See, your smart grandson KNEW what "pizza pie" really meant!

hi<BR><BR>right idea, but closer to 60,000,000 in Italy<BR><BR>Peter

Ignorance is bliss... It's like saying that the American Indians introduced the American wild horses to the Spaniards or the English... or that he US Americans have always been importing luscious tomatoes from Italy... May Iintrude in this discussions? There were no pizzas in Italy before 1492, for tomatoes were discovered in Chile (even though they were perfected in the Italian sun and soil). Pizza is a flat bread which is always is covered with tomato source. Few people know the great variety -- not necessarily quantity -- of pizza: napoletana, siciliana, pugliese, etc. Eventually some Italian-Americans made pizza, too,<BR>and there was a popularization of cheap pies (for here you do not have or use the good wheat-flour, the oil, or the Italian tomatoes and herbs). You eat mostly imitation-pizzas.<BR>Before 1492 and way back in ancient times, as writings attest, they made flat-breads, which was seasoned or spiced, and baked between hot tiles. This coal-baking is is what results in a focaccia [fire-"pie"]. But regardless of English words in use, fruit-pies, food-pies, etc., are known by different names in Italy: crostata; pastiera, etc.<BR>I have just been reading the first gastronomy book, from ancient Roman times, for the fun of it.<BR>Everybody should know a few Italian words: pizza, focaccia, pasta (maccheroni, lasagne, ravioli), broccoli, broccoli di rapa, sorbetto; travertino, breccia, and at least 200 others [for we use the named things]. Anyway, perhaps now, but in the past, pizza was an occasional snack, not an everyday spuntino, merenda,o un pasto.<BR>Buon appetito!

I forgot to answer some people who did not speak yet: No, Marco Polo did not import noodle or or gun-powder from China. About a century before the travels of the Marco or his father and uncles, battles have been recorded where the Italian were already using cannons... It's like saying that because of the motor cars, the Austrians or the Germans invented the<BR> internal combustion engine! (People know more myths than facts.)

Just stumbled across this old post.<BR><BR>And the apparent use of multiple names is almost fascinating.<BR><BR>It would appear that aironeverde, carol and cmt are all the same person? is that right?<BR>

Yes, and we seem to have exported ice-cream to Italy too.<BR>When I went to St. Andrews in Scotland I was delighted to see that they have also adopted a good old American institution, golf and England has adopted that American invention, the sandwich. The world is catching up!