Episode 3: Pizza on the Move
5/26/202623 min
In episode three of Eating History, hosts Adrienne Cheatham and Stephen Bailey follow pizza across the Atlantic as it makes its way from the streets of Naples to the immigrant neighborhoods of New York City. Discover how pioneers like Gennaro Lombardi helped transform pizza from a quick street snack into a sit-down dining experience, setting the stage for America's pizza obsession. Topics Covered: Gennaro Lombardi and the birth of New York's early pizzerias The surprising ingredient differences between Italy and the United States Pizza's evolution in New Haven, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, and beyond The role of pizzerias as community gathering places How World War II helped spark America's pizza craze The rise of regional pizza styles across the United States From New York storefronts to regional styles across the Americas, this episode follows the fascinating evolution of pizza as it finds new identities far from Naples.
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First 90 secondsStephen Bailey· Host0:11
[upbeat music] So it's New York City, Spring Street, 1905. Picture this with me. It's early morning and Gennaro Lombardi stands in an empty pizzeria. In the back, there's a brick oven. It's not a portable oven. It's not the kind you wheel out to the street and move when the police come. This oven is permanent, built into the wall, coal-fired, because that's what's available in New York, not wood like back home in Naples. Gennaro's only 18 years old. He's been in America for just over a year, and after he and his older sister, Maria, left their working-class family behind in Naples, they emigrated to New York. After settling in with their brother, Giuseppe, who was already in the city, he's now working in the pizza shop of Giovanni Sentillo. He's had pizza before, standing on street corners from a cart, the way everyone does in Little Italy. But this is different and exciting. In this shop, there are tables, wooden, mismatched, borrowed or bought secondhand, chairs that don't quite match either. A few plates, a few forks and knives, though most people are still eating with their hands. Outside on Spring Street, it's just starting to rain,