- Oct 9, 1999
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Did it originate in the Pa. county I was born and raised in?
We report, you decide:
Stromboli has its roots in Delaware County. But how did the pizza shop staple get its name?
"In researching the origin of the word stromboli for the hot meat-filled Italian sandwich that is a feature at many pizzerias, the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary found their way to a cryptic entry in the April 10, 1950, copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
There, on page 21, in the “It’s Happening Here” column by Frank Brookhouser, was this tidbit: “In South Philadelphia, the hogie is now called the Stromboli.” (Hogie was the accepted spelling of hoagie in The Inquirer until a few years later.)
That was it. Nothing else was said about the so-called new name. The statement hangs out there mysteriously, making one wonder how and why Brookhouser, who died in 1975, banged out that sentence on a typewriter and whether anyone actually called a hogie a stromboli, except for him."
From the, ummmm, Stromboli Wikipedia:
"There are several claims regarding the origin of the usage of the name stromboli for food in the United States.
Romano's Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria claims to have first used the name in 1950 in Essington, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, courtesy of Nazzareno Romano. The pizzeria owner had experimented with "pizza imbottita", or "stuffed pizza", and added ham, cotechino sausage, cheese and peppers into a pocket of bread dough.[3] His future brother-in-law suggested he name it after the recently released movie Stromboli, notorious for an off-screen affair between married actress, Ingrid Bergman, and married director, Roberto Rossellini, resulting in a love child.[2]
In 1954, Mike Aquino of Mike's Burger Royal in Spokane, Washington, says he also named a turnover after the same movie.[4] However, Aquino's version appears to only share the same name as the commonly accepted version of the stromboli and is significantly different from the Philadelphia turnover version that is usually defined as a "stromboli". Aquino's "stromboli" consists of capicola ham and provolone cheese covered in an Italian chili sauce on a French bread roll.[3]"
^^^ Hoagies, stromboli, good pizza, etc. Where I grew up had the best of both long before any other parts of America.
That place, Romano's, in Essington, Pa? Even before the profusion of mom and pop Italiano places, when even they were relatively rare in Philly 'burbs, my Dad used to stop on his way home from work in Philly and pick up a pie at that very shop, put it on the engine in his car to keep it warm, and bring it home.
My Dad, whose mother was French, loved good food . . . to both cook it and to eat it. He knew all the small, good Jewish. Italian and German bakeries and would bring home fresh bagels or onion rolls and such. I remember going with him to one bakery which was just an absolutely BARE storefront, owned and manned by one single baker of German extraction, who would come out from the back where he baked and bring you the best damn cake and pastries EVAR!
Food! My Dad would say that some people eat to live, and others live to eat!
To transpose the Bard from Twelfth Night, " If food be the music of love, play on!"
We report, you decide:
Stromboli has its roots in Delaware County. But how did the pizza shop staple get its name?
"In researching the origin of the word stromboli for the hot meat-filled Italian sandwich that is a feature at many pizzerias, the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary found their way to a cryptic entry in the April 10, 1950, copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
There, on page 21, in the “It’s Happening Here” column by Frank Brookhouser, was this tidbit: “In South Philadelphia, the hogie is now called the Stromboli.” (Hogie was the accepted spelling of hoagie in The Inquirer until a few years later.)
That was it. Nothing else was said about the so-called new name. The statement hangs out there mysteriously, making one wonder how and why Brookhouser, who died in 1975, banged out that sentence on a typewriter and whether anyone actually called a hogie a stromboli, except for him."
From the, ummmm, Stromboli Wikipedia:
"There are several claims regarding the origin of the usage of the name stromboli for food in the United States.
Romano's Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria claims to have first used the name in 1950 in Essington, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, courtesy of Nazzareno Romano. The pizzeria owner had experimented with "pizza imbottita", or "stuffed pizza", and added ham, cotechino sausage, cheese and peppers into a pocket of bread dough.[3] His future brother-in-law suggested he name it after the recently released movie Stromboli, notorious for an off-screen affair between married actress, Ingrid Bergman, and married director, Roberto Rossellini, resulting in a love child.[2]
In 1954, Mike Aquino of Mike's Burger Royal in Spokane, Washington, says he also named a turnover after the same movie.[4] However, Aquino's version appears to only share the same name as the commonly accepted version of the stromboli and is significantly different from the Philadelphia turnover version that is usually defined as a "stromboli". Aquino's "stromboli" consists of capicola ham and provolone cheese covered in an Italian chili sauce on a French bread roll.[3]"
^^^ Hoagies, stromboli, good pizza, etc. Where I grew up had the best of both long before any other parts of America.
That place, Romano's, in Essington, Pa? Even before the profusion of mom and pop Italiano places, when even they were relatively rare in Philly 'burbs, my Dad used to stop on his way home from work in Philly and pick up a pie at that very shop, put it on the engine in his car to keep it warm, and bring it home.
My Dad, whose mother was French, loved good food . . . to both cook it and to eat it. He knew all the small, good Jewish. Italian and German bakeries and would bring home fresh bagels or onion rolls and such. I remember going with him to one bakery which was just an absolutely BARE storefront, owned and manned by one single baker of German extraction, who would come out from the back where he baked and bring you the best damn cake and pastries EVAR!
Food! My Dad would say that some people eat to live, and others live to eat!
To transpose the Bard from Twelfth Night, " If food be the music of love, play on!"
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