As everyone knows, pizza has a long history in New York City, longer than its history in any other place in America. Pizza was first brought to this country by Italian immigrants in New York, and they founded the first pizzeria in the United States in 1905. Today, New York style pizza has spread throughout the United States and has influenced many regional styles, including Southwestern and California pizza. The traditional New York style of making pizza produces a thin crust with light sauce. The crust is crispy around the edges but soft enough throughout the pie so that large slices can be folded in half and eaten on the go. In fact, this style of eating New York pizza inspired the first pizza sellers to sell it by the slice, a practice now common in malls throughout America.
Italian Immigrants Bring Pizza to America
The first pizzeria was opened in 1905 by Gennaro Lombardi in a famous Manhattan neighborhood called Little Italy. He was a grocer from Naples who moved to New York to open a store in the late 1800s. His dream eventually grew into the first pizza bakery in the country when he was licensed to serve food by the state of New York. He started out by selling whole pizzas for five cents each, but because most people at the time were struggling immigrants who couldn’t afford a whole pie, Lombardi decided to sell individual slices to the workers of New York City. He wrapped each slice in paper to prevent it from dripping, and he tied up the wrapper with a piece of string.
Lombardi had an employee, named Antonio Totonno Pero, who parted ways with Lombardi to open his own pizzeria. It was actually this employee who had the idea to sell pizza in the first place, so some may argue that his pizzeria, called Totonno’s, located on Coney Island, was really the first. He pioneered the original New York style of baking the cheese on the bottom and the sauce over the cheese, using brick ovens to evenly cook the crust to a crispy consistency. Pizza was immediately such an overwhelming success that it spread throughout the Northeast almost right away. There are now more than 400 pizzerias in New York City alone.
The Distinctive New York Pizza Style
New York pizza is completely unlike the mass-produced chain pizza found in most buffets and delivery restaurants. It’s hand-tossed and intentionally light on the sauce. Traditionally, it’s made with fresh mozzarella cheese and toppings such as pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, bell peppers, onion and anchovies, as everyone knows. More exotic toppings brought by Italian immigrants include calamari, sheep’s tongue, sweatbreads, offal and tripe. If you don’t think these ingredients sound appetizing, you may want to try them to find out why they’re considered delicious.
