this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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[–] kartonrealista@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Many of these, such as carbonara, pizza, and tiramisu, were actually invented in the US

From the article you cited:

Pizza is a prime example. β€œDiscs of dough topped with ingredients,” as Grandi calls them, were pervasive all over the Mediterranean for centuries: piada, pida, pita, pitta, pizza. But in 1943, when Italian-American soldiers were sent to Sicily and travelled up the Italian peninsula, they wrote home in disbelief: there were no pizzerias. Before the war, Grandi tells me, pizza was only found in a few southern Italian cities, where it was made and eaten in the streets by the lower classes. His research suggests that the first fully fledged restaurant exclusively serving pizza opened not in Italy but in New York in 1911. β€œFor my father in the 1970s, pizza was just as exotic as sushi is for us today,” he adds.

It clearly states something different than your claim. Pizza was not invented in the US, it was popular in the US.

From Wikipedia:

Modern pizza evolved from similar flatbread dishes in Naples, Italy, in the 18th or early 19th century.[31] Before that time, flatbread was often topped with ingredients such as garlic, salt, lard, and cheese. It is uncertain when tomatoes were first added and there are many conflicting claims,[31] though it certainly could not have been before the 16th century and the Columbian Exchange. Until about 1830, pizza was sold from open-air stands and out of pizza bakeries.

Many sources state pizza wasn't popular in Italy as it was in the US, but your statement on it's origin is 100% wrong.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It was popularized and took it's current form in the US. Flatbread with toppings was eaten all across the Mediterranean, so isn't Italian as such.

[–] kartonrealista@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Flatbed with cheese and tomatoes on pizza bread... Yep, that's basically pizza. You can say Italian Americans evolved the dish and created popular varieties, but the basics come from Naples. Flatbed with toppings was eaten even in Achaemenid Persia, so I'm not talking about just that, but about a dish called "pizza" with cheese and tomatoes, and that clearly comes from Italy.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

Have you not read the article? Cheese and all types of fruit/meats were used on the flatbread. Trukish Pide is basically the same thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0%C3%A7li_Pide

The thing with the invention of tradition is that it's orgiginality is only established after the popularity. American GI's find out that pizza is not the thing in Italy it was back in the states: people go looking and find that someone from Napoli wrote something about flatbread with cheese and tomato. Now it is said to be an Italian classic.

Sam thing happened in Scotland with the Kilts and tartan. That wasn't a thing in Scotland untill an English textile salesmen started selling fabrics to scottish nobility in the 19'th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invented_tradition

[–] the_inebriati@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Tl;dr Italy invented the pizza but the US invented the pizzeria.