Pizza

The cake is a ubiquitous symbol of Italian and American cuisine. Oven, thin crust or thick, round or square mass is a common favorite throughout the United States, with many regional variations.

The traditional cake is the pizza Napolitano, or Neapolitan pizza. Made of strong flour, the dough is often kneaded by hand and then rolled flat and thin without a rolling pin. The pizza is cooked on a hot stone oven firewood sixty to ninety seconds and is removed when it is soft and fragrant. Common varieties of Neapolitan pizza include marinara, made with tomatoes, olive oil, oregano, garlic, and margherita, made with fresh leaves, olive oil, tomato and mozzarella cheese basil.

New York was home to the first pizzeria in the United States, opened in Little Italy in 1905 by Gennaro Lombardi. It is no wonder, then, that New York style pizza dominates in the northeastern part of the country. It is thin and with a thin layer of sauce and grated cheese crust. The dough is whipped by hand, making the large, thin cake. As a result, I was served sliced, traditionally eight, which are often eaten folded in half. It can be served with any number of ingredients, including more than pepperoni, popular ingredient in the United States, or as a "white pizza", which does not include tomato sauce and is made with a variety of cheeses such as mozzarella and ricotta.

Chicago is also home to a variety of pizzas. Chicago style pizza is deep dish meaning is made in a pan with the crust formed by the sides, or even with two crusts and sauce between, a supposed "stuffed" pizza. The ingredients are "reversed" in a Chicago pizza, with cheese first and then the sauce. This particular form of pizza was invented in 1943 at Pizzeria Uno in the River North neighborhood of Chicago.

The Midwest also plays host to the St. Louis style pizza. This thin-crust delicacy is made with local cheese instead of mozzarella provel and very crisp. Heavily seasoned with oregano and other spices, with a slightly sweet sauce, it is difficult to fold the crust and is often cut into squares, instead of served in slices.

A Hawaiian pizza is an American invention that has nothing to with Hawaii save that one of the main ingredients is pineapple. The pineapple is put atop the pizza, along with Canadian bacon, which gives a very sweet very different closer to the taste of original Italian pizzas. Hawaiian pizza is very common in the western United States.

In fact, a number of esoteric pizzas are common on the West Coast, and pizza "gourmet" is often referred to as pizza "California Style". This is an example of fusion cuisine, and many of the pizzas go far beyond the common tomato sauce and cheese. Thai pizza, for example, can include bean sprouts and peanut sauce, while breakfast pizza, as the name implies, may be topped with bacon and scrambled eggs. As a food "gourmet", California pizzas are often individual sized, serving two people at most and are not cut in slices like other common types of Piza.