I’ve been writing a monthly column called “Man on the Street” for Pizza Today Magazine since 2011. Here’s a piece I wrote for the June issue about the metamorphosis of Neapolitan pizza over the past decade. It’s interesting to me that pizza came to NYC directly from its birthplace of Naples, Italy but transformed the moment it landed on our shores. New ingredients and technology forces pizza makers to alter their products in such a way that created an entirely unique style.
Over a century later, “old world” Neapolitan pizza landed in the U.S. in a more pure form. Now that American tastes have formed around our altered style of pizza, the original Neapolitan doesn’t appeal to most consumers. That’s why most Neapolitan pizzerias in the U.S. aren’t really making Neapolitan pizza at all. Instead, they’ve cherrypicked the elements they like to create a hybrid that’s more akin to local taste. On our New York pizza tours, we visit several pure Neapolitan pizzerias as well as a few neo-Neapolitan spots. All are great, but they’re clearly not striving for the same goal.
I love the idea of pizza evolution and it’s clear in the case of Neapolitan’s second move to the U.S. That’s why I wrote this column about the changes pizzerias make to suit the needs of their customers.
Read the complete article at Pizza Today Magazine.
