The calzone seems to have originated in Napoli in the 18^th century. That shouldn’t be too surprising. Flatbreads with toppings on them have been around since we figured out how to mill grain, but the pizza as we currently conceive it came from Napoli too. They are a clever town.

As I understand it, the calzone was concocted so people could grab one on the go, thus the name “calzone” meaning trousers or pants legs since people ate them while walking as opposed to the soft crusted Neapolitan style pizzas that practically require a fork and a knife.

The original calzones were smaller affairs than what we are used to. They were sandwich sized and easy to carry around. If you’ve ever had a pastie in the Nordic tradition you know what they were like. Of course, now we present a monster that takes up the plate. I’m going to attribute that to the same basking in luxury that over took our mid 20^th century wave of Italian immigrants. That diaspora saw twenty-three or so million Italians leave the poverty that gripped their home country and head for better pastures. You hear about Americanized Italian food having too much sauce and too much meat. That wasn’t a bunch of Yankees misreading a recipe and overdoing it. It was a bunch of dirt poor Italians arriving in the land of plenty and embracing fully the opulence available to them. Our calzones are huge.