As a Liberal White, I am sitting my pale ass down and I'm listening to this NPR special. I am also reposting it to signal that I am one of the "good ones"
There are pizza-like foods that have appeared all over the world throughout time.
Typically they were commoner foods that nobody ever paid much attention too. They likely all date back to the same ancient idea of throwing stuff on top of or inside of a flatbread of some sort.
The real reason that Pizza became the definitive topped flatbread pie was simply because the Italian immigrants fleeing fascism brought it with them to the US and sold it as NYC street food. NYC, being a major world shipping hub, it rapidly spread all over the world as a dominant food.
As a note, the leading Asian flatbread pies were a form of dumpling wrappers with the edges pressed to make a flat circle filled with meat. They were then served steamed, baked or deep fried.
They were sometimes cut into triangles before cooking, sometimes after.
Comments
....wait .
Nope, only pizza...
This checks out.
Typically they were commoner foods that nobody ever paid much attention too. They likely all date back to the same ancient idea of throwing stuff on top of or inside of a flatbread of some sort.
Seriously, if you look back, every country on earth had flatbread with stuff piled on top since the stone age.
They were sometimes cut into triangles before cooking, sometimes after.
If you really think about it, Ravioli is Pizza too!