Mamma mia! Tomato sauce on pizza is an AMERICAN creation, not Italian, says food historian at the University of Parma - sparking outrage in his home country

Tomato sauce on pizza was invented in America, not Italy, according to an Italian food historian - and veteran pizzaiolos in Rome have been left furious over the claim.

Professor Alberto Grandi, of Parma University, Italy, argues that "pizza rossa" - or red pizza, topped with tomato sauce - was founded when Italian immigrants took advantage of new-found ingredients on American soil to improve it.

The food historian details pizza's alleged origin story in his and Daniele Soffiati's book, La Cucina Italiana Non Esiste – Italian Cuisine Does Not Exist, which promises to debunk 'lies and myths' about Italian cuisine.

According to the authors, not only did tomatoes originate in the New World but so did tomato sauce, with Italians only discovering tomato sauce in abundant quantities when they started emigrating to the United States in the 19th century.

As part of the famous 'Italian diaspora', 13million Italians emigrated to America between 1880 and 1920 - however, many then returned to their home country the following years. 

Tomato sauce on pizza was invented in America, not Italy , according to an Italian food historian - and veteran pizzaiolos in Rome have been left furious over the claim

Up until the mass emigration, pizza in Italy was served without tomato sauce and would have consisted of a circular piece of plain focaccia topped with various ingredients, the authors say.

'The plant is from America and so is the use of tomato sauce as the basis for our cuisine,' Professor Grandi told La Repubblica newspaper in 2023. 

'Italians discovered it overseas, thanks to the industrialisation of food production. Pizza became red in America. Before that it was plain focaccia, sometimes adorned with pieces of tomato.'

However, not everyone is ready to embrace the saucy theory - as outraged veteran pizza makers in Rome rally to defend their culinary heritage and dismiss the claims as 'rubbish.'

Gianni Altrui, 48, knows a thing or two about pizza - he has made around 300 a day in the restaurant near Piazza del Popolo in the Italian capital since the age of 20.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Gianni said of the authors' claims: 'That's rubbish, I don't believe that's true, It's the Americans who learned from the Italians when it comes to food, not the other way around.'

Another pizzaiolo - or pizza maker - agrees with Gianni: at Antica Trattoria Agonale in Piazza Navona, Clariston Alves has also been left unimpressed by the authors' claims.

The Brazilian national who has lived in Rome for 30 years pointed at a pizza being brought out of the wood-fired oven and said: 'Look at this, it's pizza rossa. The Americans may have adapted it, but I don't  think they invented it.'

Professor Alberto Grandi argues that "pizza rossa" - or red pizza - was founded when Italian immigrants took advantage of new-found ingredients on American soil to improve it

'The plant is from America and so is the use of tomato sauce as the basis for our cuisine,' Professor Grandi said of Italians stumbling across tomatoes in the United States in the 1800s 

Pictured: The pizza seller, 1825, by Gaetano Dura (1805-1878), lithograph. According to Professor Grandi, pizza in Italy was made without tomato sauce until 19th century emigration 

But the authors of the book have insisted they have accumulated solid research to prove their thesis that it was the Americans who started producing tomato sauce on a large scale in the 19th century.

Italian immigrants in the US who opened up restaurants and pizzerias began seizing up the abundance of tomato sauce, and, by the Second World War, there were many more pizzerias in America than there were in Italy, according to the historians. 

It is not the first time that Professor Grandi, who teaches food history, has challenged the mythology surrounding Italy's culinary favourites. 

He alleges another of Italy's most treasured dishes, spaghetti carbonara, was invented during the Second World War using the bacon, cheese and powdered eggs that American soldiers brought over. 

Meanwhile, Americans have been busy adding their own peculiar twists to pizzas, as they reveal the most bizarre 'local pizza styles' across the United States - including Pennsylvania's cheese slice-topped 'Altoona pie' and Rhode Island tomato squares.