We've Got the Recipes: How America Became the 21st Century Pizza Superpower Without Many New Italian Immigrants

From the New York Times news section:

How America Became the Capital of Great Pizza

Since the early 2000s, the variety and quality of pizza made by ambitious chefs all over the country have only gotten better.

By Brett Anderson

In reporting this article, Brett Anderson ate dozens of pizzas in 18 states.

June 25, 2024

… In recent years, [wood fire oven pizzerias have] become fixtures outside cities, too, drawing diners to the types of small communities — from southern Illinois and coastal New England to rural Wisconsin and Oregon — whose restaurant cultures are often dominated by national chains. All those fussed-over pies, with their blistered crusts, basil sprigs and hot honey drizzles, taught Americans they could ask more from a dish routinely eaten from a cardboard box — and consumed by about one in eight people on any given day, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture research.

That broad appeal, coupled with the relatively low cost of opening pizzerias and the ease of acquiring the information to master high-quality pizza-making, has made the dish a uniquely effective vehicle for chefs to find a voice while also making a living. Until recently, chefs looking to make sublime Neapolitan pizzas would have few options beyond traveling to Italy, said Chris Bianco, who opened Pizzeria Bianco in 1988.

Traveling to Italy is not actually that horrific of an experience. I’d recommend it.

As for the quality of pizza over time, personally, I know very little about food, I don’t have great taste, and I’ve tried to avoid eating any pizza in recent years because I like it too much and therefore eat way too much of it once I start, so I’d rather not even start, which is an important reason why I’m less fat than I used to be.

So take what I have to say about pizza with a grain of salt. (Not that I consume salt anymore either.) But my recollection when I started eating pizza in the 1970s in Los Angeles and Houston was that it seemed promising, but was not back then as good as it could have been.

Even in those 1970s Sunbelt cities, however, pizza was definitely better than in Italy in 1980. Pizza was far from ubiquitous in Milan, Florence, and Rome back then. Only in my last night in Italy in Brindisi did I have pizza, and it was impoverished by my hungry American standards.

While Italians were more skilled at cuisine, Americans were richer. Pizza, the world-conquering dish that has accounted for some non-trivial percentage of the human race’s incremental obesity in recent decades, is less a product of Italian genius than of 20th Century Italian-American wealth.

Moving to Chicago in the 1980s, pizza was notably better, and by the 1990s Chicago pizza had fulfilled the promise I had observed in 1970s Los Angeles.

Since switching careers from corporate marketing research to self-expressive writing in 2000, I haven’t eaten out as much, so I’ve lost track of further developments.

But this guy who has eaten pizza in 18 states says American pizza has gotten much better since the turn of the century, and I don’t see much reason to doubt him.

How has this happened without much immigration from Italy in recent decades?

For one reason, pizza is more American cuisine than indigenous Italian cuisine. We actually aren’t that bad at cooking anymore.

For another, while the Italians remain better at most arts of living than us, it’s not very expensive these days to go visit them and find out how they do it.

Finally, we’ve got the recipes. And if you want to see the fine points of technique, you can see a zillion pizzaiolos on Youtube showing you how to do it.

“Today you just swipe and study and you can bring great pizza to any town, anyplace,” said Mr. Bianco, who is arguably the country’s most influential pizzaiolo.

The ensuing renaissance has done more than make pizza in the United States better than it has ever been. It has also made the country home to the world’s best pizza — or, at least, in Mr. Bianco’s estimation, “the most hyper-focused and style-diverse” collection of pizzerias.

There is no question that American pizza is better than ever virtually everywhere. That includes Cleveland, Miss., where Ms. Doyle opened Leña Pizza + Bagels last year.

The final reason American pizza keeps improving in the 21st Century is because Italians are white, so nobody is concerned about cultural appropriation.