Posted on 02/23/2021 6:48:44 AM PST by mylife
As much as people try to wedge a definition for “Pittsburgh pizza,” the truth of it is that we don’t have a signature city style.
There are a handful of pizzerias that often come up in conversations about Pittsburgh pizza. However, with due respect to long-standing establishments such as Aiello’s, Mineo’s and Fiori’s, what they deliver is typical of the mid-century coast-to-coast boom of the American gas-oven pie, which has a slightly thicker crust and, often, a sweeter sauce than you’d find in the legacy New York City deck-oven pie-and-slice joints from which that style was derived.
What’s endearing about our region is how idiosyncratic pizza makers have over the past 75 years put their spin on what it means to make a pizza. There are sundry pizza styles within an hour’s drive of Pittsburgh, each with a story.
Our pizza foundations were built in the 1940s and continued to blossom through the 1970s, the four decades that represent the heyday of widespread commercial regionalization of pizza in the United States. (Prior to that, establishments that sold pizza were almost exclusively limited to what food writer Ed Levine calls “The Pizza Belt,” which was centered in New York City and New Haven, and tendriled as far as Boston and Philadelphia.)
The migration of regional Italian foodways — and how newly arrived immigrants strove to feed a lot of people on a budget — set the framework. The return of GIs stationed in Italy during World War II, many of whom (particularly those with roots in the country) were smitten with the pizza sold in bakeries, spurred the boom, as did mid-century innovations in technology, especially the gas-heated deck ovens popularized by Bakers Pride and Mastro.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghmagazine.com ...
“They would eat [a homestyle version of pizza] at home. When he was over in Europe, he saw they were actually selling it. When he got back, he thought it would be a great thing to try here. There was a big Italian community in Steubenville,” says his niece Toni DiCarlo. Her father, Galdo, joined his older brother in the venture.
They had the wherewithal to do it, too — their father, Michael, an immigrant from Sora, Italy, opened the first Italian bakery in the region in 1896.
Dicarlo1 Mar21 A PHOTO OF PRIMO DICARLO ON DISPLAY AT DICARLO PIZZA’S DOWNTOWN STEUBENVILLE LOCATION.
The idea of selling that pizza was so new that when the DiCarlo brothers opened a second location in Wheeling, a 1949 News-Register article noted, “The brothers specialize in an Italian delicacy called Pizza, which has been called ‘the poor man’s cheese cake.’” Because hardly anyone knew what pizza was, the story goes on to describe it as “an Italian bread dough base garnished with a sauce of tomatoes, parsley and green peppers that’s seasoned with oregano, served with anchovies, cheese, pepperoni or mushrooms.”
The brothers DiCarlo were ahead of the game in many respects — not only was Primo DiCarlo granted the first license for a “pizzaria” in Ohio, but the family also introduced the idea of selling “by the slice” to the valley (and were among the earliest nationwide to sell pizza this way) and were one of the first to franchise. Their legacy is a regional style pizza that now extends from Steubenville to the southern entrance of the Fort Pitt Tunnel.
An interesting article and I admit an affection for pizza from this bit of the world, but have never seen some of this stuff, like “Ohio Valley Pizza”
Pittsburgh, Youngstown an Cleveland lay in the zone between NYC and Chicago, and that is reflected in the style here.
It depends on the type of mushroom.
Steubenville
Hometown of Dean Martin
Yessir, when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...
> As much as people try to wedge a definition for “Pittsburgh pizza,” the truth of it is that we don’t have a signature city style. <
That might be so. But some Pittsburghers do have a unique way of getting friends together to go to a pizza shop.
“Yinz wanna go get a Vinnie Pie, n’at?”
(I’m not kidding here.)
Yoose should see how dey do it in Ytown.
Well now ya know, :)
I have lived in this region for over 34 years, and I can tell you in Pittsburgh, while there are indeed a lot of independent shops in this town, and there are some definitely “UNIQUE” ones...
None of them I have found are great... some are better than others for sure, but if someone comes to town and wants something unique in the Pizza experience... Vinnie’s is unique, and distinctive, but its not “Great”.. memorable for sure, but not great pizza.
The classic Mineos and Aiello’s feud is legendary in this town, but honestly NEITHER are “great” pies.
Bado’s is flat out disgusting, but definitely not something I’ve seen elsewhere, and been there for a long time so clearly folks from around here at some level like it.
However, I would never ever tell a pizza lover that if they are searching for great pizza they need to make a stop in Pittsburgh at some point.
Pittsburgh boasts the second highest pizzeria-per-capita rate in the country
with 9.9 pizzerias per 10,000 residents, according to a national study.
https://blog.slicelife.com/what-is-pittsburgh-style-pizza/
New York City – known as the country’s pizza capital – didn’t
even make the top ten.
I would recommend Youngstown.
I would recommend Youngstown.
The only edible mushrooms are morels. Never had real truffles, so can’t comment on them.
I am not a huge mushroom fan, but they are OK when done properly
Gonna get me some za!
It’s like chili on a cold day, we all love it.
Beto's used to be located in Oakland, near the Pitt and Carnegie Mellon campuses. I'm told they moved and still have a location somewhere--no telling if it's the same recipe.
Lots of square pies in this area
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