Breakfast Apizza?

From USA Today:

Folks sick of soggy cereal and bland bagels soon may get a morning pie-in-the-face: breakfast pizza. That's right, pizza with your morning coffee.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2005-12-07-pizza-breakfast_x.htm

If I eat pizza for breakfast, it'll be the cold left overs from last night. I'd rather go to Panera's and have a spinach & artichoke or spinach & bacon souffle' since real men eat quiche for breakfast.

quote:

Originally posted by chicagostyledog

If I eat pizza for breakfast, it'll be the cold left overs from last night. I'd rather go to Panera's and have a spinach & artichoke or spinach & bacon souffle' since real men eat quiche for breakfast.

Panera has breakfasts? How long has that been going on? I stop in a couple of times a month to get a loaf of asiago cheese bread or a rosemary-onion focaccia.

I remember seeing breakfast pizza for the first time at Chicago's O Hare airport back in 1994.

Happy Joe's
Scary Name for a Pizza place
"Whitty" an even scarier name for a "founder"

As I said before, if the guy behind the counter doesn't look like Danny De Vito then I know the Pizza is going to suck.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Hoffman

quote:

Originally posted by chicagostyledog

If I eat pizza for breakfast, it'll be the cold left overs from last night. I'd rather go to Panera's and have a spinach & artichoke or spinach & bacon souffle' since real men eat quiche for breakfast.

Panera has breakfasts? How long has that been going on? I stop in a couple of times a month to get a loaf of asiago cheese bread or a rosemary-onion focaccia.

The baked egg souffle's are served until 10:30am. They're usually sold out by 10:00am at our local Panera's.

You mean you don't eat a hard roll and butter for breakfast?
The Bear

quote:

Originally posted by ScreenBear

You mean you don't eat a hard roll and butter for breakfast?
The Bear

If you're talking to me, the answer is a forlorn no. There are no hard rolls in central Ohio, and to even ask for one, with butter, yet, would likely mean a trip to the nuthouse in a straightjacket.

I'm still trying to figure out why you call pizza, Apizza? What's the deal? I just call it a pizza. How do you order Apizza from a place- may i order an Apizza? Just sounds wrong to me.

Michael,
As you may know, a hard roll and butter and coffee is practically the state breakfast in N.J. I used to have mine with tomato and black pepper on it.

Well, I guess it's all a tradeoff. I can't get that fried bologna sandwich in Waldo. At least not in the immediate future.

So I finally had the deli slice me a piece of Boar's Head pork and beef bologna, about 3/8" thick, and fried it in a little olive oil. I was, however, able to put it on a toasted hard roll, also referred to as a Jewish roll in N.J.

Had it with mustard and emerald green relish. It might have been better with cheese, but I hadn't had fried bologna since I was a kid. So I wanted to get as much of the individual taste as possible.

Slightly more popular in my youth was fried salami, preferably Hebrew National or Best Provisions (a local co. still in business) with eggs. But that's a whole 'nother story.
The Bear

quote:

Originally posted by jeepguy

I'm still trying to figure out why you call pizza, Apizza? What's the deal? I just call it a pizza. How do you order Apizza from a place- may i order an Apizza? Just sounds wrong to me.

Apizza, pronounced ah-BEETS, is the way you say it when referring to a tomato pie that is made in the Neopolitan manner.

Salami and eggs? Standard where I grew up in Connecticut. I still make it myself. Yes,, by the way, I always knew hard rolls as Jewish rolls, but I did not know it was a standard breakfast in New jersey.

7-11's in New Jersey have large baskets full of buttered hard rolls at the ready each morn for the folks in a hurry who just dash in, grab 'em, make some coffee and then bring the minor kaboodle to eat at their desk.

Also as popular is the Taylor Ham and egg or Taylor Ham and grilled cheese on a hard roll. But you have to go to either the diner or a luncheonette for that. I used to get the Taylor Ham on Hard Roll with melted mozzarella. I'm tellin' yuh, 'tis a good 'un.

I know Taylor Ham is a Jersey thing, with a slight seepage into Pa. In return, their proclivity for Scrapple penetrates our borders.

Any call for Taylor Ham in Connecticut? Mailing rolls of the stuff to expat New Jerseyans throughout the U.S. has become a small cottage industry here.

Maybe when I finally get up to Vermont for good, someone will mail me some.
The Bear

I buy Taylor ham here in Ohio, although it's labeled Taylor Pork Roll, in the supermarket here. I love the stuff. I first had it at the 44 Diner off Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania.

I buy it in Knoxville @ Fresh Market, a grocery. I'd never heard of it until reading about it on roadfood.

Hmm. Wow, I did not know that. What's next to emigrate...the Italian Hot Dog?
The Bear

quote:

Originally posted by jeepguy

I'm still trying to figure out why you call pizza, Apizza? What's the deal? I just call it a pizza. How do you order Apizza from a place- may i order an Apizza? Just sounds wrong to me.

It sounds wrong because it is wrong in 21st century America. At one time, a very long time ago, a few Italian American restauranteurs used their own accents and said "aBEETZ", which was anglicized to "PEETzah". Now, 99.999% of the world says PIZZA, including all of Italy.

That happened to my grandfather. Their teacher didn't speak Italian & the kids didn't speak much English. The teacher didn't know my grandfather's name, so she asked his sister "What is his name?" Blank stare. "What is his name?" Blank stare. "What does your mother call him?" My great aunt replied, "San-DU", which was a nickname for Sanducci, my grandfather's name. The teacher thought she said, "Xander", short for Alexander. To this day, he is Alexander to most of the world.

So back to the breakfast pizza. My grandmother (Sandu's wife) has been making it for breakfast on Christmas morning ever since I can remember. One with ham, one with bacon. Her regular pizza crust, oil the pan, poke the crust, then bake it, then put the scrambled eggs, meat & freshly grated parmesan & a little olive oil & bake til everything's warm & cheese is melted & everything is bubbly. YUMMMMM.

Also, CSD: now that you have vouched for them I may try Panera's for breakfast. I haven't been there since the morning they told me they no longer had their spinach parmesan bagels & I almost cried. And as soon as I have another day off that I can spend for fun & not @ Mayo Clinic, we will have to have a corned beef sandwich @ Jake's.

quote:

Originally posted by stricken_detective

Also, CSD: And as soon as I have another day off that I can spend for fun & not @ Mayo Clinic, we will have to have a corned beef sandwich @ Jake's.

Drop me an e-mail when you're ready.

CSD

quote:

Originally posted by Pigiron
It sounds wrong because it is wrong in 21st century America. At one time, a very long time ago, a few Italian American restauranteurs used their own accents and said "aBEETZ", which was anglicized to "PEETzah". Now, 99.999% of the world says PIZZA, including all of Italy.

As kids we used to ask my Sicilian grandmother to say pizza all the time, and just think it was sooooo funny that she called it aBEETZ, just as you say. She would be happy to humor us idiots. She also said sangwich, earl (oil), terlet and many other gems.

One of the pizza joints in midtown Manhattan has a breakfast pizza that my trading desk orders after a long night out. It contains like 40 eggs, sausage and cheese, but sure goes a long way to cure that hangover !

When i was a kid and the Italian Toamto Pie was just starting to appear outside of Italian neighborhoods, the sign outside a pace and the menu inside always said "Apizza" (this was in the Hudson Valley). Sometime after WWII the "A" began to disappear and by about 1950 it was entirely gone - although I once in a great while see it on menus. And I have seen " 'pizza" - the " ' " I have thought to be a replacement for the missing "A".

Cheers, John

quote:

Originally posted by Pigiron

quote:

Originally posted by jeepguy

I'm still trying to figure out why you call pizza, Apizza? What's the deal? I just call it a pizza. How do you order Apizza from a place- may i order an Apizza? Just sounds wrong to me.

It sounds wrong because it is wrong in 21st century America. At one time, a very long time ago, a few Italian American restauranteurs used their own accents and said "aBEETZ", which was anglicized to "PEETzah". Now, 99.999% of the world says PIZZA, including all of Italy.

I have news for you, not that I expect you to accept it, but that's your problem. It is still apizza. Americans dropped the a, but then, Americans can't even settle on the name for certain types of lettuce. It is a tomato pie and it is still spelled apizza in the holy land of tomato pies, New Haven. Americans, by the way, are beieved to have started calling tomato pies pizza because of the name for a place that bakes such pies -- the pizzeria. By the way, pizza in Italian means point or peak.

Not to belabor the point, but as someone who has a degree in Italian, in addition to having worked in Italy, and was raised speaking it at home, I'm going to add a point.

Yes, the word pizza does apparently come from the verb "pizzicare" (and as Michael wrote, it does refer to point).

But the issue with the term "apizza" is not that Americans "dropped the a." It was never a part of the word in the first place...what happened was (and is) that the grammatical definite article for feminine nouns in many Southern Italian dialects is not "la" (as in standard Italian) but "a" (as we have actually in modern Portuguese). Hence, "a pizza" would really mean "la pizza."

In addition, regional pronunciation in Italy frequently gives us examples of routine dropping of the ultimate syllable of a word if it ends in a vowel. For example, this is why the pronunciation would be closer to "abeetz" than "apizza": the final "a" would have been dropped in speaking.

In a like manner, we can still hear today Italian Americans refer to prosciutto and mozzarella as "proshoot" and "mozzarell."

quote:

Originally posted by tacchino

Not to belabor the point, but as someone who has a degree in Italian, in addition to having worked in Italy, and was raised speaking it at home, I'm going to add a point.

Yes, the word pizza does apparently come from the verb "pizzicare" (and as Michael wrote, it does refer to point).

But the issue with the term "apizza" is not that Americans "dropped the a." It was never a part of the word in the first place...what happened was (and is) that the grammatical definite article for feminine nouns in many Southern Italian dialects is not "la" (as in standard Italian) but "a" (as we have actually in modern Portuguese). Hence, "a pizza" would really mean "la pizza."

In addition, regional pronunciation in Italy frequently gives us examples of routine dropping of the ultimate syllable of a word if it ends in a vowel. For example, this is why the pronunciation would be closer to "abeetz" than "apizza": the final "a" would have been dropped in speaking.

In a like manner, we can still hear today Italian Americans refer to prosciutto and mozzarella as "proshoot" and "mozzarell."

Interesting and very well put, Mr. Turkey

quote:

Originally posted by tacchino

Not to belabor the point, but as someone who has a degree in Italian, in addition to having worked in Italy, and was raised speaking it at home, I'm going to add a point.

Yes, the word pizza does apparently come from the verb "pizzicare" (and as Michael wrote, it does refer to point).

But the issue with the term "apizza" is not that Americans "dropped the a." It was never a part of the word in the first place...what happened was (and is) that the grammatical definite article for feminine nouns in many Southern Italian dialects is not "la" (as in standard Italian) but "a" (as we have actually in modern Portuguese). Hence, "a pizza" would really mean "la pizza."

In addition, regional pronunciation in Italy frequently gives us examples of routine dropping of the ultimate syllable of a word if it ends in a vowel. For example, this is why the pronunciation would be closer to "abeetz" than "apizza": the final "a" would have been dropped in speaking.

In a like manner, we can still hear today Italian Americans refer to prosciutto and mozzarella as "proshoot" and "mozzarell."

Actually, for the Americans getting their tomato pies for the first time the "a" was part of the word as they knew it, because that's the way the people they were getting it from pronounced it, as you have pointed out. Oh, and you forgot ska-MOATZ and mah-ni-GOAT for scamorze and manicotti.

By the way, most of the Italians where I grew up, including the ones in my family, were originally from southern Italy.

Here north of Boston we have had bakery's serving breakfast apizza for years great stuff got the food pryamid going on right there in one hand, stand it on the crust end evan looks like it. Don't think I'd buy it from a chain though. Chow Jim

quote:

Originally posted by tacchino

Not to belabor the point, but as someone who has a degree in Italian, in addition to having worked in Italy, and was raised speaking it at home, I'm going to add a point.

Yes, the word pizza does apparently come from the verb "pizzicare" (and as Michael wrote, it does refer to point).

But the issue with the term "apizza" is not that Americans "dropped the a." It was never a part of the word in the first place...what happened was (and is) that the grammatical definite article for feminine nouns in many Southern Italian dialects is not "la" (as in standard Italian) but "a" (as we have actually in modern Portuguese). Hence, "a pizza" would really mean "la pizza."

In addition, regional pronunciation in Italy frequently gives us examples of routine dropping of the ultimate syllable of a word if it ends in a vowel. For example, this is why the pronunciation would be closer to "abeetz" than "apizza": the final "a" would have been dropped in speaking.

In a like manner, we can still hear today Italian Americans refer to prosciutto and mozzarella as "proshoot" and "mozzarell."

There also seems to be a tendency to turn the hard "c" into a hard "g", e.g., "ri-GOT" for "ricotta" and "galamare" for "calamari". I wasn't very knowledgeable about Italian food as a kid and it was years before I realized that what my friends called, roughly, "frzzole" was, actually "bracciole". I'm also very fond of "Sooper-sat" for sopressata, both the pronunciation and the product.

Then, somewhat infamously, "melenzane" became "moolanyan" which became "moolie".

I was told that one of the great Italian directors, maybe de Sica, made a movie after the war in Sicily, and used a lot of locals as extras and in small speaking roles. The story goes that when he screened it in Rome he had to have it subtitled. The tale may be apochryphal, but many Italian-born friends have verified that they could have difficulty understanding people from a few villages away. I'm certain that this situation is rapidly disappearing as a result of radio and tv.

What a fascinating and informative topic!

quote:

Originally posted by Scallion1

quote:

Originally posted by tacchino

Not to belabor the point, but as someone who has a degree in Italian, in addition to having worked in Italy, and was raised speaking it at home, I'm going to add a point.

Yes, the word pizza does apparently come from the verb "pizzicare" (and as Michael wrote, it does refer to point).

But the issue with the term "apizza" is not that Americans "dropped the a." It was never a part of the word in the first place...what happened was (and is) that the grammatical definite article for feminine nouns in many Southern Italian dialects is not "la" (as in standard Italian) but "a" (as we have actually in modern Portuguese). Hence, "a pizza" would really mean "la pizza."

In addition, regional pronunciation in Italy frequently gives us examples of routine dropping of the ultimate syllable of a word if it ends in a vowel. For example, this is why the pronunciation would be closer to "abeetz" than "apizza": the final "a" would have been dropped in speaking.

In a like manner, we can still hear today Italian Americans refer to prosciutto and mozzarella as "proshoot" and "mozzarell."

There also seems to be a tendency to turn the hard "c" into a hard "g", e.g., "ri-GOT" for "ricotta" and "galamare" for "calamari". I wasn't very knowledgeable about Italian food as a kid and it was years before I realized that what my friends called, roughly, "frzzole" was, actually "bracciole". I'm also very fond of "Sooper-sat" for sopressata, both the pronunciation and the product.

Then, somewhat infamously, "melenzane" became "moolanyan" which became "moolie".

I was told that one of the great Italian directors, maybe de Sica, made a movie after the war in Sicily, and used a lot of locals as extras and in small speaking roles. The story goes that when he screened it in Rome he had to have it subtitled. The tale may be apochryphal, but many Italian-born friends have verified that they could have difficulty understanding people from a few villages away. I'm certain that this situation is rapidly disappearing as a result of radio and tv.

I can remember when I first heard such words as ricotta, manicotti, mozzarella, prociutto and capocolla. I had no idea what they were. I'd been eating and buying those things all my life, but I'd never heard them pronounced that way.

I won't even *attempt* to transliterate what my erstwhile Mulberry St. friends do to "sfogliatelle"

Tony Bad: the pronunciations you mention are, in my mind, always linked with Brooklyn, especially the "er"/"oi" switch. It's like the "pahk the cah in the Havahd Yahd" and Cambridge.

Those out there of a certain age might remember a famous columnist named Earl Wilson, whose bon mots were known as "Oil's Poil's" in that borough.

Also, to my ear there was an aspect of the deep Brooklyn accent that seemed to insert a "v" sound before some "r" sounds. Like "vrun down da street and gvab me a soda". But this may well all be in my head.