5 Most Popular Pizzas in the United States

If you walk through New York today and see all of the places selling pizza, you will probably think that pizza is a quintessential American food. But, in fact, American pizza is a relatively new phenomenon. 

TASTE OF HOME

It all began with impoverished Italian migrants who came to America in the 1800s, and brought their homemade pizza recipes with them. For years, pizza was something that Italian families ate in their homes. Then, in the early 1900s, pizza restaurants began opening in urban areas on the east coast where a lot of Italian immigrants lived; Lombardi’s, the first pizzeria in the US, opened in New York City in 1905 and is still open today!

PIZZA FOR ALL

It was after World War II that pizza became popular with people of all ethnicities and incomes. American soldiers returning to the US wanted to eat the delicious pizza they’d had in Europe, and so pizzerias began opening all over the country. The first restaurants were independent, but in the 1950s, chains of pizza restaurants began to emerge.

THE CHAIN AGE 

Today, the American pizza industry is valued at about $37 billion and is dominated by pizza chains like Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Papa John’s. In fact, Domino’s Pizza, which opened in Michigan in 1960, is the biggest seller of pizza in the world, with more than fifteen thousand pizzerias globally.

5 Most Popular American Pizzas

Negli Stati Uniti la pizza spesso è molto diversa da quella che gli italiani esportarono cento anni fa. Ecco i cinque tipi di pizza più popolari.

1. New York-style pizza
   Developed in New York City by immigrants from Naples, this style of pizza is normally very big and has a thin and flexible crust that is thick and crispy at the edges. It is topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, and sold by the slice, to go.
2. New Jersey tomato pie
   In the US, pizzas are also called ‘pies’. This style of pizza was developed in New Jersey, as the name suggests. It is a style of ‘upside-down pizza’; the mozzarella and toppings are placed on the crust first, with the tomato sauce on top. This stops the sauce from making the crust soggy.
3. California-style pizza
   This is California’s take on the New York-style pizza. It has the same thin crust but is topped with ingredients that are popular on the west coast, like artichoke hearts and goat cheese.
4. Quad City-style pizza
   The Quad Cities is a region of five cities in northwest Illinois and southeast Iowa. They have made famous this style of pizza, which has a thin, nutty crust, topped with a zesty sauce and Italian sausage. It is cut into strips, not slices.
5. Chicago-style pizza
   Also called ‘deep dish’, this pizza has a deep crust and the dough may contain cornmeal. It is baked in a round pan and fillings are layered on in an inverted order: with mozzarella on the bottom, pepperoni or bell peppers in the middle, and tomato sauce on top. This prevents the cheese from burning.

Anche la pasta è stata adattata dagli americani alle loro esigenze pratiche e gastronomiche e l'espressione più emblematica di questo fenomeno è, ovviamente, il Mac and cheese. Con il permesso degli italiani, che potrebbero ritenere un affronto parlare di questo piatto come di un piatto italiano, ecco una breve storia del cibo che chiunque dichiari di conoscere l'America deve aver assaggiato almeno una volta: A Brief History of Mac & Cheese. Per godere di questo articolo con una versione audio letta da un madrelingua ed esercizi, iscriviti a Speak Up. E se vuoi ricevere un esercizio quotidiano sul tuo cellulare, iscriviti al nostro canale Whatsapp. È completamente gratuito.