STATESIDE STORIES: PIZZA PIZZAZ!

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Americans have invented their own versions of this Italian treat called pizza, and made fortunes on them. Besides, a town without a pizza parlor is a town without soul!

By Mary Foran

It’s incredible what Americans have done with the Italian pizza, and I must say, quite delicious! Anyone who has gone to Italy knows that Italian pizza is quite different and traditional. Americans, on the other hand, have invented their own versions of this Italian treat, and made fortunes on them at the same time.

The American pizza is ubiquitous, an all-in-one meal served with your favorite beer or soda pop. Special apps on smart phones make it possible to order delivered pizza for meetings, reunions and parties any time of the day or night.

Who would have thought that there would be a chicken, barbecue sauce and bacon pizza or a Canadian Bacon and Pineapple pizza, among so many others? Pizza parlors vie with each other to serve the most outrageous toppings and the most additions such as chicken wings and bread sticks. Some parlors have all-you-can-eat buffets with never-ending salad bars and refillable pop. Pizza has become the All-American food.

Italian restaurants try to keep to tradition and serve spaghetti and meatballs and chicken and eggplant parmagiana for example. But the oven-baked hand-tossed pizzas they serve aren’t as appreciated as they could be by an American pizza public used to such amazing variety in toppings.

In Madrid, you can taste-test an American pizza at the downtown Pizza Hut. And don’t say you don’t like it until you’ve tried it. There’s a lot to be said about American ingenuity when it comes to pizza.

Italian cuisine vies with Mexican cuisine and Chinese cuisine as America’s favorite ethnic food. Spanish tapas bars are becoming popular too among those who know the difference between Mexican food and Spanish food.

But even vegetarians have found pizza to their liking, and a town without a pizza parlor is a town without soul.