How pizza became American

[@lainnorcal]

Pizza, my one true love in life. Still to this day (I'm 38 btw) my absolute favorite food. If I go more than a week without it, I'm actually upset. From the cheapest frozen to more expensive mom an pop spot I eat it all. Even bad pizza is still better than no pizza at all.

[@desert_druid_xD]

theres literally a thing called the "pizza effect"

[@moronivasquez3167]

What about Lain?

[@lainnorcal]

@@moronivasquez3167 Favorite anime 🤣👌

[@f3wbs]

Winner mentality.

[@mokocchi_love]

let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza let's all love pizza

[@thegrumps]

The way you’re man handling that pizza slice is inspiring

[@nibblesnbits]

Who knew you guys were fans of JJ? Hey Grumps!

[@pwilll]

He's probably got a nice sprinkling of pizza grease lining his studio now

[@How_To_Drive_a_TARDIS]

It looks like it's cold

[@antlerbraum2881]

Danny I hope you’re reading this, if you are how has your wig been suiting you? I know your friends at The Oathkeepers make fun of you for it but I think it looks beautiful.

[@andrewbenbow9257]

You.... you come on this channel... complimenting a person's ability to handle a pizza... When you won't even finish a Final Fantasy game that is within canon... (Something Godfather, Something Goodfellas)... Oh hi Mark!

[@Will0398]

America has Olive Garden, which is us attempting to mimic Italian food. While Italy has a restaurant chain called Old Wild West, which is their attempt at mimicking American food.

[@kaziu312]

That's fair 😂.

[@bathamsteryt]

Which one is more realistic

[@lemonzef]

@@bathamsteryt From my experience, Old Wild West takes the cake at doing American food very very well, while Olive Garden gets an okay at recreating classic Italian-American food.

[@bathamsteryt]

@lemonzef interesting I have only ever been to two countries My home country 🇺🇸 Other Country when I was really young 🇧🇸

[@bathamsteryt]

@@lemonzef although I do have cousins who have been to Italy

[@zugabdu1]

My favorite thing about JJ's commentary on cultural artifacts is that unlike a lot of people doing the same thing, his approach is heavy on curiosity and low on judgment. He's not going out of his way to find some evidence that the phenomena he's describing are somehow evidence of the decay of society. There's place for critical cultural commentary, but not everything we eat and watch and enjoy needs to be talked about as if it's part of a slow-moving socio-cultural disaster, and it gets exhausting after a while for a KZbin channel to turn everything into a gripe we need to be concerned about.

[@JJMcCullough]

Thanks! I think it comes from the fact that I am just genuinely interested in culture as something that's "made." I think we are always in the process of building culture, so it seems pointless to judge is inherently a process of constant evolution.

[@Littlegoblinfatface]

Why do more people eat burgers tho

[@CaptainKeen]

@@Littlegoblinfatface Get them faster, more easily served in single portions, maybe.

[@frankthetank2550]

@@JJMcCullough Congrats on being a culture builder Mr. JJ

[@craydussy]

​@@Littlegoblinfatface cus they taste amazing

[@newsreelhistory2237]

There's a neat video of Frank Sinatra where he's yelling a story and he mentions pizza, where he takes the time to explain to the audience what pizza is. I think this goes to show how recent pizza as a popular food is.

[@JJMcCullough]

Amazing

[@seanicus100]

Is this on youtube? Please say what video this is.

[@dibsdibs3495]

I would also like to see it

[@joshuasgameplays9850]

Ok but why was he yelling

[@dooplon5083]

​@@joshuasgameplays9850 pizza is just that exciting

[@BOABModels]

In Douglas Adams' 'The Long, Dark Tea time of the Soul' written in 1987, the American main character complains that she cannot get pizza delivered in London. You can definitely get it delivered now but Adams, who was a bit of an Americanophile, definitely saw that as something quintessentially American.

[@cosmiccutie6687]

RIP Adams

[@BOABModels]

​@@cosmiccutie6687 hear, hear!

[@thomasgebert6119]

You mentioned this kind of briefly, but I think it's important to reiterate that pizza was/is *cheap*, and taste ok. Unlike a lot of the "cool" things that a character in a TV show might do (drive a fancy car, wear fancy clothes, do cool martial arts, etc), pizza is something that's in grasp of basically anyone. Across nearly any income level, you can get pizza, or even enough pizzas for a group of people, and since it taste ok those people probably won't really complain.

[@JJMcCullough]

Very true, I would say it's also the cheapest "big meal" you can buy for parties and things, which helped popularize it as something we associate with fun times.

[@Croz89]

In the UK the pizza from US chains like Domino's, Pizza hut and Papa John's tends to be the most expensive. But they tend to be bigger with more toppings, so it is easier to share. More upmarket pizza restaurants tend to be cheaper but smaller, generally designed to be eaten by one or two people. The cheapest are independent takeaway pizzas which are generally little better than what you'd get from the frozen food section in the supermarket.

[@forthrightgambitia1032]

@@JJMcCullough In the tech industry it also became stereotyped as the coder bro food, for people without the time or inclination for something more fancy. Amazon popularised the whole concept of that a team that took more than two pizzas to feed was too large and unwieldy to manage. I think this is one of the reasons why it still remains kind of cool despite the hipster onslaught, it has transitioned well into the "authentic hipster" and "brogrammer" era we live in, whereas a lot of 80s/90s paraphernalia hasn't. But adaptability has always been its hallmark. That said, like with the rise of gourmet burgers making McDonalds/Burger King seem kind of vulgar, chain pizza has now become very declassé as a result of these trends.

[@Trillyana]

Pizza, the true food to unite the proletariat

[@Jeremyeatscows]

@JJMcCullough not just big enough for a party, but super easy to share. Everyone can grab a slice and eat it without any utensils

[@lestrangesisters]

When my grandmother immigrated to Southern Ontario in the 1950s and opened a restaurant, she says there was no local desire for Italian food and selling it would have been a bad business move. So she had to learn how to make corned beef and other standard "canadian" fare until she could slowly work in some more traditionally Italian recipes without scaring off customers. She still loves corned beef now in her 80s 😊

[@tedecker3792]

Hmmmm… Corned Beef Pizza anyone?

[@jessesleight9631]

That's very sad about no desire for italian food.

[@mothbythesea]

​@@jessesleight9631it has changed significantly, don't worry ❤

[@marcello7781]

One thing I really like about J.J.'s channel is reading the comments and seeing different experiences from all over the world regarding some particular modern cultural elements. Also, thanks for mentioning Alberto Grandi. So many of the traditional elements we consider ancient and therefore untouchable are most of the times recent creations that have been changing throughout time. As an Italian guy I never felt too bothered with the variations of pizza around the world. What would bother me is if another country or city tries to appropriate the Neapolitan recipe and claim it for their own.

[@barrankobama4840]

Grandi is a fraudster that propalate mostly fake news to gain attention with the inevitable polemics.

[@sempersuffragium9951]

The thing that JJ describes as "primitive pizza" still exists in Italy, and it's called foccacia (I think that's how you spell it). It's basically just dough, with a single topping, like salt or onion, or olive oil or sometimes cheese. It's actually really good.

[@tomatochemist]

foccacia? I love that stuff, especially spicy with olives!

[@gdemorest7942]

When I was in Italy for a month I'd have focaccia for breakfast and pizza for dinner every single day!

[@sempersuffragium9951]

@@gdemorest7942 That sounds a bit much. When I was in the UK I'd eat pizza for lunch every day for a week, and though it was delicious, it was a bit much even for me

[@kathyw7369]

@@gdemorest7942 I have liked focaccia, but everything I've found lately has had an odd taste and aftertaste. Are these grocery-store bakeries and standalone bakeries putting in rosemary or using slightly rancid olive oil? I wish I knew.

[@gdemorest7942]

@@kathyw7369 Sad to hear. Fresh is important and rosemary is quite a strong herb so should be used sparingly. I don't remember encountering rosemary being used on the Focaccia that I ate in Liguria so could be a different regional variation. Look for the olive of onion ones where you can see them being baked fresh. Good luck!.

[@nicolascampos1442]

I also think part of the contemporary pizza lore and “return to authenticity” is a fascination with regional styles. The “detroit style” was relatively unknown outside of michigan until very recently and is now extremely popular, at least here in the midwest. You even see the big two rolling out their own styles.

[@cherkovision]

Here in Vancouver (and I'm sure most other places), Costco now carries Detroit style frozen pizza, and it's absolutely become my go-to.

[@Christopher_TG]

Good observation. Nowadays it's fairly common to see restaurants offer Detroit-style pizza, New York-style pizza, and Chicago-style pizza. I don't remember this being the case in the 90s and 2000s.

[@curtismsh9211]

I love me some jets pizza.

[@Aracelerii]

I recently found out here in Columbus we have our own pizza style, which has a thin crust and is cut into squares. It wasn't till I saw an article by a local newspaper about it that I found out it was just a Columbus thing

[@b3h8t1n]

😂 that's st Louis style pizza homie y'all got Columbus imo's the square beyond compare

[@shawgeasland2096]

Only 5 minutes in and I am holding my breath as JJ is flipping that cold piece of pizza around waiting for that toppings layer to just fall off in one big sheet.

[@stinkytoy]

Especially with the way he was smacking it as he listed the toppings hahaha

[@wombatpandaa9774]

I'm guessing it was a prop. If not, I want to know what cheese they used because those toppings stuck like they were glued.

[@shawgeasland2096]

@@wombatpandaa9774 pretty sure that was an actual cold piece of take out pizza. I'd say at least a half day old maybe previous night's. At one point in the video I can see the pizza box on the table. Pizza hut or dominos pizza can look like that especially if it's extra cheese.

[@mcat663]

It looked like a cardboard prop. It appeared to me that it was pizza toppings on both sides; not toppings on one side and crust on the other.

[@AndreDutraTV]

The Americanization of “Italian food” is one of those things that people aren’t as surprised by as you’d expect. I think I first learned about it from another one of your videos and whenever I told someone about it they basically said “that makes sense” so maybe it’s just me who was surprised. When I lived in Brazil, Pizza was also very common there and it seemed to be regarded more as an American food than as an Italian food. As you said pizza is up there with hamburgers in terms of iconic American foods and I think that’s reflected in the world today. I hope my own videos can be as insightful as this one! P.S. I love that there are pizza historians out there. Everything he a history behind it and channels like this really show that!

[@Ms666slayer]

Yeah i'mnot realy surprised either, a lot of the Ameericanization of Italin food was made by Italian immigrants at the end of the 19th and beggining of the 20th century for some reasons like how some ingredients that are were used in Italy on that time were rarely available, and also they needed to just make the food more interestung for Americans and Pizza is like teh best example of that.

[@heitorborges8008]

I am Brazilian as well and I disagree completely. We had our own wave of Italian migration to São Paulo, and we got pizza from Italy, not from the United States. We have our own style of pizza, which the Italian-Brazilian community is very proud of. It was a completely separate historical process and no one that I know sees the United States as an influence in this regard at all. American chains like pizza hut and domino's now exist in Brazil, but they are clearly different from the usual kind of pizza you find.

[@AndreDutraTV]

@@heitorborges8008 You’re probably right! I lived in Minas Gerais which probably doesn’t have as much of that as heritage as São Paulo. I also only lived in Brazil when I was younger so my memory might just not be the best. I appreciate the correction, I shouldn’t have spoken so plainly when a country as big as Brazil is much more than my own personal experience.

[@bort6459]

From my experience, the most people who are surprised are Europeans, especially Italians themselves, who want to retcon American influence out of Italian food, decrying Americanization as a bastardization of "traditions" that go back less than 70 years (and were codified in response to the Americana pallet) in some cases.

[@rogink]

@@bort6459 I imagine most Italians don't actually see pizza as 'Italian'. That's because it is a southern Italian dish. I once offered some pizza to my Italian lodger and he refused saying 'it's not my culture'. He was from the North, and his staple diet was spaghetti, cooked with a drop of olive oil and grated Parmesan on top. So he wouldn't eat pizza, and I don't remember him ever eating any other type of pasta!

[@ApeOfTheHour]

It's interesting that you bring up how pizza was really big with teens in the '80's. My mom told me that when she was growing up, my great grandfather never ate and, in fact, hated pizza because he thought is was "kid's food."

[@cs5384]

Yep my grandfather was the same way at that time. My grandmother would get us pizza for our weekend visits but she'd have to make him some traditional TN comfort food because he wouldn't have anything to do with it. I do think though if my gran would have made it and called it a casserole he'd be all over it! ;)

[@howveyouben]

When you talked about Domino's policy, I was ready to compose my comment venting about how it was so effective some people still think it's happening (having worked at Domino's for 2 years) and then not only did you mention it, you actually cited r/Dominos, a place I've literally already vented to about this. 😅 Well done research, JJ!

[@deviaan]

It's interesting how pineapple became the controversial topping. I remember the joke topping being anchovies. I also remember everyone having their preferred toppings, instead of just having one of the standard ones. For example, for me it's pepperoni, sausage, green pepper, onion, and olives.

[@JustMe-dc6ks]

Yes. Growing up in the 70s ordering pizza from Pizza Hut with half one set of toppings and half another.

[@Bobspineable]

When people complain about pineapple, I tell them to look up Swedish banana pizza or the many fruit pizza of Japan, Korea, and China.

[@jimbodice2672]

I think the pineapple thing was just a silly meme/joke and it took off for whatever reason.

[@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr]

@@jimbodice2672 , I hate pepperonis and sausage as much as I hate pineapple on pizzas, and I’d much rather eat a pizza with sardines, anchovies, and mackerel on it than a pepperoni and sausage pizza or a Hawaiian pizza.

[@rosiefay7283]

It's silly, Americans thinking pineapple's a controversial topping when it was Americans who had the idea in the first place. And Americans put pepperoni on pizza too...

[@HeisenbergFam]

JJ is the type of fella to say "he's standing right behind me, isnt he" in a horror scenario, pull out a stretchable baseball bat from pants and dominate the antagonist

[@ffreeze9924]

JJ is the type of fella to make an entire video about this type of joke

[@gilgabro420]

what? That came out of nowhere.

[@RickJaeger]

Is he? I don't think so.

[@ffreeze9924]

@@Visceralx1 sambucha sounds like a ligma setup ima be honest

[@kylezellers1481]

Okay

[@Marian87]

I went to a Lebanese restaurant in my region, in northern Romania and among Lebanese dishes it also served Lebanese style Pizza. I also went to Istanbul last year and most restaurants that were not american style also had various types of Pizza, and of course there are Romanized versions here too. Pizza, an Italian food that was Americanized was then adopted and adapted in every country in the world.

[@Eli-pj8xm]

More accurately, pizza is a Neapolitan food that was Americanized then adopted and adapted in every country in the world, including the rest of Italy.

[@Croz89]

In some parts of Europe a lot of Turkish immigrants set up takeaway pizza restaurants. It wasn't too alien to them to basically make a flatbread and put toppings on it before cooking, so they took to it well.

[@Hammi4Real]

You sure they weren't serving Lahmacun instead of pizza? It's flatbread with mincemeat that has been around in the Middle East and Turkey for a long, long time arguably even before pizza.

[@Marian87]

@@Hammi4Real Yeah, it was written as pizza in the menu. There were many variants.

[@Hammi4Real]

@@Marian87 Ah I see.

[@johnchessant3012]

8:20 Little Nero's in Home Alone (1990) one-upped them with 20 minute delivery Toy Story (1995) is another movie from around that time with pizza, namely an alien-themed arcade called Pizza Planet

[@chonbasket656]

Speaking of how cultures change foods, here in Puerto Rico we have what we call “Puerto Rican Chinese food” that has started to become popular in the US. It would be awesome if you could make a video about Puerto Rico in any way! Love your videos bro

[@alessiovalentini4401]

In Italy, on the other hand, Italian American food has never influenced Italian cuisine, in fact it can only be found in American tourist traps that no Italian frequents

[@MrDEWaters]

My mom knew about pizza in the 1940s only because she rented a room in an Italian-American family's house in San Diego. My dad grew up in Suburban Los Angeles, and he said that before the 50s pizza was only found in Italian restaurants or in Italian neighborhoods. The Pizza scene all exploded in the 1960s. My neighborhood pizza guy was from Brooklyn, NY and he definitely know how to make that style of pie. I live in St. Louis now and the pizza here is completely different (cracker-thin crust, Provel cheese, and cut into squares).

[@PrairieWolff]

"America was discovered by an Italian, and named after another Italian. Therefore, America is an Italian country " Joe Buccaro, a pizza maker in "I love you to death" 😅

[@michaeldenegre3430]

Being from New Haven , CT, Pizza, specifically “traditional brick oven” has become a cornerstone of our cities identity due to the high number of i migrants from the Naples region that came to this area many years ago. We here in the north east often argue with whose got the best between us , NY and NJ. It honestly depends on the exact place. CT has floated the idea of making Pizza our state food. One personal thing I found funny is in my small town outside of the city, a dominos tried to open here years ago and we as a community basically rejected it as “fake pizza” and celebrated it going out of business within months. Seriously JJ if you ever come to New Haven ct for any reason have pizza . As an American with both Italian and Canadian roots, I feel a sense of pride whenever my relatives from Vancouver visit and demand I have a pizza. :)

[@CaptainAlliance]

Bro you from Hamden stop lying 💀

[@CaptainAlliance]

*Bruh you ain't from New Haven there's literally a Dominos on the corner of Ella T Grasso Boulevard and Whalley Ave. Stop lying bro* 💀

[@michaeldenegre3430]

@@CaptainAlliance not from Hamden. Said small town. Happened in Branford.

[@ianmoore3470]

So it’s kinda funny bc I 100% know intuitively that Connecticut pizza is probably the real deal but as a New Jersey resident I still definitely look down on it as fake

[@michaeldenegre3430]

@@ianmoore3470 lol. It’s all good New Jersey has great pies. I actually like the little competition. It forces people to keep stepping up their game but I’ll be honest and I’m sure it’s the same in New Jersey. It’s very regional in Connecticut where really good pizza is. And you have to know which spots to go which is easy to look up. One can’t just go to a random pizza place in ct and expect it to be the best. In general if it’s a in the New Haven area and is called apizza you have a great shot of it being great. Barstool did a thing on it and I even seen some Netflix food specials on those places. Glad the reputation is getting out there. PS I know this might sound weird to somebody from New Jersey but did you know Connecticut percentagewise has more Italian Americans per capita than any other state? It’s an neat stat almost everyone I know is at least part Italian.

[@lukerees281]

I grew up in Zimbabwe, and pizza was always a sort of "special event" or social food. There was only one pizza chain in the country, and it tasted like greasy cardboard (it was also expensive). I guess the cultural push from America gave it a prestige. I've found myself associating pizza with New York rather than Italy. Great video!

[@wombatpandaa9774]

I'm curious, are there any "Zimbabweizations" of pizza? Like pizza mixed with some traditional or well-liked Zimbabwean food. And are there many locally owned pizza shops?

[@hanzquejano7112]

Also came from a place where Pizza is expensive

[@lukerees281]

@@wombatpandaa9774 It's been so long I had to find the menu again - thanks for the nostalgia! I noticed they have sweetcorn amongst other toppings for the vegetarian and they have boerewors mince amongst other toppings for the "meat lovers" pizza. Boerewors (pronounced: actually never mind, its too hard over text) is definitely a very southern african thing. Boerewors are a beefy sausage invented by the Boers. The Boers are Dutch settlers who formed South Africa, Zimbabwe's bigger and more interesting (but otherwise very similar) neighbour country - think Canada and the US. The word "Boer" means "farmer" and "wors" means sausage. Boerewors and other Afrikaaner culture are part of Zimbabwe's because during the Apartheid regime of South Africa, and the Rhodesian government of current day Zimbabwe, the sanctions imposed by the rest of the world means that trade between the two countries attempted to fill a lot of the gaps from trade deficits. The South African government also sent many South African military personnel to fight in Rhodesia's bush war, much of the slang used in Zimbabwe today is from this exchange 40 years ago. Boerewors is traditionally served as a boerewors roll- in a hotdog bun with relish and caramelized onions if one is fancy enough- very delicious, strongly recommended. Sweetcorn is interesting to me because it is a very Americanized product. Zimbabwe's economy is split between mining and agriculture. The primary crop of the latter is maize (more British name for corn) and so, to me, the fact that sweetcorn is used goes to show the permeation of American influence - distorted as it ends up. There were two locally owned places I remember, as far as I know, they both shut down.

[@The_king567]

@@lukerees281I have a question did Zimbabwe have a apartheid like South Africa also ?

[@lukerees281]

@@The_king567 Whilst they did not have as formal of an apartheid system in Rhodesia, the minority ruled white government did enact policies that made them more in line with South Africa. The peak of Rhodesian government was from 1965 to 1980. The contrast and difference in severity is not something I know to comment on but due to the proportion of whites being less in Rhodesia than in South Africa, amongst other factors, leads to South Africa being remembered more. The Rhodesian government did enact acts and laws that restricted blacks and coloureds to other, less desirable plots of land as well as more restricted voting, education and financial access. I still have much to learn about my country, I'm only 21 and the historical coverage can be difficult to sift through biases. The topic is difficult to simplify to a yes/no answer. Hope it helped though.

[@Tokkemon]

Follow up definitely needs a deep analysis of Hawaiian Pizza, and the different styles of pizza, like New York, New Haven, Chicago, Sicilian, Grandma, etc.

[@internetera1523]

the channel Weird History Food has a good video on US styles of pizza

[@slimfix2311]

what is a grandma pizza?

[@matthewneubeck4421]

@@slimfix2311 a thick crust square pizza with a lot of sauce, and a thin dusting of cheese and sometimes herbs

[@corey2232]

The history of pizza reminds me of why America being a "melting pot" as opposed to a "mosaic" (like Canada claims for itself) isn't a bad thing at all. When people of various backgrounds & ethnicities come together & share their own traditions, cultures & foods, you get things like pizza! Certain things will evolve as they're shared between cultures, often creating amazing new things that we all enjoy or benefit from.

[@JJMcCullough]

I think both America and Canada have sort of ceased being a melting pot and that's disappointing. As I said in a previous video, there's often this idea now that "melting pot" means everyone assimilates into a single grey sludge, when in reality it's supposed to mean that everyone adds something distinct to an impressive whole.

[@Default78334]

As much as the "mosaic" has been such a strong part of Canada's national mythology, in practice I'm not sure that it's worked out all that differently with regards to integrating immigrant populations compared to America's supposed "melting pot".

[@kyledodson2992]

@@JJMcCulloughvery well put. ‘Modern’ is rather lifeless

[@marcotalli561]

But still this video is mostly misinformed, using only a single indirect source for his thesis. With a quick google search, you can find a 1866 book "Usi e costumi di Napoli e contorni descritti e dipinti" by Francesco De Bourcard, where it is described the "modern" pizza recipe (with tomatoes+mozzarella+basil) in the "il pizzaiolo" chapter. If it was known in italian literature by the mid 19th century, who knows how much before it could have been developed

[@gregre99]

pizza is not an American dish, try again

[@Travisharger]

Having a bad week and a new JJ video is exactly what I needed.

[@aflanos]

Growing up in Turkey, I can definitely say Ninja Turtles animated series is where I first saw pizza when it was not available except very few restaurants in largest cities. Ninja Turtles paved the way for my generation to adopt pizza as fastfood and kick-started the pizza culture. I remember wondering how it must taste for a long time (for a child at least). Just like any Mediterranean culture, Turkey had its own "pide" (pronounced pih-deh) i.e. flatbread with toppings (I believe pide, pita, pizza etc all come from the same root). I was a bit disillusioned to find out Italian(american) pizza didn't taste magically different from our local pide parlor's traditional cheese and sausage pide apart from the tomato sauce. An interesting analogue of Italian-American looped-feedback impact on Italian cuisine is that of Turkish-German cuisine interaction. Also PS: I was surprised in my trip to Germany that many "Italian" pizza parlors had immigrants from Turkey running the show in the kitchen :D.

[@Steadyaim101]

I moved to Ankara from Canada for a few years and I was actually very surprised at how different traditional Medditerannean foods were from what we ate in Canada under the same name. I found pizza in Turkey actually very different and yeah to be associated as an American thing with pictures of New York all over the restaurant. Here, it would be lots of pictures of Southern Italy, and to think of it as an American food is low-class. I found I actually preferred pide and especially Lahmacun over pizza in Turkey. The biggest culture shock food for me though was donair. In Canada, we eat it wrapped in a flatbread with onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and a sweet garlic sauce. It was a big shock to me that wasn't what a donair is at all!

[@alessiovalentini4401]

Italian American food has never influenced the Italian cuisine

[@aflanos]

@@alessiovalentini4401 yeah sure 😏.

[@andriandrason1318]

@@alessiovalentini4401 Pasta alla carbonara, a dish unrecorded in Italy before World War II, may be due to an American influence in relationship to the allied liberation of Rome in 1944. Many Italians then were happy to use powdered eggs and bacon supplied by the United States and their armed forces for pasta dishes.

[@alessiovalentini4401]

@@andriandrason1318 the carbonara is a dish born in Italy, there are many stories about its origin and one is that it was invented by Roman chefs for American soldiers in Rome. No American Italian food has ever influenced Italian cooking

[@TrainsFerriesFeet]

To tell you how neighborhood driven NYC was, back in the 19th and early 20th Century, my grandmother was born in the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 1892. Her parents were immigrants from England and Germany. In 1980 or so, she was visiting my father and step mother, who made a frozen pizza. I was sitting there eating a slice and my grandmother said she had never had pizza. She was a lifelong New Yorker, but her life experience had been in the UES, Morningside Heights, the Upper West Side and Forest Hills (Queens) and never had pizza. Amazing, but true.

[@griff7533]

I’m an American and 80s and 90s pizza craze you discuss toward the end is accurately how I remember it and a looking back, a completely wild time in our culture. It must be insane for a non-Americans to see this. Yes pizza was everywhere. I and every kid wanted pizza all the time. Every tv show had it. Every birthday had it. It was cool. Pizza, Mortal Kombat, and Pogs with 8 Balls: you were a bad ass.

[@scatman0925]

I love the idea that there are "pizza historians" out there. This world is truly beautiful.

[@Kuricang31]

Not beautiful anymore when you know there's a human out there holding the title of 'porn historian'. Don't know what they contribute to this world or how they did their research but they exists

[@pablocasas5906]

Very interesting video JJ. I'm from Argentina but also technically half Italian from my mother's side from the family. My grandfathers, as well as millions of Italians, came to Argentina in the middle of the 20th Century and italian cuisine has had a great impact in Argentine culture. There're a lot of pizza restaurant in Buenos Aires, so much in fact that both Pizza Hut and Domino's failed to enter into our country. We even had some variations, which I don't know if they're that common in Italy, like the faina (a flat pie made out of chickpeas) and fugazzeta (a similar pie but filled with onions and sometimes ham and boiled eggs) I practically eat pizza once a week, but the premade ones that they sell in the bakery

[@gregre99]

what you call "faina" in italy it's Farinata, very common dish

[@bingbongvo7287]

As someone who's grown up in the UK, pizza can be viewed as both Italian, and American. Most brand pizza shops such as Domino's, is generally viewed as American. However, a lot of small local pizza shops tend be more commonly labelled as "Italian"

[@JustMe-dc6ks]

I’m guessing the actual difference is American fast food pizza versus a more American pizzeria style.

[@bingbongvo7287]

@@JustMe-dc6ks probably. Admittedly, the UK is guilty of labelling blatantly Americanised shops as "Italian" when it comes to branding.

[@michaeltnk1135]

@@bingbongvo7287 The UK and US are very similar in the way they commercialize foreign foods

[@corey2232]

@@michaeltnk1135 Don't worry, it happens more than you think in other countries as well. JJ even did a video on food other countries label "American" but aren't anything like American food in any way whatsoever. Pretty sure it's just a normal thing to promote stuff as more exotic.

[@Croz89]

"Italian style" pizza in the UK tends to mean a thin crust Neapolitan style pizza, whereas a more Americanised pizza will have a thicker, breadier base. Unless it's "New York" style, then it's like Neapolitan but twice the size!

[@andrewchevrier]

I delivered pizza for Mike’s, a Quebec chain in the early 2000s. The 30 minute guaranty was a real stress. I wasn’t going to drive like an idiot to get it there in 30, but sometimes you picked up the pizza, saw the order time (which was 25 minutes ago) and thought « this is going to be a problem ». Usually people didn’t care, but there were a handful of times they did and I had to deal with it. Pizza delivery was a tough gig. You’d drive in an ice storm, almost crash and end up with a damaged bumper or rim from a snow bank or curb, all for a 1$ tip.

[@ztl2505]

JJ holding a pizza slice by the bottom is absolutely cursed

[@AWormsPurpose]

He keeps shaking it around like a doll

[@Quenteeth_Taranteetho]

I'm from Canada, have grown up in America spending time living in Rhode Island, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati. I've visited Mexico, Italy, France, and Egypt. I've been all over the earth. But nothing is better than pizza I cannot explain it.

[@nickc.44]

During childhood in the 80s (and reestablished in 2020), my family enjoyed a weekly tradition of “Pizza and Movie Night.” We got Round Table Pizza and a VHS rental. Originally Wednesday, now Thursday. Still my favorite night of the week. 😎🍕📺

[@GottlikeDamon]

It would be really cool if you would explore how many countries with Italian heritage do their pizza (and other italian dishes). Latin America has huge Italian heritage for example, and some countries have their own unique toppings and styles.

[@StudioNama]

An interesting aspect of pizza culture (I guess?) is how Japan categorizes pizza. They call American pizza ピザ and Italian pizza ピッザ, and advertise them as consumer and classy. I guess we do that over here too, but we also talk about authenticity, which i guess is kinda mute now?

[@chrisgenovese8188]

omg. i love the way J.J. was flopping and whacking the pizza like it was only a representation of pizza, and not an ACTUAL piece of pizza. legend.

[@RealBadGaming52]

The thought of that Pizza going cold during the making of this video hurt 😅, I guess sacrifices had to made LOL

[@morejoacomapo7080]

I wouldn't say pizza is specifically an American (as in US American) phenomena, but rather something that naturally happened with the Italian diaspora living in richer countries. For instance, Argentine pizza is as old as American pizza. There are plenty of pizzerias that track back to the 1920s, and the ingredients are as diverse as they are on American pizza. This isn't that surprising considering that 50% of the Argentine population is of Italian descent, and Argentina was pretty wealthy back then. The same happened to a lesser extent in Australia and Southern Brazil.

[@rezajafari6395]

yeah, São Paulo also has a strong pizza tradition

[@pinkgreenmelon2209]

But how come argentinians mostly speak spanish now? or do they speak italian as well

[@morejoacomapo7080]

@@pinkgreenmelon2209 Argentinians speak a variety of Spanish that sounds a lot like Italian and has a bunch of Italian originated slang. The reason why they still speak Spanish is because in the late 19th century there was an effort by President Roca's government to form an Argentinian national identity, and only Spanish was allowed to be taught at school. Same reason why most Irish people aren't fluent in Gaelic. The difference here being that the Irish made an effort to bring Irish Gaelic back because it was 100% an Irish thing, while the Argentinians feel like a new identity of their own was born from this Spanish/Italian crossover language, and mostly believe that it is more practical to speak Spanish given that most of the region does as well. Nevertheless, it is true that at one point in the early 20th century there were more Italian speakers than Spanish speakers in Argentina. But given the similarities between Italian and Spanish that made it easy to learn for immigrants, and the aforementioned school policy, everyone ended up either learning Spanish or having children that spoke Spanish.

[@pinkgreenmelon2209]

@@morejoacomapo7080 Ohhh I see it now, thank you for answering!!

[@rezajafari6395]

@@pinkgreenmelon2209 most of the people who came there from Italy came from the south, and at the time few people there even knew Italian - they spoke many different regional languages, and Standard Italian was as foreign to them as Spanish was

[@alexandermackin3001]

Would be interesting to see a video about how pizza has been "globalised" and adapted to local tastes. Many fish and chip shops in Scotland are still run by Italian families who migrated to Scotland in a similar way to Italian Americans. There they serve haggis pizza (which is very underrated) and deep fried pizza (which isn't as good). Reindeer pizza is also a thing in Finland after Berlusconi made fun of Finnish food.

[@pablocasas5906]

In Argentina, a country that had a huge Italian immigration, pizzas are sometimes accompanied with a dish called "faina", which I would describe as a flat pie made out of chickpea flour, the taste is kind of bland and salty by itself, but many people here like to place a slice of it on top on another pizza slice

[@Liggliluff]

kebab pizza in Sweden

[@Alex-fv2qs]

​@@pablocasas5906 faina is the descendant of the Genoese farinata, which is pretty much the same dish but served without the pizza

[@pablocasas5906]

@@Alex-fv2qs thanks for the info. Do they serve it in the U.S.?

[@askallois]

@Pablo Casas It's called "Farinata," and it's chickpea flour baked in a baking pan. It is a Genova street food dish. I love it!

[@codybaker1150]

After the last few videos the first thing my wife said after putting this one on was "JJ sounds a lot more like normal. I hope he's through what he's had going on." I hope everything is going great! I worked in pizza once, learning the history is super cool!

[@cratorcic9362]

I initially read that as “I worked in a pizza once”, and I had questions…

[@codybaker1150]

@@cratorcic9362 Hey man, there's all kinds of architecture out there

[@simonstadin]

I'm from Sweden. Pizza came here after World War II with Italian immigrants, though it was only in the late 60's/early 70's that it began to catch on with the masses. I'd say it's close to the Neapolitan style, but with certain adaptations, such as Swedish hard cheese instead of mozzarella. We also have some unique toppings, such as kebab, beef tenderloin, or most infamously banana. You can also get American pizza, which typically has a thicker crust. Pizzerias are these days run by immigrants from Turkey and Arab countries as a family business, as it's relatively easy to start a business in Sweden and it's often their way into society. Pizza is considered an affordable fast food option, and the heavy presence of these pizzerias have meant that Pizza Hut and Domino's have struggled to enter the Swedish market

[@webwebwebby0]

Given in countries like Turkey the food scene skews heavily toward fast, street food style options that are quick to churn out and have better margins, it’s logical that this mindset would carry over in the immigrant communities elsewhere. In all seriousness though, Kebab Pizza NEEDS to become a thing everywhere. But would it really kill them to pre-slice them before handing off to the customer?

[@NotTheNebraskaMan]

I really enjoy when JJ makes videos on the history of specific food items and its cultural significance. I am a big fan of all his content, but hearing him give so many facts about something as trivial as pizza is very playful and fun.

[@alessio279]

Lasagna is actually Italian, not sure why it was listed next to spaghetti and meatballs as an American creation. Lasagna Bolognese is one of the core dishes of the Emilia Romagna region

[@Liggliluff]

Everything is invented in USA, like TV, internet, cars, ice, ...

[@JJMcCullough]

Americans filled it with ground beef and cheese. It wasn't nearly as huge and gooey and thick in its original form, much like the other two dishes.

[@barrankobama4840]

​@@JJMcCullough Lasagna in Italy is not necessarily filled with ground beef, in many region is used ground pork (in some regions no meat at all, just cheese and vegetables). There are written recipes with pork meat since at least 1837, and with beef meat much later in 1913. Cheese was present even before any meat, even in 1634 "Lucerna de corteggiani". In general the use of cheese with pasta is older than tomato sauce. Maybe in America lasagna got thicker, but in Italy doesn't appear to be a standard thickness, and it varies a lot between different recipes.

[@KeyserSoze-vi6xe]

@@Liggliluffcopied in a sheet version, you never invented anything

[@Liggliluff]

@@KeyserSoze-vi6xe "you"? I'm not from USA, I made a joke

[@wholesomebaker5410]

Pizza IS the most international food. No matter where I was threw my life, growing up in Poland, live my teens in England or working in Japan, pizza is everywhere and it's beloved by everyone in the world!

[@nosferatus777]

Still italian!!!

[@arachnid33]

My family is from Uruguay and Argentina. The large waves of Italian immigrants have made a huge influence on the countries’ language and culture. Pizza is a popular dish there, but it is very thick, like Formica bread and very cheesy topped with lots of vegetables underneath the cheese, most frequently corn.

[@larsdoucet]

People have probably already commented this, but the world's #1 consumer of Pizza per capita today now is Norway of all places. There's now this tradition called Lørdagpizza (Saturday pizza) where families sit down for a pizza dinner (typically a frozen pizza they bake in the oven). I'm Norwegian but grew up in America and so I missed out on how quickly this phenomenon took off; I spent a lot of time over there as a kid in the 90's, and visiting today the phenomenon feels much huger now than it did then.

[@GandharKulkarni2000]

JJ McCullough is an important part of my life

[@Mezzer92]

The scene in goofy movie in the hotel with the pizza still defines what I look for in a great pizza. The cheese hanging off is perfect.

[@terribleterrier1685]

My biggest question is how JJ didn't end up with congealed mass of cheese on his face! I nearly had a heart attack every time he started flipping it around 🤣

[@JJMcCullough]

it was very stale. I bought it the night before.

[@kathyw7369]

@@JJMcCullough Please tell us you at least refrigerated it! I remember your last apartment's cupboards filled with books.

[@ananas22anne]

interesting! in germany we are telling the narrative between three pizza forms: 1. *traditional* *high quality* *italien* pizza (thin crispy crust, a few select ingredients like salame, prosciotto, funghi, leopard spot browning), 2. "american pizza" (thick crust, bathing in oil, wild ingredients like sauce hollondaise, bbq-sauce, ground meat, hot dogs) and 3. "selfmade pan sheet style" (medium thickness, tomato sauce, so. much. grated cheese and whatever you find in your pantry). all three delicious.

[@BellalinaBallerina]

Pizza culture is so fascinating! People of Italian descent argue about weather or not various brands of pizza are truly authentic or not… Shamming pineapple And TMNT!! However one aspect of pizza culture that stands out for me is the delivery!! I have many happy memories as a baby sitter hearing the doorbell ring and kids yelling the pizza guy was here!!! My brother delivered pizza as a side gig in the 80s mainly because he enjoyed the happiness of the kids excited to see him!! His day job was fixing computers and people were often grumpy…

[@AirForceChmtrails]

Mom's homemade Sicilian pizza was always the best pizza my family ate. All my grandparents came from Sicily and Southern Italy.

[@OmarChaker]

Man I can never get enough of these types of videos. You’re doing important work JJ.

[@vacatiolibertas]

as a child, a typical Friday night dinner for me might have constituted frozen pizza served with a side of pepperoni rolls. i didn't know it at the time; but pepperoni rolls are apparently not a common American foodstuff, but a cultural artifact deriving from my family's Appalachian ancestry and culture. Pepperoni rolls are a very common dish in West Virginia, having been invented in the early 20th century by that state's Italian immigrant population as an inexpensive snack to accommodate for their already financially limited circumstances. These pepperoni rolls were so thoroughly ingrained into my understanding of the world and American culture that I didn't realize that they are a very niche tradition until I was around 17

[@JohnnyAmerique]

Nobody: Canadian KZbin Guy: “Here’s an exhaustively researched and extremely interesting video about how your favourite Italian food became American. Bon appetito!”

[@moxieman2452]

Great stuff JJ! I’m surprised you didn’t even touch on the phenomenon of the pizza party, or all the “pizza flavor” foods like Totino’s pizza rolls or pizza Combos

[@dooplon5083]

pretty sure he mentioned pizza parties a lot actually lol

[@toothpastehombre]

After Little League games the coach would take the team to either Dairy Queen or Pizza Hut for after game celebrations. Couldn't be more American than that

[@gatblau1]

Argentina, one of the other major “American” destination for Italian immigrants, has a pizza place on every corner (at least in Buenos Aires). The pizzas are a little different than the ones in the U.S., but they are still based on the same idea of sauce, cheese, and other toppings. Half of my family is of Italian descent, and I remember the stories of our ancestors getting on the immigrant ships in both Naples as well as northern ports, and heading for “America”. The other half of my family started a chain of pasta places in various parts of Buenos Aires to cash in on the overwhelming Italian presence there.

[@marcotalli561]

Indeed this video is mostly misinformed, using only a single indirect source for his thesis. With a quick google search, you can find a 1866 book "Usi e costumi di Napoli e contorni descritti e dipinti" by Francesco De Bourcard, where it is described the "modern" pizza recipe (with tomatoes+mozzarella+basil) in the "il pizzaiolo" chapter. If it was known in italian literature by the mid 19th century, who knows how much before it could have been developed

[@gatblau1]

@@marcotalli561 very true. I have met people from New York who erroneously insist that pizza was invented there. It is ridiculous.

[@bumblebeetown]

JJ, love it, love pizza. Do an American regional pizza breakdown video!

[@meckerhesseausfrankfurt4019]

Funny thing: Italian restaurants / Pizzerias have been a mainstay of restaurant culture in Germany since the 1950s. Together with Greek restaurants they first catered to migrant workers, then they became an integral part of the German "dining out" experience. But there has never been the same type of monopolization by large chains (Basically, when you wanted to have PIzza, you went to a local family-run restaurant). Until now. Dominos is spreading like cancer and the Pizza is just so much worse.

[@rivader]

Never in my life would I think of JJ talking about Pizza Tower

[@samuelkatz1124]

As someone from New Haven, Connecticut, pizza runs pretty deep around here. Its rather small compared to the other cities with a unique pizza culture but it really does try to keep things authentic. Very simple pies, thin charred crust, brick ovens, not too heavy on meats or cheeses. Apizza as the italians (and older generations here) called it. Theres 3-4 pizzerias which are in contention by the public for the best one, though id say Sallys, Modern, or Pepes are all an excellent example of this pizza style. For those wondering, the New Haven pizza in 3:30 is a white clam pie. No tomato sauce, just dough, olive oil, garlic, onion, cheese and fresh clams. Pretty good!

[@washuotaku]

In Corporate America, it is not uncommon to have a pizza party at the office, especially when they are doing employee satisfaction reviews.

[@iilikecereal]

I don't know why but this video made my day better, I guess it's just your enthusiasm about the subject. So much doom these days that someone gushing about the history of pizza is inspiring.

[@conallmolloy4238]

0:57 "decades long love affair with the za" You could've phrased this a little differently I promise

[@maxfer1002]

I want to note what, as an American, you misunderstood about Alberto Grandi's quote on pizza. What Alberto Grandi means is not that pizza, as a food, wasn't known or widespread inside our peninsula, he means that pizza wasn't eaten regurarly and pizzerias were, outside of Naples, rare restaurants where one would eat only during special occasions. It wasn't the Statian obession that sprawled the pizzerias all over Italy, but rather the post-war growth of our citiziens' spendable income combined with the Southern-North emigration, and the standardization of pizza making.

[@barrankobama4840]

Grandi really likes to use sentences that are easy to misunderstand, or deliberate exaggerations and provocations, just to trigger polemics. Of course his sentence in this was a joyful exaggeration, as you correctly explained.

[@seanthebeast300]

The way JJ is holding that piece of pizza makes me mad for some reason

[@LibraSnakeLibraSnake1018]

When I learned to ski, before we went all the way up the mountain and learned the hockey stop we were taught to turn the front of our skis inwards to slow down/stop. That formation was called the “pizza,” and in case you think it was just a thing they did to help kids understand, my parents who learned at the same time also were told it was called “pizza” by their instructors. I don’t know if this is used everywhere but that’s the term I learned.

[@emmtea5092]

I live in Buenos Aires (Argentina), which in many ways reflects european immigration patterns of the US, especially NY, inly to a smaller scale. We have all the "americanised" versions of Italian food you mention, and I doubt it came from North American influence. Families have been eating pizza and fancier versions of classic pasta since the migrants got here at the end of the 19th century. I agree that American pizza blew up to am unprecedented degree, but I'd say pizza here was already huge before any influence from the Sates could be meaningful.

[@ShawnRavenfire]

12:44 Wow, about a half a second clip of the commercial for the "Pizza Party" board game, and I immediately remembered the entire song from that commercial! Why was that still in my brain after all these years?!

[@grmancool]

I don't know if I can believe this America-centric story of the pizza. I lived in Italy and pizza seems like an ancient thing that people associate with their identity. in fact many people reject American-style pizza, some will even say that's not really pizza. could any Italian with more history knowledge than me confirm this story that JJ gives?

[@JJMcCullough]

You should read that book I recommended by the Italian guy

[@barrankobama4840]

Pizza (as generally intended) is a food from Naples. Current most popular recipe (in Italy) is documented since 1889. As people from Naples migrated to other countries, new variation evolved and the American variation is the one that become more popular and iconic around the world, that's surely true. But in Italy we mostly stick to pizza Napoletana, which spread to other Italian cities with people from Naples migrating for work to other cities.

[@GarfieldFan-jn9tj]

Quick note on the image at 3:31: I’m from Cincy, and while we do find many local shops selling pizza similar to the type seen in that image, that’s not our style of pizza. That style of pizza is better associated with either Columbus or Dayton, where pizzerias like the chain Donatos or TAT sold pies that had a cracker like crust, cornmeal on the bottom, and an absurd amount of toppings. Though many Cincinnatians eat that type of pizza, the “local” Cincy pizzeria is LaRosa’s, for better and for worst. I suppose Skyline pizza also technically counts as a local pizza style though.

[@imperadoraureo]

here in Brazil whem you search "fruta tipica dos estados unidos "( "united states typical fruit ") the first image that appears its a hamburger. i think its funny.

[@cs5384]

There is an abundance of pre-93 ads showing "thirty minutes or less or it's free" printed slogans. and at east one TV ad featuring the Noid with a "30 minutes guaranteed" and under those words it says "Or 3.00 off" but that's practically hidden by the Noid, so on the other side you see "Replace or Refund". This is from around the time when they were trying to move away from the guarantee. They may have used it for marketing but it was definitely a thing, not a case of the Mandela effect. I worked there in the 80s. The routes were timed at less than 8 minutes TOPS and the bake time was 12 so as long as you didn't have unexpected issues there was a near impossibility that it would take longer than 30 minutes. It did not stop people from making claims but their receipt's time stamp generally proved them wrong. It wasn't long after I quit that they stopped the promotion because people were claiming it could cause accidents. If I remember this part correctly it was because they were trying to pack in too many sales in to one trip so what used to take 16 minutes could double while you waited for your stack. That's when it started getting harder to get them out in time and it was more likely due to the rise of refunds, which we most definitely handed out if they were late, costing the company too much money. I don't recall ever just crediting 3 bucks for a late pizza o r even discussing the notion.

[@raccoonzers3947]

I'm suddenly getting flashbacks to 30 years ago, pestering my mom at the grocery store to buy me this Ninja Turtles-themed boxed dinner- think Turtles-shaped mac and cheese noodles cooked with a sauce powder made to taste like pizza. The flavor could only be described as tasting like pizza from the depths of the uncanny valley, but hell if I didn't eat every last bite. Seriously, this video couldn't be any more spot-on with how cool pizza was to us kids back then. Now I'm hungry *subscribes*

[@zeegeeecs]

Dude. I’ve been watching your videos on repeat for weeks now. Thanks for the new drop! Your content makes my head tingle

[@rangergxi]

Its not just that Italians were poor and left. The Italian govt had a theory that southern Italians were racially inferior and actively pushed for the migration. Ironically, the ancestors of those southern Italians would go on to become much wealthier and culturally significant than the people that pushed them out.

[@barrankobama4840]

Italian Government never had this theory. The theory of the "racial inferiority" of southern Italian was popular in Northern Europe and the US, one of its main proponent was Madison Grant. Italian Government was openly ostile to this theory. There were of course racists in northern Italy (and still there are some) that believed it, but it was never a theory positively view by authorities as was instead the case of the US. Also northern Italian emigrated, but mostly to Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, while in the US were mostly southern Italians.

[@craigm461]

As a New Yorker and a Catholic I grew up eating pizza every Friday. It was such a staple of life that it wasn't until adulthood that I realized that this was the norm for everyone. I just accepted as a fact without a second thought that everyone ate pizza for dinner every Friday. As for TMNT and pizza the show takes place in nyc and there is no food more closely associated with nyc than pizza so it could have been that the writers added pizza as their primary food to greater build the association with the city as at the time of the show the city was a gritty place that would need protector and pizza would link the turtles as less alien members of the populace and more authentic to their surroundings.

[@tvguts]

I never thought about it before now, but the after-school hangout spot for teenage cartoon protagonists seems to almost ubiquitously be a pizza place. Daria, Pepper Ann, The Weekenders are just 3 that come to mind!

[@AndromedaCripps]

There’s another pizza story here about NY-style pizza and how in the second half of the twentieth century it developed to be thinner, drier, and therefore able to be sold by-the-slice on the streets of NYC. This is due to the advent of newer ovens, and it represents a whole other significant side of pizza. I really see pizza-by-the-slice as having its own connotations in the cultural zeitgeist as a street food, a businessperson lunch, almost a snack food, and it’s worth mentioning in the Pizza Story imo. Learned about that revolution in a video here on KZbin from a creator who is “eating the alphabet in NYC”, doing historical journalism on different iconic NYC foods, of which there are kinda a lot of you think about. Pizza, bagels, those Greek coffee cups; we associate lot of foods with that city

[@marcotalli561]

With a quick google search, I found a 1866 book "Usi e costumi di Napoli e contorni descritti e dipinti" by Francesco De Bourcar, where inside the chapter "il pizzaiolo" he describes: "[riguardo la pizza] Altre sono coperte di formaggio grattugiato e condite collo strutto, e allora vi si pone disopra qualche foglia di basilico. Alle prime spesso si aggiunge del pesce minuto; alle seconde delle sottili fette di muzzarella. Talora si fa uso di prosciutto affettato, di pomidoro, di arselle ecc. Talora ripiegando la pasta su di sé stessa se ne forma quel che chiamasi calzone." "[about pizza] others are made with grated cheese and lard, or by topping it with BASIL leaves. You add fish to the first ones, you add thin sliced MOZZARELLA to the second ones. Sometimes sliced ham, or TOMATOES, or mussels. Sometimes you bend the dough around itself, that is called calzone" So I hardly doubt that the "modern" pizza was an american invention, since the recipe was already known in italian literature way before.

[@operleutnant7235]

I would hardly say that this is modern pizza, as it implies that the tomato is optional that could be changed for something like mussels as opposed to an integral component.

[@tomney4460]

@@operleutnant7235not to mention that it’s almost certainly the American version that gave pizza most of its modern appeal.

[@Jay-pq7nf]

That story have been proven to be a myth

[@marcotalli561]

@@Jay-pq7nfWhat story?

[@Jay-pq7nf]

@@marcotalli561 I think your refering to a story from the 1880s about pizza but the story is been debunked

[@TheAntesse]

Don't forget about the Pizza Party as the iconic misguided corporate morale booster. Can the employees get a raise? No! But they can have a couple of cold pizzas in the breakroom.

[@ave_leo7913]

As an Italian man I am ready to get offended, will update if I got offended or not Update: i did not get offended but saying pizza is american is a bit of a Stretch, like when he said that kpop is american culture

[@DistortedEmerald]

I did get offended a bit lmao. Considering that JJ talks on how the sauce was added in America when here in South Italy tomato sauce has been used for centuries on bread-type foods. Sono di Sicilia ma se fosse di Napoli sarei incazzato hahaha.

[@ave_leo7913]

@@DistortedEmerald io sono del nord lol quindi non è che mi frega più di tanto

[@vinicius5095]

I don't see Pizza as American at all as well.

[@thesinfultictac5704]

This is the 4th or 5th in-depth exploration into Pizza I've seen on KZbin. This ranks slightly higher than the Weird Food history one. Because I like JJ

[@simonpusateri3527]

I think it’s curious the way Doner has followed a similar trajectory in parts of Europe, specifically Germany. Definitely not a 1 to 1 parallel, but I feel like there’s a lot of similarities

[@Elderberry4199]

11:00 My parents banned my older brother from saying "Kowabunga"

[@jeromemckenna7102]

When I was in my early 20's, almost 50 years ago, my Italian born neighbor said that nobody in Italy ate pizza's. Which was probably true when he lived in Italy.

[@jhbadger]

Also where in Italy he lived. Like J.J. says, it was historically a Naples thing. You wouldn't find it in Rome, or Milan, or Venice or wherever. It spread to Italy as a whole in part because American tourists went to those other cities and asked "where's the pizza"?

[@vonPeterhof]

@@jhbadger Reminds me of how the city of Venice supposedly went as far as to pass regulations to prohibit the gondoliers from singing non-Venetian songs because tourists kept requesting Neapolitan ones like O Sole Mio or Funiculì, Funiculà.

[@polipod2074]

Yeah, pizzerias started to open throughout the rest of non-Neapolitan Italy only after WW2

[@alessiovalentini4401]

​@@jhbadgerThis is absolutely a lie hahaha. Americans have never influenced pizza in Italy. Southern Italian immigrants who emigrated to the USA did so exactly like in the rest of Italy, so pizza spread throughout Italy without any influence from America

[@barrankobama4840]

@@jhbadger in Rome the first pizzeria, Ricci, opened in 1888, in Milan the older still in operation, A Santa Lucia, in 1929, in Venice Conca d'Oro in 1947. Pizza was made popular in other cities initially by migrants from Naples, as it happened abroad, including US, and later on by internal tourism.

[@warpdrivefueledbyinsomnia8165]

One thing that helped me cope with being stationed in Korea when I felt homesick was pizza. KFC and BK were also big in Korea, but those foods really only existed in those chains. But, pizza spread out on the local level (at least around Yongsan, the base I was stationed at), and was being made at Mom and Pop places with a Korean spin on it. I loved it. It both helped me feel at home and accepted locally.

[@TheJalipa]

My mother went Italy in the early 1950s as a teenager. Near US bases she saw local bars selling Pizzas with signs “Just like America”

[@schtreg9140]

Today in "stories that never happened"

[@WannzKaswan]

​@@schtreg9140Yes, because nothing ever happens

[@schtreg9140]

@@WannzKaswan Italians would lynch you for pretending your pizza is better than theirs. I live in a country next to Italy, so I would know. The story just screams completely made up to me and is something an American would say to flatter themselves. It doesn't even have to do with who has the better pizza. It's just that Italians would never market pizza as something from abroad. That's ridiculous.

[@scarramakesmemoist739]

​@@schtreg9140dude Italy's entire food culture is a lie you are a product of propaganda. I absolutely believe that story since Italy was poor as fuck compared to America. There's an old story of American soldiers visiting Italy shortly after WW2 and one of the things they found odd was that there wasn't pizzerias everywhere like they were used to in America.

[@ryry_2720]

As a first gen Syrian American, pizza brought a sort of comfort to my family (more so my parents) in knowing that while we refused to assimilate, we could still enjoy the blending of culture

[@kalekr69]

Italians be screaming in the background: NOOOOO!! WE LOST ONE OF OUR MAJOR POWERS!!

[@alessiovalentini4401]

In reality, pizza is only Italian, then every country has its own versions and the USA is one of them. Pizza in Italy has never been influenced by Americans contrary to what he says in the video. It is true that it was a common thing only in Naples and in the rest of southern Italy but the southern Italian immigrants have emigrated to the USA exactly as in the rest of Italy and have opened and spread pizzerias that have evolved and today every city has its own style with dozens and dozens of varieties. American pizzas are poorly made copies of the various styles of pizza from different regions of southern Italy that Italian immigrants and American soldiers brought to the USA. American Italian food and its values ​​have never influenced Italian food and in Italy, only in the tourist traps. It is no coincidence that when Americans have tried to truly bring their style to Italy they have always failed

[@swegatron2859]

I love to tell Italians that pizza is as Italian as the light bulb is American. They get genuinely upset. Mad banter

[@brunogripp]

I was hoping you cited Alberto Grandi, his books and his podcast (in Italian) are really great. I'm an Italian-brazilian myself, and I can vouch this idea of Italian cuisine was imported from America. There are here, specially in southern Brazil, traditional dishes from Italy, but they'd not the common spaghetti and pizza, but rather dishes less known, like cappelletti in brodo, polenta,.etc.

[@JJMcCullough]

I hope someone translates his book

[@barrankobama4840]

Grandi e` un bufalaro, quasi tutte le cose che dice sono invenzioni o esagerazioni per massimizzare le polemiche e quindi la visibilita`.

[@scottalexander4145]

Did you guys get a Weekly Reader newspaper for kids at school in Canada?I have fond memories of getting these as a kid in the 80s,especially the one about The Challenger explosion.

[@alcyonae]

Tomatoes and peppers came to Italy and pizza centuries ago, with the discovery of the New World. Spaghetti and meatballs was invented in Italy, it just wasn’t very popular. Pasta Grammar researched this better

[@patrickshepherd1341]

JJ. I love you bro. Your videos are some of my favorites. I'm telling you this as a friend. You end 90% of your sentences with an up inflection like you're asking a question. It drives me crazy 😂

[@pierluigizappala1157]

I have to say honestly J.J. that I feel a little bit disapointed by this video. Usually I'm a massive fan of your work but as someone that has dived in the history of italian food my self I'd have to diasagree with most of the narative that you presented in the video in regards to the history of pizza and it's evolution. Half of my family is from Napeles, and my grandfather owns a traditional Pizzeria/ restaurant with my grandmother being the cook, so from a very early age I've been familiar with much of the culinary tradition of Napels and the history of pizza. Tho I understand the limitations of a KZbin video, I think that your introductory recap fairly describes the way pizza evolved in Napeles far before the migratory movement into the US. Well into the 1800s in Napeles, varied styles of pizzas existed as part of the culinary norm. Most pizzas had (and still have) a base of plain tomato sauce, uncooked and unsalted, as the base, but were also garnished with a wide range of ingredients, both cheap and expensive : tomato sauce, salted anchovies, garlic, oregano (Pizza alla Marinara); tamoto sauce, mozzarella and Basil (Pizza Margherita, named after the Queen of Italy and made to fashion the colors of the flag); other pizzas could also feature ingridients like olives, prosciutto, hard boiled eggs, parmesan, sausages and many more. Pizza brought the end of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century pizza became wildly popular all troughout Italy continiously evolving and adopting different ingredients and styles acording to the reagion (we are talking about dozes of different styles and even preparation methods). What came to be in the US shares a very clear ancestry with the Napolitan pizza, but I'd say it has since evolved into a very distinct Italian American dish that is mostly different in shape, texture, ingredients and preparation from the wide collection of pizzas found all through Italy. I'd don't think it's fair or accurate to say that Americn Pizza influenced italian pizza in any signiiucant way if at all. To say pizza is American, I think it is a bit too much in the face of the great history and tradition that we have in Italy. It would be a bit like saying curry is British. In fact, the art of pizza making itself has been declared as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2017. (ich.unesco.org/en/RL/art-of-neapolitan-pizzaiuolo-00722) The American style of pizza was unfortunately popularized throughout the world by major fast food chains like Pizza Hut and Dominos, but I'd still argue it doesn't reflect the popular perception of pizza, which is that of an iconic Italian dish. I apologise for poor wording or any other grammatical mistake. Thank you for your splendid work nonetheless.