizza places were unknown in most of Europe until the 1970's. Kind of reminds me of yoghurt in the US - it was almost completely unknown in most of the country outside of hippy communities and health nuts in the 70's , then big food companies discovered a way to add fruit and sweeteners and, bam, a new aisle in the supermarket.

That's true, only in the seventies the PIZZA conquered the whole country

I think this video touches upon something that many of us are not aware of, and that is how fast food-culture actually changes. Very little of the so called "traditional" dishes of any country are more than a century old. All it takes is the introduction of new ingredients through trade, famines making a once trusted crop lose its favour, war making certain foods scarce, and so on, and it can cause a major shift in the culinary culture of a region.

Where is a direct link to the GIview Database? Please Provide the link to it.

i hope you're not getting stabbed on your next visit.

Il giornalista Paolo Monelli nel suo Il Ghiottone Errante (1935) scrive così: “Ho letto libri sacri e profani, ho cercato in mille volumi certezze e consolazioni, ma nessun libro vale questo volume di lasagne verdi che ci mettono innanzi i salaci osti bolognesi. Fra pagina e pagina e un vischio di formaggio, un occhieggiare di tartufi, un brulicare di rigaglie preziose. Sfogliate, divorate pagine: è un Decamerone, un manuale di filosofia storica, una consonante poesia che ci fa contenti di vivere”. questa è la cucina Italiana, la cucina non è fatta da un ingrediente, ma è fatta dal cuoco che trasforma quell'ingrediente in qualcosa, e nel paese che è patria dell'arte mondiale, della poesia e dei filosofi, nel paese che ha dato, tutto quello di cui vi beate, al mondo, la cucina diventa arte poesia e meraviglia, non scimiottate con dei blog fatti solo per attirare attenzione, quello di cui l'italia e gli italiani vanno fieri, è una grossa offesa. ho scritto apposta tutto in Italiano perchè di sicuro e una lingua poetica senza ombra di dubbio, come l'ho è del resto la nostra cucina

Oh, about Italian language history: I suggest you a book I studied at the University for my Italian Literature exam, Storia della lingua italiana by Bruno Migliorini. No US influence detected.

That food historian ignores the kind of pizza that were used in other regions. As pizza al tegamino was in use in Turin (region Piedmont) and documented around 1930, his American soldiers craving pizza should have visited that city. Or Liguria for pizza all’Andrea, known since the XV century.

Fake pride, insecurity, myths... as long as it stops them putting a pineapple on a pizza, it's fine by me!

Alberto Grandi : Culinary Historian = Myself : Chris Hemsworth

Wisconsin cheese is 🔥

You got it all wrong my friend. We don't say its artisanal or old... we say it's better because it's Italian and there's specific reasons for that if only you did a bit of research on the origins of some staple products... but hey we love your products here too like.... potatoes and synthetic drugs <3 sounds like someone's girlfriend ate too much Italian sausage

The French are NOT the inventors of good food. French cuisine developed from Italian cuisine and was introduced to France by an Italian princess (and her chefs) who married into France. But of course the French have made enormous efforts to develop their own cuisine from it.

Two words: EXTENSIVE IMMIGRATION

I'm Italian, and I agree about all of this stuff, I'm really not bond to these close-minded way of behaving xD

These things are intesting, many times thinkin our own food-culture, like karelian pie, which have rye bread and rice-porridge...like there has ever been and rice fields here in Finland. That was hilarioous about footbala and food, like England: they have had not that good history on that, after 1966 but food...hmm, forget that too ;-) But I have been in Italy Rome and Capri as a child on years 1970, 71, 72, and no, no any pizzas anywhere. Pasta, chicken and soups I recall.

My dad was born in 1946 (he had me at more than 50) and I just found out last year that when he was a child no one knew what a Pizza was in our home town Florence. I was shocked because for me Pizza has always been a given but actually it came only in the late 50ies and I guess for its generation it was like what Kebab or Sushi was for my generation: a popular new dish brought in from the exterior.

When I used to live in Europe once I told an italian girl that italian food is a great example of importation (many ingredients), appropiation (coffee and tomato) and mix or fusion of ingredients. She got mad at that time haha!

Trst je naš!

Taking salvini as the standard italian says a lot about the simplistic approach of this video. Like yes, Pizza is not an italian tradition but a Neapolitan tradition. True. So? For it to be italian does it have to be a standardized thing in the country? And when you say Italy you don't necesseraly always mean the relatively modern country but also the geografical area.

“Italians are insecure” so good and football is the way we take pride in ourselves and roots…yeah sure whatever you say “columnist”

Just another way to convince American customers that all the fake foods they are buying is actually the original one, and they should be happy. "Poor Italians, who enjoy the fake Parmigiano Reggiano instead of the true one, from Wiskonsin (or the like)". You are incredible... A bit like the Soviet Popov who, according to them, invented everything way before others. Next step: Rome was actually founded by Americans and Latin derived from English. Appalling

Italian-american cuisine usually is a fat overloaden unhealthy and too often poorly tasting aberration of Italian cuisine. Visit a good restaurant in Italy and find out the difference.

Indian Butter Chicken was actually invented in the UK