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Comment by rincewind | Hacker News Reader

I have tried to find the roots of this "pizza effect" myth, but all I could find is somebody making a point about mindfulness meditation and yoga, and I am not even sure how it holds up WRT yoga, because Indian yogis who do not-Western yoga are still a thing.

WRT pizza, it's clearly false. Pizza was a thing in Italy before World War II and it spread through Europe from Italy, not from the USA. You can trace the history of many pizzerias in Italy back far further than the "pizza effect" would have you believe, so you can easily de-bunk it by going to the web site of a pizza place in Napoli.

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Agreed, it’s false. Pizza in Italy (and in the rest of Europe, for that matter) is very little like pizza in the US.

Amusingly, however, while it’s influence on the food itself is at the very least debatable, the influence of the US on how pizza is consumed is in fact very real: the fact that Italians nowadays drink beer with their pizza is something they learned from American GIs in WWII who brought the practice over from home.

Before that time, there was no overlap between Italians who drank beer (Northerners) and Italians who ate pizza (Southerners). Thanks the American soldiers Southerners learned to drink beer and Northerners learned about pizza.

People who discuss the pizza effect are well aware that it started in Italy. The interesting “effect” part is that the version that is popular now in Italy was heavily influenced by the development of pizza in, largely, New York, by Italian immigrants. It was re-imported back into Italy. It’s a cautionary tale for people who fret about cultural appropriation and a reminder that the idea of the “original” or “authentic“ version of something is often more complicated than we imagine.

One of the most popular if not the most popular versions of pizzas in Italy is the pizza margherita (and in fact a lot of pizzas are just margheritas with additional toppings).

Pizza margherita existed in the I̶X̶X̶ XIX century already in its modern form.

I’m not familiar with this century.

fixed /facepalm

Thought so, but wasn’t sure. I was fond of the pizza effect story, and am holding on to the hope that it’s at least partly true. But you supply a powerful counter-fact.

I wish we stopped using the Roman numerals. (On the other hand, they are good for coding interviews, and MMXXII looks pretty!)

I have trouble believing this, given that I have tasted pizza from both places and it is not alike.

Yeah, this is the version that is not true

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