Posted on 05/05/2023 1:36:33 PM PDT by nickcarraway
If a pizza and an empanada had a baby, it would probably look something like a calzone. Shaped like a dumpling with a pizza flavor, the calzone is a perfect mix of the two revered foods. It's not hard to figure out why some may think the calzone is an American invention. After all, it's in the same realm as the stromboli, created in Philadelphia in the 1950s, and the size of your corner pizzeria calzone is like everything else in America: supersized. But, just like the pizza, calzones are inherently Italian. In fact, they share the same birthplace as the pizza pie.
The ingredients that make up a calzone very much mirror what goes into pizza. It is essentially a dish consisting of dough and cheese, though you can stuff in all kinds of meats and vegetables. Because of the shape of the calzone, it might even be a bit less messy than eating a pizza. (Not that you care much when you're diving into a slice.) The two Italian foods even arrived in the U.S. via immigrants who took what they knew best and shared it to the delight of hungry Americans.
Pizza for walking?
The 18th Century Italian Origins Of Calzones siamionau pavel/Shutterstock BY ERICA MARTINEZ/MARCH 1, 2023 5:44 AM EST If a pizza and an empanada had a baby, it would probably look something like a calzone. Shaped like a dumpling with a pizza flavor, the calzone is a perfect mix of the two revered foods. It's not hard to figure out why some may think the calzone is an American invention. After all, it's in the same realm as the stromboli, created in Philadelphia in the 1950s, and the size of your corner pizzeria calzone is like everything else in America: supersized. But, just like the pizza, calzones are inherently Italian. In fact, they share the same birthplace as the pizza pie.
The ingredients that make up a calzone very much mirror what goes into pizza. It is essentially a dish consisting of dough and cheese, though you can stuff in all kinds of meats and vegetables. Because of the shape of the calzone, it might even be a bit less messy than eating a pizza. (Not that you care much when you're diving into a slice.) The two Italian foods even arrived in the U.S. via immigrants who took what they knew best and shared it to the delight of hungry Americans.
Pizza for walking?
In 18th-century Naples -– right around the time that pizza was taking shape in the spirited, working-class Italian city –- the calzone first came to life. It was a street food, intended to be purchased quickly and eaten on-the-go for the harbor town's busy workers. Pizza in Naples was also a working-class food, but seeing how it was flat, with sauce and toppings, it was eaten sitting down with a knife and fork. This wasn't convenient for a lot of people, so the calzone offered a suitable alternative. The word "calzone" is a loose translation of "trousers" or "pants legs," referring to the dish's relation to walking while eating. Traditional calzone is made without sauce, which can drip, thus ruining the intention of food to be eaten on foot.
The 18th Century Italian Origins Of Calzones siamionau pavel/Shutterstock BY ERICA MARTINEZ/MARCH 1, 2023 5:44 AM EST If a pizza and an empanada had a baby, it would probably look something like a calzone. Shaped like a dumpling with a pizza flavor, the calzone is a perfect mix of the two revered foods. It's not hard to figure out why some may think the calzone is an American invention. After all, it's in the same realm as the stromboli, created in Philadelphia in the 1950s, and the size of your corner pizzeria calzone is like everything else in America: supersized. But, just like the pizza, calzones are inherently Italian. In fact, they share the same birthplace as the pizza pie.
The ingredients that make up a calzone very much mirror what goes into pizza. It is essentially a dish consisting of dough and cheese, though you can stuff in all kinds of meats and vegetables. Because of the shape of the calzone, it might even be a bit less messy than eating a pizza. (Not that you care much when you're diving into a slice.) The two Italian foods even arrived in the U.S. via immigrants who took what they knew best and shared it to the delight of hungry Americans.
Pizza for walking? M-Production/Shutterstock In 18th-century Naples -– right around the time that pizza was taking shape in the spirited, working-class Italian city –- the calzone first came to life. It was a street food, intended to be purchased quickly and eaten on-the-go for the harbor town's busy workers. Pizza in Naples was also a working-class food, but seeing how it was flat, with sauce and toppings, it was eaten sitting down with a knife and fork. This wasn't convenient for a lot of people, so the calzone offered a suitable alternative. The word "calzone" is a loose translation of "trousers" or "pants legs," referring to the dish's relation to walking while eating. Traditional calzone is made without sauce, which can drip, thus ruining the intention of food to be eaten on foot.
Upon its invention, the calzone was much smaller than what Americans are accustomed to today. Roughly the size of a sandwich, it was meant to feed one person, versus modern versions which can easily feed several people. Pizza came to America thanks to Italian immigrants who brought their recipes and ingredients with them from their homeland. And we can only assume that calzones were brought to the U.S. in a similar fashion. Hardworking Italians looking to make a living opened up shops and carts offering the things they made in Italy, including calzones.
Limited only by your imagination Giorgio Rossi/Shutterstock Calzones are sometimes referred to as inside-out pizzas and it's not difficult to see why. Pizza and calzone dough is the same, but instead of being flat with the toppings on top, calzone's "toppings" are inside the folded up and sealed dough which is always baked in a half-moon shape.
The original calzone fillings were not as elaborate as they are today, and were filled with cheap, local ingredients. Remember, it was a working-class food meant to be affordable to the masses. In his 1971 book, "The Food of Italy," Waverly Root writes that, once the calzone was invented, people realized it could withstand multiple ingredients. One early recipe included a filling of chicory hearts, anchovies, capers, black olives, currants, garlic, and egg yolk.
Once the calzone hit the streets of America, it transformed from street food into a regular menu item in many Italian restaurants. Now being offered as a sit-down meal, the size of calzones began to expand, as did the filling options. Today, a calzone's filling is only limited by your imagination. Typically, anything you put on a pizza you can put into a calzone, including vegetables and herbs. Ricotta cheese is also a popular cheese filling — since it's wet, it doesn't hold up well on top of pizza but stuffed into sturdy calzones, it gets soft and combines deliciously with mozzarella. Marinara sauce is usually still served on the side for dipping.
They are not all calzones
Depending on where you are in Italy — or America, for that matter — you may see something that resembles a calzone but isn't one. The idea of stuffed pockets of dough is genius, after all, and who wouldn't want to do a riff on it?
Take the panzerotti, for example. Like the calzone, the panzerotti is sort of an inverted pizza but is smaller in size. It originated in the Apulia region of Italy and, instead of being baked, it is deep fried. A little over 100 miles southeast of Naples sits the area of Basilicata where another calzone cousin resides: pastizz. Also known as u' pastizz 'rtunnar, it is a half-moon-shaped turnover made with dough and traditionally filled with pork before being baked.
In the tiny area of Lentini in Sicily, you can find cudduruni which is a type of focaccia dough that is either served as a flat, round disk topped with ingredients, or stuffed with fillings and folded over like a calzone. It was originally developed as a way to turn food scraps into a meal — it is traditionally filled with onion, tomato, sheep's milk cheese, and broccoli or other greens. Today, like the calzone, its fillings can include various meats and cheeses, even those not native to Sicily.
While calzones have evolved since the 1700s, they remain a filling, delicious meal with unmistakable Italian flavors, great for any night of the week.
Luckily, your typical Calzone is not nearly as big as that article.
For people like me who like pizza, but dont really know what a Calzone is, let alone an Empanada;
A Calzone resembles a type of Italian Burrito, if one ever existed. This “Italian Burrito” has soft flaky crust as wrapping. The wrap around crust is usually toasted and buttered.
The Panzerotti sounds like an Italian tank built for the German market!
LOL
I ate a lot of calzones at a little Italian restaurant in Grafenwöhr Germany. 40 years later and I still remember that place fondly
Great post, by the way! I like culinary history and one of my side hobbies is resurrecting old recipes. Sometimes they just need a little tweaking and they become something marvelous!
My favorite was a 19th Century Norwegian fruitcake made with molasses and dried currants.
I progressively made tweaks to the recipe and now it makes a very nice spice cake and the fruit is optional...but I like it! Feel free to try it, it’s easy!
Fruit & Spice Cake
2 cups seedless raisins or dried cranberries
2 1/4 cups water
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
2 egss, beaten
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground clove
2 tsp all spice
2 tsp nutmeg (optional because it gives some people heartburn)
3 1/2 cups of flour. (Whole wheat unbleached flour works really well with this recipe.)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
Combine the raisins, spices, and water and simmer to a light boil and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and add oil, then the sugar, and then the eggs followed by the salt and baking soda. Sift in the flour and stir until smooth.
Pour the mixture into a greased 13x9 glass pan.
Bake at 375F in a regular oven or at 350F in a convection oven for around 35-40 minutes (check it at around 30 minutes).
Where did you find the recipe?
It came out of a handwritten cookbook from 1912 that I found at an estate sale in Cody. It’s very similar to a recipe my grandmother would make.
Her recipe made dense bars and mine makes a cake.
Also, I sometimes top it with a simple lemon sauce when it’s warm or I let it cool completely and dust it with powdered sugar.
Most every restaurant made it with standard pizza dough but one restaurant about 20 miles away was famous for their calzones and made them with a flakier crust than the others. They were my favorite. It was Vecchio's cafe in Polcenigo.
So strombolis weren’t invented on the island of Stromboli? You learn something new every day.
Oh yea. I still have sweet dreams of the calzones I had in Hanau, GE.
Within a week of arriving in Saarbrücken, Germany, where I would spend two semesters at Saarland University in 1971-1972, I had eaten at every Italian restaurant in town--and they were all run by Italians, not East Asians, Middle Easterners, or white guys of Trans-Alpine heritage, as are many Italian restaurants in Los Angeles these days.
However, calzones hadn't yet made it onto their menus. The dish I usually ordered was spaghetti Bolognese.
The first calzone I ever ate was at a pizzeria in Santa Monica, Calif. around 1980. It was called a football sandwich because of its shape.
We are lucky that near my current house there are several small Italian restaurants that taste like someone’s gramma runs the kitchen.
I remember when I lived in SW Florida 2014-2017, most local “Italian” restaurants were owned by Egyptians for some reason. In NY, NJ, and CT, your Italian food is cooked by Salvadorans or Hondurans even if an Italian (from Italy) is overseeing things.
I’ll see your calzone and raise you a panzerotti: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerotti
I read that much differently the first time... (long day)
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