That New Food...

...Pizza!

An article (pdf) from The Atlantic magazine from 1949 introducing we cautious Americans to the freshness and fun of Italian pizza:
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1949/10/184-4/132357979.pdf

I am amazed at some of the comments. Complaints about package food in 1949? English muffins for making pizza at home! Fun little article.

Nice article indeed. Always interesting to see how much things change. And the same goes for Italy! I assume you've seen this guy doing the media rounds, and his work on the 'myths' of Italian food. Including pizza, as it was quite rare outside of Naples until the post-WWII years.

https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b64c

That was a nice read!

My late mother discovered pizza via the recipes in one of her magazines - The Australian Women's Weekly, Woman's Day, New Idea, and other such cosy journals were her weekly pleasure, brought home from the grocery store with the shopping. Somewhere in the mid-60s, the family was introduced to this new food, whose name she pronounced as "Pitsa Pie". She made it with scone dough (flour, butter, salt, water) and topped it with sliced fresh tomatoes, sliced onion, and a sprinkling of dried herbs. I can only suppose that's in line with the recipe the magazine gave.

Did the scone dough make it hard to pick up slices? Or, did you knife+fork it on a plate?

She rolled it out thinly, to about half an inch thick, and it ended up fairly stiff when cooked, but we did eat it with knife and fork. I don't recommend it, though.

The first pizzas I ever made i made with scone dough!.. I was probably 17, and it was so exotic, and at the time I’d never met a real pizza. There wouldn’t have been any yeast in the family kitchen and I proably used tasty cheese (a cheddar style. I think canned sardines may have been involved.
Things have improved somewhat since then.

I don't know how you improve on canned sardines. They're terrific.

[Jenise]

I remember reading one of Julia's earliest books in which she says something like "there's this new thing called pizza; they say in 20 years everyone in America will be eating it. I'm not sure about that...."

Did a little hunting to see if I could find it. And I couldn't. But I ended up watching some Julia videos! Including one on pizza where she's mentored by Roberto Donna, an Italian chef that I did a course called Italian Vegetables and Grains with at the CIA in Napa. Brought back some memories.