Pizza critics slam Connecticut for trying to become the pie state: 'New York is the pizza capital'
New Haven-based Rep. Patricia Dillon and Sen. Gary Winfield introduced a bill to make pizza the official state food of the Constitution State.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Connecticut should stick to lobster rolls and leave pizza to New Yorkers — or at least that's what out-of-state critics are saying after Constitution State lawmakers made a saucy claim about proposing pizza as its official state food.
When it comes to which state makes the best pizza, New York City-based restaurant consultant Jason Kaplan, owner of JK Consulting, tells Fox News that "it’s definitely not Connecticut," in response to New Haven-based Rep. Patricia Dillon and Sen. Gary Winfield’s bill to make it the pie state.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"New York is the pizza capital," Kaplan claimed, citing Lombardi’s coal-fired, thin-crust, Neapolitan pizza said to be America’s first pizzeria.
He’s not alone.
Rep. Patricia Dillon and Sen. Gary Winfield, both from New Haven, introduced a bill to make the food’s status in the state official. (iStock).
"The only other state that can have pizza is New York. Connecticut needs to sit down," one Twitter user wrote in response to the proposed bill.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But that's just one Twitter user. Then again, the official Twitter account of the state of New Jersey also felt the need to comment on news of Connecticut angling for pizza to become its state food. Their response? "No."
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Connecticut pizza tends to be known for its thin-crust pizzas churned out of a coal-burning stove. Most of its famous and oldest establishments are in New Haven, including Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana which has been serving up slices since 1925, Modern Apizza (est. 1934); and Sally’s Apizza (est. 1938). Another of Connecticut's pizzerias, Mystic Pizza, was the center of the 1988 rom-com of the same name, starring Julia Roberts as a waitress at the now 47-year-old pizzeria in Mystic, Conn.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}No matter what the critics say, however, Dillon told the Hartford Courant that Connecticut can hold its own.
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"For one thing, our pizza is great. For another, when you go to some states, you can get pizza in chain restaurants, but the pizza in Connecticut tends to be family-founding, family-owned, they have their own identity, their own following and they’re small businesses that really have a big footprint in their communities."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Plenty of locals and visitors seemed to agree, too.
Others, however, had a more diplomatic response.
"Not my style, but I respect it," one commenter wrote on Twitter.