[Sca-cooks] 16th Century Pizza

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Aug 7, 2009, at 2:03 AM, Terry Decker wrote:

> And how did they miss the first U.S. pizzeria at 53 1/2 Spring St.  
> in New York in 1895 (unverified, possibly apochryphal, just like  
> their history of pizza).

And that's thin crust, margherita di Napoli. I had in my memory that  
the date was 1905 (Lombardi's had been a grocery since 1897, but one  
of the clerks started making pizzas eight years later). It's my  
understanding that nobody has placed Chicago pan pizza (as opposed to  
Sicilian pizza, also baked in a pan) prior to Pizzeria Uno in 1943 --  
I think one of the things that got Johnnae looking into this was a  
joke I had made about documenting Chicago deep-dish pan pizza, so at  
least some of the articles I've seen recently on this subject have  
been focused on that, and used similarly sketchy, almost "one day the  
Duke of Napoli was field testing a new cannon design with a ripe  
tomato when laborer Enzo Marghieri had just unwrapped his lunch of a  
cheese focaccio two miles away" kind of back-stories.

Why do I feel almost anaesthetized to what in the SCA would be really  
pretty bad documentation, that of something quite specific justified  
by the barest generalizations?

I just don't comprehend the thinking that says that adding 40  
illegitimate years to the age of a dish makes it somehow improves its  
pedigree...

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter