Times Insider

1944: The Times Discovers Pizza

This feature looks at the first time famous names or terms appeared in The Times. Have an idea for someone or something you would like to read about? Send a suggestion in the comments section.

It has been a staple of New York (not to mention newsrooms) for so long that it is hard to imagine a time when pizza needed an introduction. But that’s what it got on Sept. 20, 1944 — at a time when Italy was full of American troops who were acquiring a taste for the pies. Note the rare use of the plural “pizze”:

Three years later, on May 25, 1947, The Times noted the potential of this seemingly newfangled concoction. “The pizza could be as popular a snack as the hamburger if Americans only knew more about it”:

While The Times introduced pizza to readers on Sept. 20, 1944, the word first appeared in the newspaper four years earlier, a passing mention in the last paragraph of a June 2, 1940 story headlined “Mrs. Belardi Regrets.” An earlier version of this item omitted the 1940 mention.