New York Post

THEY’RE SEEING

Pizza’s not Italian?!

- By BEN COST

Italians want a pizza him. Food historian Alberto Grandi had the nation’s pie makers up in arms after controvers­ially claiming that the US — and not The Boot — is responsibl­e for “pizza rossa,” the red tomato sauce that tops pizza.

The culinary expert dropped these “blasphemou­s” gastronomi­c theories in his and fellow academic Daniele Soffiati’s book “La Cucina Italiana Non Esiste” or “Italian Cuisine Does Not Exist.”

“Pizza became red in America,” Grandi, who teaches at the University of Parma in northern Italy, declared in an interview with La Repubblica newspaper. “The plant is from America and so is the use of tomato sauce as the basis for our cuisine.”

The authors claim this socalled lifeblood of Italian cooking was only really discovered by Italians when millions began immigratin­g to the US during the Italian diaspora between 1880 and 1920.

They then returned to the motherland with the nowubiquit­ous secret sauce, effectivel­y painting the town red with marinara.

Before this culinary crosspolli­nation, pizza in Italy consisted of a circular piece of focaccia with various toppings, authors contend.

The US started mass-producing tomato sauce in the 19th century, prompting Italian immigrants here to open up so many pizzerias that they outnumbere­d their Italian counterpar­ts by World War II.

“When American soldiers landed in Sicily, they discovered to their surprise that pizzerias barely existed in Italy,” the authors wrote.

Needless to say, Italy’s proud pizzaiolos swallowed this pie-pothesis about as well as a ketchup-slathered slice.

“That’s rubbish, I don’t believe that’s true,” declared Gianni Altrui, a nearly 30-year pizza maker at Rome’s Pizza Re trattoria who cranks out nearly 300 pies a day. “It’s the Americans who learned from the Italians when it comes to food, not the other way around.”

He claims red pizza actually dates back to 1889 in Naples with the invention of the Margherita, which takes its name from the Queen of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, the Telegraph reported.

Italian flag

This flagship pizza was adorned with basil, mozzarella and tomato to match the green, white and red colors of the Italian flag, Altrui said.

Pizza’s alleged New World origins aren’t the only bombshell Grandi allegedly discovered during his studies: He also alleges that spaghetti carbonara, another classic Italian dish, was born during the Second World War using the bacon, cheese and powdered eggs brought over by US soldiers.

Grandi believes that Italian pie-hards are allowing cultural pride to trump evidence, declaring: “We wrongly talk about identity: Cuisine changes continuous­ly.”

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