Serious Question: Is Pizza an Italian Food, or an American Food?

Here’s a serious question that’s trending right now:  Is pizza an Italian food, or an American food?  It’s in the news after a history professor IN Italy claimed it’s more American than Italian.  So the Italians have been freaking out.

The Italian government made a formal request with the U.N. last month to get Italian cuisine “World Heritage” status.  And that same day, he did a big interview about how some “Italian” food isn’t really THAT Italian.

He claims carbonara sauce was first made in Chicago in 1953, and that Italy doesn’t really do traditional parmesan anymore either.  He says the only place you can find anything close to what it was 50 years ago is in Wisconsin.

Basically, he says Italians got to America and started tweaking their recipes.  Then Italy followed suit, but now they’re trying to claim those recipes as their own.

His beef with pizza is that it originally didn’t have tomato sauce.  He says that happened in New York, not Naples . . . it’s the reason it’s become so popular worldwide . . . and so America deserves most of the credit.

He claims Italy’s World Heritage application includes, quote, “a lot of [B.S.]”.