Pizza Isn’t Italian

This article is worth reading. "Banjo pizza" (!) and a reminder of the phrase for Edwardian prosperity between the [first] two World Wars.

Wow. The hero image of this post is an interior shot of a Shakey's Pizza in Seattle.

It seemed rather spare, versus my zany childhood memories of packed-with-flair emporiums and 1970s birthday parties... My wife said, "Oh, you're thinking of Farrell's Ice Cream."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farrell's_Ice_Cream_Parlour

Indeed. Also featured straw-hat jazz bands.

I remember a couple of other fast food franchises that capitalized on a brand of Gilded Age nostalgia, "Wendy's" and "Steak and Shake".

Mid 1970s in the United States seemed to burst with this sort of hearty cheer, in the face of economic disruption and virulent reaction to social reform and unrest. Forget the casualties of a conscript army fighting in Southeast Asia! Here's a hat and a root beer float!

As a kid back then, it was easy to get the impression that our Bicentennial Benjamin Franklin and KISS frontman Peter Chris played banjo together, wearing straw hats.

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(Both kinds of music: Dixieland and Ragtime!)

I can vouch for the veracity of this. My great grandparents migrated from Alvito Italy just at the turn of Italy becoming, well.. Italy in the late 19th century. My grandfather recounted on tape how he ate a lot of spaghetti growing up and made a lot of bread. During the depression, he said his sister made pizza at home but he didn't care for it. After the conclusion of WW2, Grandpa Joe said he'd rather eat steak and burgers over spaghetti now that he could afford it. He'd probably sneer at expensive pizza..

The low moisture mozzarella used on American pizza is also an American invention.