Mariana
If you have a dollar in your pocket and a rumbling tummy, then you’ll probably grab a slice of New York City pizza for lunch. Priced at only 100 pennies per slice, this is a deal that many can’t pass up, yet how in the world did this food become so engraved in American culture? To look at this, we must see where it all began…
The beginning: Pizza in Naples
The story of pizza started in Naples, which from 600 B.C. was a Greek settlement. Although known as a thriving waterfront city, the kingdom was densely packed with throngs of working poor, who typically had only tiny homes to call their own. The workers required inexpensive food that could be consumed quickly, since they were consistently busy. Thus, pizza, flatbreads with various toppings, eaten for any meal and sold by street vendors or informal restaurants, met this need. Some say that pizza may have developed in Naples when bakers needed to use up their excess dough for the day, or when they needed something in the oven to keep it warm. By throwing this extra dough into the oven, and selling it to poorer people, they developed a food that years later is, ironically, extremely popular with a wide variety of people. Evidently, the people in Naples were eating some of the earliest pizzas, and they often garnished them with tomatoes, cheese, oil, anchovies and garlic, just like many do today.
When Italy united in 1861, legend has it that King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples, and, wanting to try something new, asked for an assortment of pizza. The queen’s favorite variety, dubbed pizza Margherita, featured a pie topped with soft white mozzarella cheese, red tomatoes and green basil.
How pizza came to America
Meanwhile, immigrants to the U.S. from Naples began replicating one of their old favorites, pizza, in America. The first documented United States pizzeria was started by a man known as Gennaro Lombardi. Arriving to American at the age of 14, Lombardi was already a baker by trade. Thus, he soon found work in a Brooklyn bakery and at a grocery store on Spring Street in Manhattan. Lombardi thought it would be a great idea for the bakery to make fresh pizzas and then proceed to sell them the next morning at the grocery. It turned out to be a big hit.
Several years later, Lombardi bought the grocery store from the aging owner. Thereafter, he realized that although selling bread and groceries provided business, he truly wanted to generate a customer base by selling pizza. Thus, in 1905 he created a real American pizza business by acquiring the first pizza-selling license for his new shop located at 53 ½ Spring Street. Although he closed down his pizzeria almost thirty years later, his grandsons soon reopened a pizza shop on 32 Spring Street that still exists today. This map shows where Lombardi’s Pizza place is located in New York City. We can also see Grimaldi’s another classic pizza restaurant.
In the top corner of this map, we can also notice Dominos. Spaced a few blocks from each other, chains businesses line the streets of America. From Taco Bell to McDonald’s, it’s hard to think of a food that has not been swept into the arms of America’s fast food culture, pizza is no exception. Interestingly enough, pizza places are one of the only shops that manage to survive, despite the competitive prices of popular chains such as Dominos and Pizza Hut. For instance, take Italian bakeries; many have been shutting down throughout the years, due to lower prices from companies that produce in mass, such as Entenmann’s. Similarly, many Chinese immigrants tend to own laundromats, but they are often outrun by chains as well, which can provide more machines and lower prices once again. Meanwhile, in the pizza business, we don’t witness this repelling, contradicting phenomenon so starkly, but why?
Subway’s “flatizzas” are advertised on it’s window, yet that does not seem to truly affect the pizzeria just two doors down.
An interview with a “mom and pop” pizza shop:
Mariana Gurevich
