It's Not “Wrong” Or “Weird” To Use A Knife And Fork
I was dining with family at an Italian American place. I had ordered pizza and was, as per my usual, employing a knife and fork in its consumption. My Gen Z great-niece watched me for awhile and then asked why I was using a knife and fork instead of just picking it up like “everybody else” does. I explained it to her as I'll explain it to you, lettore cara.
First of all, it's a topic of great controversy depending upon where you are. In the vast pizza metropolis that is New York City, eating a slice of pizza any way other than by using your hands to fold it in half is considered heresy, punishable at the least by great mockery. Witness what happened a few years back to erstwhile mayor Bill de Blasio when he took utensils to slice at a place called Goodfellas on Staten Island. He was derided mercilessly and the press even hounded him again a few months later when paparazzi caught him with a knife and fork in a pizzeria in Naples. (The one in Italy, not its counterpart in Florida.) But de Blasio had a defense: he said he was being “authentic” and that he had picked up the cutlery habit while visiting his “ancestral homeland.”
On the other hand – no pun intended – if you try to pick up and fold a slice of the tomato and cheese casserole that passes for pizza in Chicago, you'll wind up with quite a mess.
Anyway, de Blasio was right. Protestation and ridicule from the Italian American contingent aside, the proper Italian way to eat pizza is, indeed, with a knife and fork. At least, according to formal galateo (etiquette.)
You see, in America pizza is always served one way – pre-sliced. You can buy it by the slice, of course, or you can purchase a whole pie. But even then, that pie will come pre-sliced, generally into eight pieces. In America, pizza is the ultimate sharing food, the ultimate party food. But that's not the case in Italy.
Italian food traditions are very particular and very specific. One of the specifications dictates that foods should not be combined. That's one reason why Italians don't mix, say, chicken and pasta. And it's why Italian pizza options are pretty limited by American standards. In Italy, you will seldom see a pizza with more than one or two toppings. The all-out pizza with pepperoni and cheese and mushrooms and green peppers and olives and sliced tomatoes and sausage and whatever else they happen to have in the kitchen would absolutely bewilder an Italian pizzaiola.
Italians are also not very big on sharing food or on leftovers. I'm not talking about family-style sharing, of course, but specifically to people sharing dishes in restaurants and formal settings. It's really not done. Nor is asking for a box or bag for leftovers. In the Italian mind, there aren't supposed to be any leftovers. They bring you what they consider to be reasonable portions of food and you're supposed to consume all of it. That includes pizza.
Although politically unified in 1861, in many ways the Italian peninsula is still twenty different regions. Nowhere is this more evident than in food culture. There's really no such thing as “Italian food.” Instead, there are the foods of the country's twenty regions. Occasionally, there's some overlap. Pizza, for instance.
Just as in the US, where you have Neapolitan-style and Sicilian-style and New York-style and Chicago-style and Detroit-style and St. Louis-style and California-style and seemingly endless other styles of pizza depending upon where you are (Altoona-style pizza, anyone?), there are different types of pizza in different regions of Italy. Obviously, the most popular comes from the generally accepted birthplace of modern pizza, Naples. But pizza Romana is a close second in and out of Rome. Sicily boasts of its own style as do other regions like Puglia, which produces a thick crust pizza topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella, and lots of onions.
Although some form of flatbread “pizza” has been around since ancient times, the “modern” pizza, as mentioned, rose from a simple, modest, affordable street food eaten by the poorer classes of southern Italian society. That all changed, however, after World War II, when a combination of social and economic factors caused the spread of the Neapolitan peasant dish to all parts and regions of the Italian peninsula and across the face of the globe. By the 1960s, pizza was ubiquitous.
“All very interesting,” you say, “but what does it have to do with using a knife and fork?”
Okay. Despite some regional variations, most Italian pizzerias serve a thin-crust pizza that comes in one size. It's a small pie by American standards, about the size of a dinner plate. It does not come pre-sliced and it is not intended to be shared with others, but rather to be eaten by one person as a single course. As such, the use of utensils is required as the individual diner must cut bite-sized morsels from the whole pie, a pie he or she is expected to finish. Don't even think of asking for a box.
Thus when de Blasio and other misunderstood knife and fork users say they are honoring their “cultural heritage” or whatever, they're right. By and large, pizza in Italy is eaten with a knife and a fork.
Oh, there are exceptions. Tourist places, for instance, will serve pizza in a more universally recognized form, i.e. whole pies sliced for sharing or individual slices made for folding over and carrying. Actually, the latter is often offered in the form of a calzone – and that's “kal-ZOH-nay,” not “kal-ZOHN,” – which is basically a folded-over pizza, made from the same dough and toppings as a regular pizza, designed to be carried and eaten with one hand.
And one more exception, which may validate all you devotees of the notion of pizza as a finger food: In Italy, unless in a very formal setting, it is permissible and sometimes even common to begin eating your pizza by cutting it with a knife and picking up the bite-sized pieces with a fork, then transitioning to picking up the remainder of the slice and eating it from your hand, often after folding it over. This is especially true of the end of the pizza slice at the cornicione, or the outer edge of the crust.
After a somewhat abbreviated version of this admittedly lengthy explanation – basically I told her, “That's how they do it in Italy” – I was gratified to note that my young great-niece picked up her knife and fork and followed my lead. Would that the rest of America's pizza-eating society do the same, we would have a much better mannered – and probably less messy – Italian dining experience.
But even if you personally choose to continue in the common American or Italian-American method of pizza eating, now, armed with appropriate knowledge of etiquette, would you at least please refrain from disparaging those whom you observe using a knife and fork? Because now you know that they are, indeed, not weird, but quite correct in doing so.
Buon appetito!
