7 ms·

I haven't read the article. This isn't surprising in the least. Pizza is readily available everywhere in Italy, and the quality is not just a little higher, it'

by 7bit 2y ago

I haven't read the article. This isn't surprising in the least. Pizza is readily available everywhere in Italy, and the quality is not just a little higher, it's extremely better than Dominos. So why would anyone pay more money to get an inferior Pizza? The mere thought that they could set foot in that market is already funny.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Pizza is readily available everywhere in Italy, and the quality is not just a little higher Note that the modern Italian pizza, including in Napoli, is a post-War invention [1]. “Most Italians hadn’t heard of pizza until the 1950s;” after “Italian-American soldiers were sent to Sicily and travelled up the Italian peninsula, they wrote home in disbelief: there were no pizzerias” [2]. (19th-century pizza marinara had little t9 no cheese, for instance.) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza [2] https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b64c https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b...
- HyulianGrader 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - kleiba 2y ago
    Why?
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      Pointing out that pizza was obviously developed in the United States would tend to undermine the idea that Italy is "the home of pizza".
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Please delete this No! “Carbonara is ‘an American dish born in Italy’ and it wasn’t born until the second world war. The story that most experts agree on is that an Italian chef, Renato Gualandi, first made it in 1944 at a dinner in Riccione for the US army with guests including Harold Macmillan.” And “before the 1960s, wheels of parmesan cheese weighed only about 10kg (as opposed to the hefty 40kg wheels we know today) and were encased in a thick black crust. Its texture was fatter and softer than it is nowadays. ‘Some even say that this cheese, as a sign of quality, had to squeeze out a drop of milk when pressed,’ Grandi says. ‘Its exact modern-day match is Wisconsin parmesan.’” Italy was a poor country until after WWII, when it saw in half a decade “the same kind of progress that the UK had witnessed over the course of a century during the Industrial Revolution.” That kind of abundance fuelled a fury of extravagant culinary creativity and alongside it myth making. (The “correct” formulations of which were largely not pinned down until the 1980s.) https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b64c https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b...
  - OfficeChad 2y ago
    [dead]
- MrSkelter 2y ago
  This is deceptive. It’s a tautology. Pizza - as Americans define it - is American. You may as well say Orange Chicken is - shockingly - not Chinese. Most Italian food served in the US is American food made by immigrants. Just as Indian food in the Uk is. Italian American food is heavier, much more meat based, and drowning in cheese and garlic in a way Italian food isn’t. Pizza is Italian. Period. American style pizza is a riff on that which has become popular outside the US. However claiming that pizza is American is akin to saying Chinese food is. Nonsense.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Pizza is Italian. Period. American style pizza is a riff on that Sure, do you have a contemporaneous source? Because the food historians who have traced its history through primary sources do, and they point to one story: pizza marinara and its variants in Naples in the 18th and 19th centuries, which had almost no cheese, sometimes no sauce (it wasn’t marinara then), and—crucially—wasn’t heated nearly as much as today’s Neapolitan pizzas, and the modern Italian pizza after WWII. Also, I didn’t say pizza is American. I said it’s a post-War invention. Certainly in its proliferation across Italy, and strongly influenced by America’s Italians. And I’m referring to the pizza one gets in Italy. (I’m on the Gulf of Napoli for the umpteenth time in a week.) American pizza is distinct, and also different from its own pre-war form.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- g15jv2dp 2y ago
  I don't have access to the FT article, which looks to be a random opinion piece. But the Wikipedia article contradicts what you claim. > Before the 1940s, pizza consumption was limited mostly to Italian Americans. Following World War II, veterans returning from the Italian Campaign, who were introduced to Italy's native cuisine, proved a ready market for pizza in particular How could veterans bring pizza back the US if somehow pizza was unknown in Italy? That's absurd. I really don't get why some Americans feel this need to claim that everything popular originates in the US.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > looks to be a random opinion piece It’s not, though it is a sceptical review of an Italian academic’s work. (How did you conclude it’s an opinion piece? It’s not even in the URL.) > Following World War II, veterans returning from the Italian Campaign, who were introduced to Italy's native cuisine, proved a ready market for pizza in particular I forgot the term, but it’s a food that’s cross influenced itself. Pizza obviously existed in America before WWII. We have documented evidence of American pizzerias, e.g. in New York back to 1905, opened by a Neapolitan [1]. Italian Americans in Italy, influenced by the American version, spurred pizza’s development and expansion across the peninsula. Those soldiers (and their comrades) returning to America influenced our version and in turn spurred its expansion across America. > don't get why some Americans feel this need to claim that everything popular originates in the US I said it’s a post-WWII invention and was strongly influenced by America. Not that it originated here. Pizza was born in Italy. What Italians call classic pizza today is a post-WWII invention, by Italians, in Italy, strongly influenced by the way it’s cooked in America. Chief among the changes was the temperature at which it is cooked. (Something they dialled up further than we did.) For whatever reason, pizza is a food that everyone makes up myths around. This is as true in New York or Chicago as in Italy. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%E2%80%93style_pizza https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%E2%80%93style_pizza
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      > I forgot the term, but it’s a food that’s cross influenced itself. The term is noted in the "history of pizza" wikipedia article you linked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_effect > I really don’t see how saying it’s a post-WWII invention and was strongly influenced by America means it originated here. > Pizza was born in Italy. What Italians call classic pizza today is a post-WWII invention, by Italians, in Italy, strongly influenced by the way it’s cooked in America. This doesn't really make sense; an object that a 19th-century Italian would have called a "pizza" would not be called a "pizza" by anyone today. The word existed, but the concept didn't. However, while a modern "classic Neapolitan pizza" is clearly not the same kind of thing as a 19th-century Neapolitan pizza, it just as clearly is the same thing as a 20th-century American pizza. Flatbreads eaten with other foods placed on top of them are a common thing, and wikipedia's "history of pizza" page makes sure to say that that's where the history of pizza begins, but that's not really a defensible idea either; there is no continuity between various parallel "bread, but with flavorful foods at the same time" meals from across the world and pizza. If Achaemenid soldiers baked flatbread with cheese on it, and then that practice died out, and over a thousand years later Italian peasants put vegetables on their flatbread... why would we say the extinct Persian food is an ancestor of the Italian one? If a bunch of American soldiers, raised to believe that pizza is an Italian food, visit Italy and learn that nobody there makes, eats, or sells pizza, what can we say about where pizza was born? The lesson there is that pizza is about as Italian as crab Rangoon is Burmese.
- notorandit 2y ago
  Pizza Is depicted in a few frescos in Pompeii and is also mentioned in Virigl's Aeneid. It's not a modern invention.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Pizza Is depicted in a few frescos in Pompeii Nope [1]. (I’ve seen it. This is the view of on-site historians.) > and is also mentioned in Virigl's Aeneid Indirectly, as trenchers [2]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/06/28/1184724633/pizza-a-wall-painting-pompeii https://www.npr.org/2023/06/28/1184724633/pizza-a-wall-paint... [2] https://publish.illinois.edu/litlanglibrary/2020/07/23/the-aeneid-has-pizza/ https://publish.illinois.edu/litlanglibrary/2020/07/23/the-a...
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
They are pretty big in New York. We take pizza fairly seriously. There’s a pizza shop on every block. American-style pizza was invented in NYC. Pretty different from Neapolitan pizza, although many shops sell what they call “Neapolitan-style” pies, that are still pretty different from the original.
QuesnayJr 2y ago
There's lots of terrible pizza in Italy, but Domino's probably has the wrong business model. A regular restaurant will have excellent pizza, of course, but if you go to one of those little storefront places that are open between 2 and 5, when the regular restaurants are closed, there's a good chance the pizza will make Domino's look good. I don't think Domino's is well-positioned to compete with those, though.
- MrSkelter 2y ago
  99% of pizza in New York is garbage. I live there a lot of the time. Just because locals think it’s okay doesn’t mean it’s good. People like McDonalds and that food is garbage. New York’s pizza pride is entirely misplaced.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- detritus 2y ago
  I don't know why you're being down voted, there are two places in my partner's home town in Italy that sell objectively mediocre pizza, but are invariably busy because of location and convenience. It's just, a different type of convenience to Dominoes - buy by the slice and sit by the piazza/street to eat.
kalleboo 2y ago
The article is poorly-written but it sounds like Domino's was differentiating by introducing delivery pizza to Italy. When COVID hit, local pizzerias were also forced to introduce delivery to survive, and then Domino's lost it's differentiation because before if you were lazy and wanted pizza you got Domino's, but now you have local, better, options. But the article only tangentially touches on the actual reasons so I'm not sure if that's an accurate description.
- bonzini 2y ago
  Pizza delivery has been available in Italy since the 90s at least. Not as common as it is now, with every restaurant offering it, but it definitely existed even in small towns.
k_bx 2y ago
How can Starbucks be so popular with such terrible coffee? Why McDonalds still profitable in Italy and other places famous for great food? I'm actually surprised Domino's wasn't a success. There's something about the network effect and fast delivery that makes these projects thrive.
- albertopv 2y ago
  McDonald in Italy is quite different than US one, tried both. First time I went to an italian McD was 27yo in Bologna and it was terrible, now quality improved a lot, much better than McD I went in US.
- omnimus 2y ago
  Coffee is mostly terrible in Italy. Even Starbucks might be better than the median. McDonalds is junk food - everybody sometimes craves that and it has little tradition in Italy. But pizza? Italy is so traditional with food that its hard to find anything else than pasta and pizza. So Dominos was competing with like 50% of all food vendors.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Nemrod67 2y ago
    "Coffee is mostly terrible in Italy" say what?
    - dzhiurgis 2y ago
      Might be it's just not something we are used to in NZ/AU - in Italy you get like 20ml of espresso or if it's cappuccino it's something like 50ml. Quality will be ok. But I can't remember getting 100-200ml drink (i.e. cortado, flat white) for longer enjoyment.
  - albertopv 2y ago
    Lol. Tried coffee in Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Netherlands, USA, Mexico... Only decent coffee was made by italian machines. Starbucks coffee is pure shit compared to an average italian one, literally very hot garbage water.
EB-Barrington 2y ago
[dead]
dzhiurgis 2y ago
> it's extremely better than Dominos Yes when compared with napolitana, but average pizza in Italy is just as meh. Hotdog pizza at least tried to innovate. NY style pizza is on par with napolitana (and far better value for money). Italy gets all of its pepperoni from US. What never ceases to entertain me how much Italians try to get offended by it or how pizza experts try to disagree with me.
simonebrunozzi 2y ago
> why would anyone pay more money to get an inferior Pizza? For the same reason that Starbucks exists in Italy, or Portugal, it is way more expensive, provides worse quality, and yet it managed to succeed.

by 7bit 2y ago

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Pizza is readily available everywhere in Italy, and the quality is not just a little higher Note that the modern Italian pizza, including in Napoli, is a post-War invention [1]. “Most Italians hadn’t heard of pizza until the 1950s;” after “Italian-American soldiers were sent to Sicily and travelled up the Italian peninsula, they wrote home in disbelief: there were no pizzerias” [2]. (19th-century pizza marinara had little t9 no cheese, for instance.) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza [2] https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b64c https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b...

HyulianGrader 2y ago
[flagged]
- kleiba 2y ago
  Why?
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    Pointing out that pizza was obviously developed in the United States would tend to undermine the idea that Italy is "the home of pizza".
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Please delete this No! “Carbonara is ‘an American dish born in Italy’ and it wasn’t born until the second world war. The story that most experts agree on is that an Italian chef, Renato Gualandi, first made it in 1944 at a dinner in Riccione for the US army with guests including Harold Macmillan.” And “before the 1960s, wheels of parmesan cheese weighed only about 10kg (as opposed to the hefty 40kg wheels we know today) and were encased in a thick black crust. Its texture was fatter and softer than it is nowadays. ‘Some even say that this cheese, as a sign of quality, had to squeeze out a drop of milk when pressed,’ Grandi says. ‘Its exact modern-day match is Wisconsin parmesan.’” Italy was a poor country until after WWII, when it saw in half a decade “the same kind of progress that the UK had witnessed over the course of a century during the Industrial Revolution.” That kind of abundance fuelled a fury of extravagant culinary creativity and alongside it myth making. (The “correct” formulations of which were largely not pinned down until the 1980s.) https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b64c https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b...
- OfficeChad 2y ago
  [dead]
MrSkelter 2y ago
This is deceptive. It’s a tautology. Pizza - as Americans define it - is American. You may as well say Orange Chicken is - shockingly - not Chinese. Most Italian food served in the US is American food made by immigrants. Just as Indian food in the Uk is. Italian American food is heavier, much more meat based, and drowning in cheese and garlic in a way Italian food isn’t. Pizza is Italian. Period. American style pizza is a riff on that which has become popular outside the US. However claiming that pizza is American is akin to saying Chinese food is. Nonsense.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Pizza is Italian. Period. American style pizza is a riff on that Sure, do you have a contemporaneous source? Because the food historians who have traced its history through primary sources do, and they point to one story: pizza marinara and its variants in Naples in the 18th and 19th centuries, which had almost no cheese, sometimes no sauce (it wasn’t marinara then), and—crucially—wasn’t heated nearly as much as today’s Neapolitan pizzas, and the modern Italian pizza after WWII. Also, I didn’t say pizza is American. I said it’s a post-War invention. Certainly in its proliferation across Italy, and strongly influenced by America’s Italians. And I’m referring to the pizza one gets in Italy. (I’m on the Gulf of Napoli for the umpteenth time in a week.) American pizza is distinct, and also different from its own pre-war form.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
g15jv2dp 2y ago
I don't have access to the FT article, which looks to be a random opinion piece. But the Wikipedia article contradicts what you claim. > Before the 1940s, pizza consumption was limited mostly to Italian Americans. Following World War II, veterans returning from the Italian Campaign, who were introduced to Italy's native cuisine, proved a ready market for pizza in particular How could veterans bring pizza back the US if somehow pizza was unknown in Italy? That's absurd. I really don't get why some Americans feel this need to claim that everything popular originates in the US.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > looks to be a random opinion piece It’s not, though it is a sceptical review of an Italian academic’s work. (How did you conclude it’s an opinion piece? It’s not even in the URL.) > Following World War II, veterans returning from the Italian Campaign, who were introduced to Italy's native cuisine, proved a ready market for pizza in particular I forgot the term, but it’s a food that’s cross influenced itself. Pizza obviously existed in America before WWII. We have documented evidence of American pizzerias, e.g. in New York back to 1905, opened by a Neapolitan [1]. Italian Americans in Italy, influenced by the American version, spurred pizza’s development and expansion across the peninsula. Those soldiers (and their comrades) returning to America influenced our version and in turn spurred its expansion across America. > don't get why some Americans feel this need to claim that everything popular originates in the US I said it’s a post-WWII invention and was strongly influenced by America. Not that it originated here. Pizza was born in Italy. What Italians call classic pizza today is a post-WWII invention, by Italians, in Italy, strongly influenced by the way it’s cooked in America. Chief among the changes was the temperature at which it is cooked. (Something they dialled up further than we did.) For whatever reason, pizza is a food that everyone makes up myths around. This is as true in New York or Chicago as in Italy. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%E2%80%93style_pizza https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%E2%80%93style_pizza
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > I forgot the term, but it’s a food that’s cross influenced itself. The term is noted in the "history of pizza" wikipedia article you linked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_effect > I really don’t see how saying it’s a post-WWII invention and was strongly influenced by America means it originated here. > Pizza was born in Italy. What Italians call classic pizza today is a post-WWII invention, by Italians, in Italy, strongly influenced by the way it’s cooked in America. This doesn't really make sense; an object that a 19th-century Italian would have called a "pizza" would not be called a "pizza" by anyone today. The word existed, but the concept didn't. However, while a modern "classic Neapolitan pizza" is clearly not the same kind of thing as a 19th-century Neapolitan pizza, it just as clearly is the same thing as a 20th-century American pizza. Flatbreads eaten with other foods placed on top of them are a common thing, and wikipedia's "history of pizza" page makes sure to say that that's where the history of pizza begins, but that's not really a defensible idea either; there is no continuity between various parallel "bread, but with flavorful foods at the same time" meals from across the world and pizza. If Achaemenid soldiers baked flatbread with cheese on it, and then that practice died out, and over a thousand years later Italian peasants put vegetables on their flatbread... why would we say the extinct Persian food is an ancestor of the Italian one? If a bunch of American soldiers, raised to believe that pizza is an Italian food, visit Italy and learn that nobody there makes, eats, or sells pizza, what can we say about where pizza was born? The lesson there is that pizza is about as Italian as crab Rangoon is Burmese.
notorandit 2y ago
Pizza Is depicted in a few frescos in Pompeii and is also mentioned in Virigl's Aeneid. It's not a modern invention.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Pizza Is depicted in a few frescos in Pompeii Nope [1]. (I’ve seen it. This is the view of on-site historians.) > and is also mentioned in Virigl's Aeneid Indirectly, as trenchers [2]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/06/28/1184724633/pizza-a-wall-painting-pompeii https://www.npr.org/2023/06/28/1184724633/pizza-a-wall-paint... [2] https://publish.illinois.edu/litlanglibrary/2020/07/23/the-aeneid-has-pizza/ https://publish.illinois.edu/litlanglibrary/2020/07/23/the-a...

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago

They are pretty big in New York. We take pizza fairly seriously. There’s a pizza shop on every block. American-style pizza was invented in NYC. Pretty different from Neapolitan pizza, although many shops sell what they call “Neapolitan-style” pies, that are still pretty different from the original.

QuesnayJr 2y ago

There's lots of terrible pizza in Italy, but Domino's probably has the wrong business model. A regular restaurant will have excellent pizza, of course, but if you go to one of those little storefront places that are open between 2 and 5, when the regular restaurants are closed, there's a good chance the pizza will make Domino's look good. I don't think Domino's is well-positioned to compete with those, though.

MrSkelter 2y ago
99% of pizza in New York is garbage. I live there a lot of the time. Just because locals think it’s okay doesn’t mean it’s good. People like McDonalds and that food is garbage. New York’s pizza pride is entirely misplaced.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
detritus 2y ago
I don't know why you're being down voted, there are two places in my partner's home town in Italy that sell objectively mediocre pizza, but are invariably busy because of location and convenience. It's just, a different type of convenience to Dominoes - buy by the slice and sit by the piazza/street to eat.

kalleboo 2y ago

The article is poorly-written but it sounds like Domino's was differentiating by introducing delivery pizza to Italy. When COVID hit, local pizzerias were also forced to introduce delivery to survive, and then Domino's lost it's differentiation because before if you were lazy and wanted pizza you got Domino's, but now you have local, better, options. But the article only tangentially touches on the actual reasons so I'm not sure if that's an accurate description.

bonzini 2y ago
Pizza delivery has been available in Italy since the 90s at least. Not as common as it is now, with every restaurant offering it, but it definitely existed even in small towns.

k_bx 2y ago

How can Starbucks be so popular with such terrible coffee? Why McDonalds still profitable in Italy and other places famous for great food? I'm actually surprised Domino's wasn't a success. There's something about the network effect and fast delivery that makes these projects thrive.

albertopv 2y ago
McDonald in Italy is quite different than US one, tried both. First time I went to an italian McD was 27yo in Bologna and it was terrible, now quality improved a lot, much better than McD I went in US.
omnimus 2y ago
Coffee is mostly terrible in Italy. Even Starbucks might be better than the median. McDonalds is junk food - everybody sometimes craves that and it has little tradition in Italy. But pizza? Italy is so traditional with food that its hard to find anything else than pasta and pizza. So Dominos was competing with like 50% of all food vendors.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Nemrod67 2y ago
  "Coffee is mostly terrible in Italy" say what?
  - dzhiurgis 2y ago
    Might be it's just not something we are used to in NZ/AU - in Italy you get like 20ml of espresso or if it's cappuccino it's something like 50ml. Quality will be ok. But I can't remember getting 100-200ml drink (i.e. cortado, flat white) for longer enjoyment.
- albertopv 2y ago
  Lol. Tried coffee in Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Netherlands, USA, Mexico... Only decent coffee was made by italian machines. Starbucks coffee is pure shit compared to an average italian one, literally very hot garbage water.

EB-Barrington 2y ago

[dead]

dzhiurgis 2y ago

> it's extremely better than Dominos Yes when compared with napolitana, but average pizza in Italy is just as meh. Hotdog pizza at least tried to innovate. NY style pizza is on par with napolitana (and far better value for money). Italy gets all of its pepperoni from US. What never ceases to entertain me how much Italians try to get offended by it or how pizza experts try to disagree with me.

simonebrunozzi 2y ago

> why would anyone pay more money to get an inferior Pizza? For the same reason that Starbucks exists in Italy, or Portugal, it is way more expensive, provides worse quality, and yet it managed to succeed.