Slice
Happy Birthday, Dear Pizza
As you may be aware, pizza as we know it in the United States is celebrating its centennial this year. The first licensed pizzeria in the country was Lombardi's, whose pizzaiolo-proprietor, Gennaro Lombardi, hung out his slice shingle in 1905 on Spring Street. This factoid did not go unnoticed by CBS News, which brings the noise with a piece on our favorite food's birthday:
Chef Bobby Flay, a contributor to CBS News Sunday Morning, recently took a stroll with his fellow New Yorker, Ed Levine, a food critic and author of Pizza: A Slice of Heaven: The Ultimate Pizza Guide and Companion (available at amazon.com), a new guide to buying and baking pizza — a book, he says, that was more than 1,000 slices in-the-making.Of course, as they walked, they ate — guess what? — pizza! As Levine says: "It's one of the great walking lunches."
During their pizza tour, Flay and Levine hit Totonno's, where they talked to Lawrence Cimineri:
Flay: "So for 81 years, same store, same oven?"Cimineri: "Same oven, same store, same equipment, even."
Flay: "Same pizza?"
Cimineri: "And pizza."
Flay: "What's the secret to your pizza? Why is it —
Cimineri: "Well, if it's a secret I can't tell you."
Flay: "It is a secret?"
Cimineri: "It's really not. Just fresh ingredients. Really high-quality ingredients in a coal oven."
Happy 100th Birthday, Pizza! [CBS News]