By Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Librarian
Pizza and football have become synonymous with one another, especially on Super Bowl Sunday. In fact, the National Football League actually designates an official Pizza Sponsor (in 2019 it was granted to Pizza Hut for the first time) and according to Tableskift.com, Pizza Hut and Domino’s each expected to sell about 2 million pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday in 2019. But what is now an American staple food was once a widely unknown (and bizarre) concept until veterans brought the idea home with them after serving in World War II. In fact, pizza as we know it today wasn’t even something most Italians beyond Naples, Italy, had even heard of until World War II began. When Allied soldiers invaded Italy in 1943, they were so taken with the pizza they encountered that they asked for it wherever else they went (not knowing it was still largely local at that time).
While Reino’s can claim having served the “first commercial pizza” in Tiffin (we will get into that more later), only the Italian Tiffinites were making pizza at home. To put it into perspective, Fort Ball Pizza wasn’t founded until 1978. There was once Tony’s Spaghetti House in Tiffin in the early 1960s (spaghetti was a much more familiar Italian dish to most at the time), and Domino’s became one of the very first nationwide pizza places in the 1960s after having its beginnings as a local shop in Michigan.
There are adaptions to pizza that are authentically Italian. Calzones and Stromboli have some of the same ingredients but are molded and shaped in different forms. A calzone or “foldover” is basically a folded pizza that originated in Naples and traditionally uses ricotta cheese, although numerous versions have been created. They are sealed with crimped edges. Stromboli is a rectangular-shaped topping-filled dough meant to be sliced and served as a meal. Lasagna and meatball sandwiches were the crowd favorites at Pizza Villa, which was once located on Washington St. (Food historians believe that lasagna is one of the world’s oldest pastas, and was likely eaten by ancient Greeks and Romans).
Giovanni Reino's naturalization record, found on the Seneca County Digital Library.
These are the dishes that the 4 million Southern Italian immigrants brought with them when they arrived in America between 1880-1920. They were serving these dishes as meals long before the pizza followed them to the States. One of those immigrants was Giovanni Reino, who immigrated from San Bartolomeo, Italy, a small village in the mountains near Naples, in the mid-1920s. The story goes that Webster Industries sent fliers to Italians in this area seeking employees. “It was almost as if the entire community packed up and left for America,” John Reino, owner of Reino’s Pizza & Pasta, said. “They would send letters to family and friends back home to convince them to join the rest of them in America.” The waves of immigrants from this part of Italy partially contributed to the development of Little Italy of Tiffin (in the neighborhoods surrounding Tiffin University).
While Giovanni was a moulder and fireman his entire life, Frankie knew from an early age that he wouldn’t like factory work. He began cooking at various restaurants around town in the 1930s and then joined the Navy as a cook in World War II. After the war was over, Giovanni bought Frankie his house so that Frankie would have enough money to start his own business. Frankie’s son (and Giovanni’s grandson), John, has owned the family business since 1983.
The average American eats 46 slices of pizza a year but in 1950 the average American probably ate that quota in hamburgers. An article framed on the wall by the front door from Feb. 1986 states that Francis Joseph “Frankie” Reino, the son of Giovanni Reino. originally opened Reino’s for business as a hamburger joint known as “The Lighthouse Restaurant” in 1950. It quickly became popular with the college students. In fact, it was so known for its hamburgers, John says, that when his father replaced the “hamburger” sign with “pizza” on the outside of the building, locals thought the business had been sold.
Today, there are many options when it comes to finding the perfect pizza. Besides Reino’s, Domino’s and Pizza Hut, Tiffin is also home to Fort Ball, Napoli’s, A.J’s Heavenly Pizza, Jac and Do’s, Marco’s and Little Ceasar’s. Additionally, there’s Sauced in New Riegel, Scooterz in Bettsville, Fat Head’s in Republic, Fostoria Pizza Palace and Red’s Pizza in Fostoria. Every year Tiffin even hosts a Pizza Palooza. In 2019, attendees purchased tickets for $1 that could be redeemed for a slice of pizza from any participating vendor. Half of each ticket sold was donated towards downtown revitalization.
What exactly is the composition of pizza? Recipes and ingredients have widely evolved over the years. The pizza that the American soldiers discovered was sold by Neopolitan street vendors and was made as an “on-the-go” meal for the working class. The vendors carried the pizzas as a whole in boxes around the streets and would slice the pizza based on the customers’ appetites and funds. The simplest forms were only topped with garlic, lard, salt, olive oil and herbs (such as oregano). Sometimes ones could be found with caciocavallo, a cheese made from horse’s milk, or fish (anchovies, anyone?). Fancier ones might have contained artichokes, capers, olives, mushrooms, peas, hard-boiled eggs, tuna, shrimp and prosciutto.
An ad for Mama Monaco’s in the November 1970 issue of the Tystanac, a publication of Tiffin University.
Marinara sauce, the base ingredient on most pizzas, wasn’t always a topping. “Marinaro” actually means “sailor” in Italian, and “sailor sauce,” as it was called, came about when canned tomatoes were among the only items available at local grocers during the war.
Today, hundreds of versions of pizza have been created by inventive minds. At Sauced in New Riegel, you can try a loaded potato pizza or “The Blue Jacket,” where $1 per pizza ordered is donated to the New Riegel School District. Pinterest abounds with breakfast and fruit pizza recipes.
Sicilian pizza, a more traditional version, is a menu item at Napoli’s Pizzaria. Traditional Sicilian Pizza doesn’t use mozzarella but rather a cheese made from the milk of sheep and goats. Among today’s Italians, it’s a tradition to serve this type of pizza on holidays like New Year’s Eve (another big “Pizza Day” in the U.S.).
A newer trend that is gaining popularity is the emergence of sweet pizzas and traditional Italian pizzerias are trying to accommodate this trend by using unique ingredients like Nutella, honey, fruit jam, yogurt and cinnamon and sugar. Fort Ball serves cinnamon sticks and apple pizza daily in its buffet. Scooterz makes cherry streusel pizza and A.J.’s Heavenly Pizza makes “pizza brownies”. These dessert pizzas may trigger fond memories for some natives of Tiffin who may recall Mama Monaco’s, an Italian bakery in Tiffin the 1960s and 1970s.
If you want traditional Italian pizza, John Reino recommends the “Frankie’s Original” at Reino’s, which consists of mozzarella, provolone, Parmesan cheese and thickly sliced pepperoni. Frankie was coaxed by the Heidelberg College students from Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania to add pizza to his menu (pizza had already become popular in this part of the country with all the Italians who worked in the steel mills there). Through connections, he was offered to “work” in Luigi’s in Akron (a restaurant that still exists to this day) for one week to learn how to make an Americanized version of pizza that was popular on their menu. The story according to John is that pre-sliced pepperoni wasn’t an option in those days and his father didn’t have a meat slicer, so when he sliced the pepperoni sticks with a knife, they naturally turned out thick. While today John and his team do use a meat slicer, if you order a “Frankie’s Original”, you will enjoy the signature thick slices of pepperoni.
Works cited:
“Who Invented Pizza?” Gayle Turim, 2012
“A History of Pizza”, Alexander Lee, 7 July, 2018. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/historians-cookbook/history-pizza
“What is Sicilian Pizza?”, Lev-Tov, Deborah. https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-sicilian-pizza-2708787
“A History of Spaghetti and Meatballs”, Larson, Sarah. 10 December, 2013. https://www.escoffieronline.com/a-history-of-spaghetti-and-meatballs/
“Is Spaghetti and Meatballs Italian?” Esposito, Shaylyn. 6 June, 2013. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/is-spaghetti-and-meatballs-italian-94819690/
“What is the difference between a calzone and Stromboli?” Delany, Alex. 2 May, 2018. https://www.bonappetit.com/story/difference-between-a-calzone-and-a-stromboli
Interview with John Reino, 2 December, 2019.
Seneca County Digital Library, Ohio Memory Project, https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27