Re: Evolution of the NY Style Pizza (Split Topic)

[norma427]

Kelly,

I thought about the Italians immigrating to the US, and why wouldn’t they try to make their own foods here in some fashion, even before the first licensed pizza establishment. If they ate pizze or what is what ever they called it in Italy, why wouldn’t they try to replicate it in the US.  The bakers did have access to ovens. I was surprised when I saw the article that the Library of Congress sent me from Boston.  I never would have thought Boston would have had such an active pizze community.  I wonder what happened to that. There must be many other articles out there somewhere.  The problem is just to find them.  I have always enjoyed reading about what people did years ago, and pizza isn’t an exception.  

I am glad you are going to the Library of Congress and do more research digging.  Almost every article I have read before you posted on this thread is about how the first pizzeria started in NY, and not much of anything else.  I also enjoy reading tidbits from the past, however faint they are.  I could imagine myself in Boston eating one of those pies, just from reading the scan.  

I don’t know where Orchard St. is in NY.  I will have to try a stroll down Orchard St. sometime when I am  in NY.  I will be interested in what you can learn when you read the book Orchard St.  

I also agree, that the very first pizzas probably sprang up in a short while in Northeaster cities.

If there is any other way I can help you research just let me know.  I enjoy digging.  

Best of luck in your research, and I would be looking forward to what you find. 

Norma

[parallei]

Hey Norma,

Just a bit off topic, but:

97 Orchard: by Jane Ziegelman was a great read.  An interesting social history that both my wife and I enjoyed it.  Check it out if you haven't already...

[norma427]

Hey Norma,

Just a bit off topic, but:

97 Orchard: by Jane Ziegelman was a great read.  An interesting social history that both my wife and I enjoyed it.  Check it out if you haven't already...

Paul,

This for telling me 97 Orchard was a great read.  I think I am going to purchase the book.

Thanks! 

Norma

[norma427]

Kelly or anyone else that is interested,

I found another article from the Sun in 1905.  In the newspaper article it says there are only two places in NY where you can get real Neapolitan pizze.  One on Spring St. and one on Grand.  It sounds like from this article the other article really didn’t talk about the pizze being in Boston.  What do you think?  The article is at the middle bottom of the page.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1905-06-18/ed-1/seq-31/;words=bakers+Neapolitan?date1=1836&rows=20&searchType=basic&state=&date2=1905&proxtext=Neapolitan+bakers&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&index=0

Norma

[pizzablogger]

Norma, I have a copy of that Sun article. But I have never been able to find out the name of the shop on Grand Street (Grand, Spring and Orchard are all in Little Italy/Chinatown, with Orchard running down into the Lower East Side as well.

What did the newspaper article from Lexington, Kentucky say?

I agree with you about immigration and immigrants yearning for native foods. That's one of the great things about immigration is the importation of their foods, customs, etc. Likely the first pizza shops sprung up spontaneously in the areas where Southern Italians migrated to, with Philadelphia (indeed all of PA saw an influx of Italian immigrants), Trenton NJ, NYC, New Haven and Boston being among the more heavily immigrated to cities in the early 1900s. Since the Southern Italian "Great Arrival" did not begin in ernest until around 1880, I would imagine the first pizza sellers were bound to spring up sometime in the 1890s as Southern Italian neighborhoods became more entrenched.

Baltimore has seen an incredible boom in its Latin population over the last decade. There are several excellent places to get real tacos now (including an actual Tortelleria making fresh tortillas sold by the kilo daily made from a rickety machine). I can't think which place was first....they all kind of came into being right around the same time. Proves the old saying....if you have a good idea, you can bet at least one other person has already thought of it as well.

As far as the early NY papers not mentioning the Boston pizza, I doubt they even knew of it. The availability of broadband service has really changed the world. We can instantly learn about topics at our whim. Back then in the early 1900s, I would imagine many news media persons had relatively limited knowledge what was happening around NYC, much less other cities. Even in 1900 NYC was a huge city of nearly 3.5 million residents, which is still a large number of people in a city by today's standards. That, combined with pizza being constricted to ethnic Italian neighborhoods shielded the goings on of pizza from many citizens.

Last night I also happened upon the first articles in San Francisco that mention Lupo's, which is now Tommaso's. The Tommaso's website claims the oven there was the first brick oven in the West. The San Francisco news articles I have date back to the late 1930s, so the claim of Lupo's being there since 1935 is credible. The pizza making process described in the articles sounds much like NY-Neapolitan pizza. So Lupo's opened only two years after Patsy Lancieri started slinging pies out of a coal-fired oven in East Harlem.

http://tommasos.com/--K

[pizzablogger]

Off topic, but those interested in history, or NYC, would be well served by reading the book Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. Fantastic and fascinating read.

[norma427]

Kelly,

The article from Lexington, Kentucky doesn’t say a lot.  This is what it said.

It was titled “What to Eat”, and first starts out by saying, the Christmas number of What to Eat is full of pertinent holiday matter, then goes on to talk about food for Christmas and Congress might be acting on the food question and the Drink Habit Among Women.  The part of the article pertaining to pizza only says:  Mascagni and his favorite dish “Pizza Neapolitana” is timely topic in Genie H. Rosenfeld’s “Notes Drama Dramatic.”.  Margaret Rayburn tells what the New York shops hold for Christmas shoppers.  I don’t know if Genie H. Rosenfeld’s  “Notes Dramatic” or recorded anywhere or not.  At the end of the article it says The Pierce Publishing Company, Chicago.

Thanks for your explanation about where Southern Italian immigrated to.  In the relation to the Boston article and the one from the New York Tribune, they are both saying almost the same things, but are years apart.  I wonder why that is.

Thanks also for finding out about Lupo’s, which is now Tommaso’s.  I didn’t know anything about them before.  It is interesting that Lupo’s opened only two years after Pasty Lancieri started slinging pies out of coal-fried oven in East Harlem.

When I was searching more last evening, I had to chuckle when I searched Roman cheese in New York Tribune papers.  I only can guess that is what they must have used on their pizzas, but there was a funny article about someone stealing the expensive Roman cheese and the police search for the Roman cheese.  They did finally find it after a few days, and the person was arrested.  The police said their noses led them to the Roman cheese.  I wonder what that smelled like.

While doing searches for pushcarts, wagon carts and other things in the New York Tribune, there are articles about Italian immigrants selling spaghetti on the carts and also images.  I also searched Little Italy and saw pictures of what street carts looked like back so many years ago, how health inspectors were concerned, and how many blocks the street carts were on. When I have time, I will try to search for where the pizza was made on Grand St. 

Thanks for all your research.  Looking forward to finding out more.

Norma

[dmcavanagh]

I just stumbled upon this thread and intend to read through it over the upcoming days. I also find the history of pizza to be quite interesting. Much of what I have read suggests that pizza in America started in neighborhood bakeries in the large East coast cities. The fact that a bakery would have dough and an appropriate oven make this assumption highly believable. Bakers supposedly used extra dough and formed "tomato pies" for hungry workers in their neighborhood. Cheese was too expensive for the "working man", but a piece of dough with tomatoes, baked in the already fired ovens was an affordable treat for the working man and a source of income for the bakery.

[norma427]

Kelly or anyone that is interested,

I hope I am not too far off-topic, with this post.  I really don’t know what is in the book, mentioned below, pertaining to evolution of NY pizzas, but would think some of the references might be useful in finding information, because Andrew P. Haley is a historian, and has searched diaries, and other places no one has search before about NY food and how it evolved.

Turning the Tables, Restaurants and the Rise of the American Middle Class, 1880-1920 by: Andrew P. Haley seems like a book with a lot of references in the book, to where someone might find out more about Italian immigrants and their role in the NY food scene and maybe pizza. http://www.uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1899

http://americareads.blogspot.com/2011/06/pg-99-andrew-p-haleys-turning-tables.html

At the look inside feature at the index, on Amazon, the selected works consulted can be seen.

http://www.amazon.com/Turning-Tables-Restaurants-American-1880-1920/dp/0807834742

I have been looking under old Google books or articles, and have found snippets from the past on mixers, pizzas, and other things.

Edit:  I had emailed Andrew P. Haley, PHD at andew.haley@usm.edu. . about if in his searches for his book, if he found anything out about pizzas in New York, when the Italian immigrants came to the US.  He replied that he couldn’t specifically remember anything he found, but would go through his notes.  Andrew said mostly, though, he was paying attention to the evolution of spaghetti, so it was possible he missed any references to pizza.  He gave me a promise and had a suggestion.  His promise was he needs to review some of his sources for another project he is working on (due in mid September, so it will happen soon). and he will keep his eyes open for anything that might be of interest.  The other suggestion he gave me is to look at the turn-of-the-century culinary magazine called Table Talk.  He said it was published in Philadelphia and featured the work of Sarah Rorer. Andrew said the recipes were responses to readers requests, and were surprisingly heavy on ethnic recipes including some fairly usual dishes.  He said he would look though his notes to see if he can find any reference to pizza.  He said it might be worth another look.  I saw Table Talk when I was searching under Google books last evening, but didn’t give it another thought.  I also have a couple more emails out. 


Norma

[pizzablogger]

I got some good information over the past several days with regards to the impact of the unification of Italy on Southern Italy, how it actually helped exacerbate the poverty there, the subsequent push to America as well as some details on the different areas that southern Italian immigrants established in the city (NYC). I was always curious why Patsy Lancieri opened Patsy's (in 1933) all the way up in East Harlem so far away from the concentration of Italians in Little Italy. I now know why.

More later. --K

[norma427]

Kelly,

I don’t know if you or other members ever saw these videos about Frank Mastro, and how he started inventing and designing deck ovens and pizza equipment years ago.  The video is called “The Pizza King! Mastro Pizza ‘64-’65 NY Worlds Fair Video”.  

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNvDOXogJE0&amp;feature=player_embedded" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNvDOXogJE0&amp;feature=player_embedded</a>

!

ffneodoc commented on the second video below:
This is a slightly higher quality video, captured in MP4 Format. My Cousin Vincent Mastro and I are going to work on a Web Site that has more about Frank's contributions to Pizza from the 30's to the mid 50's, & Vincent furthering his Dad's (Frank) dream that Pizza would sometime be as popular as the hotdog. It will be at www.fferrentino.com

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNvDOXogJE0&amp;feature=mfu_in_order&amp;list=UL" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNvDOXogJE0&amp;feature=mfu_in_order&amp;list=UL</a>

These videos were uploaded July 6, 2011.

I never heard of Frank Mastro before, or how he studied about pizza ovens and equipment, and invented many kinds of pizza equipment.

I found this video on Scotts Pizza Tours blog. http://blog.scottspizzatours.com/

http://blog.scottspizzatours.com/post/8128500579/mastro-pizza-pavillion-1964-film

These posts are on a forum about Mastro Pizza at the 65/65 NY worlds’ fair.

http://www.roadfood.com/Forums/m197589-print.aspx

Norma

[Essen1]

Norma,

The first link showing Frank Mastro's oven design should be considered a piece of pizza history. Well, I'm sure it is already today and it's very informative.

Thanks for the link. But can someone please educate me and tell me why pizza is referred to a pie?

I know I've used the term extensively but always wondered about it because it has little in common/to do with traditional pies, such as Apple, Boston Cream or a Pumpkin pie.

[chickenparm]

Mike,

We talked a little bit about it here.I still dont really know,it was a NY thing growing up.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13624.0.html

[Essen1]

Mike,

We talked a little bit about it here.I still dont really know,it was a NY thing growing up.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13624.0.html

I saw that post before. But is it really because of Dean Martin and his song?

[chickenparm]

I saw that post before. But is it really because of Dean Martin and his song?

No idea...just something I heard growing up and it stuck.
 

[pizzablogger]

No, pizza was being referenced as a pie in media print before he was old enough to sing.

[norma427]

Kelly or anyone that is interested,

I don’t know how accurate this article is, but find it interesting how many pizzerias were listed from 1958 until 2010 in NY.

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/11/30/how-new-york-became-a-pizza-capital/

Page 10 in this article from The Italian Academy tells about how pizza became popular in the 50’s.  I had to chuckle when I read this part of the article:  

A good starting point to observe how popular magazines dealt with Italian Food in the
1950s is the case of pizza. Before the war, most non-Italian Americans were completely unfamiliar
with it. A 1930 guide to dining out in New York defined it “a inch-thick, potato pan-cake, sprinkled
with Parmesan cheese and stewed tomatoes.”  In 1947, The New York Times Magazine introduced
readers to a recipe for making pizza at home, claiming that the Italian specialty, a favorite in New
York’s Little Italies, “could be as popular a snack as the hamburger, if only the Americans knew
more about it.”22 The prescience is astonishing, as a national market for pizza was created
overnight.

http://www.italianacademy.columbia.edu/publications/working_papers/2003_2004/paper_sp04_Cinotto.pdf

I think there are good references in the pdf document above that could be researched more.

Norma

[norma427]

Kelly,

I don’t know if you have found these articles or not.  It looks like the first article was on Slice, but I didn’t see if before.
Period Pies: A Look Back at New York Pizza Journalism
http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2011/04/period_pies_a_look.html
I had to click on the article to be able to view it.

Any words highlighted can only be previewed in the NY times.  These highlighted articles need to be bought to view them in their entirely. 

Another article called: Pizza, A Johnny-come-lately
http://www.jcs-group.com/fun/culinary/pizza.html

This article shows (pictures) how fresh frozen pizzas were made.  I don’t know if this was when they first made flash frozen pizzas or not.
http://brooklynology.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/post/2011/01/03/Big-Appetites-Little-Pizzas.aspx

Norma

[pizzablogger]

Norma, I have all of those but the Johnny-Come-Lately article.  Thanks for adding another article to the mix!  

Yes, pizza was nearly completely unknown outside of the culturally-tight enclaves of inner-cities until the late 1940s.

American GI's returning from WWII that were stationed in Southern Italy are often cited as the reason pizza exploded in the 1950s. From what I have read this is a very large reason, but not the full picture. Other articles also talk about the boom in the economy after WWII (also true) and that for the first time much more of the population had the means to travel overseas...and these people tried foods from foreign lands for the first time and by and large liked it, with Italy being one of the most popular travel destinations in those days for Americans (as it is now). Those people brought a hankerin' for pizza back from their travels.

It's amusing, and sad, that some of the mechanisms and changes which helped usher in the boom of pizzerias during the 1950's and 1960's immediately cheapened the product and began the downward slide of pizza into a cheaply constructed, commodity food of baneful quality (which is what nearly all "NY-Style" pizza, even in NYC, is these days...s*^t).

The bloom was definitely off the rose right off the bat.....the "synthetic cheese" versus the "real mozzarella" wars between American Cheese Makers and the Italians making fior-di-latte in the late 40's and early 50's being one example. --K

[norma427]

Kelly,

I am always interested in learning more about how NY style pizzas started in NY.  What you have told me in your last post has expanded my knowledge. 

I wanted to ask you a question if you know what type or brand of flours regular slice joints used back in the 50’s? That is something I have been wondering about for a long time.  I think they used lower protein flours, but don’t know if they did, or which ones they used.  Also do you know the bake times or temperatures they used back in the 50’s for the gas deck ovens?  I can’t find that information.

Thanks! 

Norma