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By Monica Sager
Live News Reporter
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In a stunt likely to satisfy few and irritate many, a delegation from Connecticut will fly to the nation's capital this week to declare, with an assist from Congress, that New Haven is the "pizza capital" of the United States.
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The delegation is being organized by Connecticut's Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat who has long represented New Haven and its surrounding area in the House of Representatives.
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"New Haven has the best pizza in the country — and it is not even close," DeLauro said in a statement to Newsweek. "Ask anyone from Connecticut and they will tell you Connecticut pizza, or 'apizza' as we call it, is hands down — no contest — the best pizza in America."
Over 100 Connecticut pizza makers and community leaders will join DeLauro when she makes the official declaration from the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
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The proclamation follows Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont unilaterally declaring New Haven as "the Pizza Capital of America" on Feb. 9, National Pizza Day.
New Haven, a coastal city of 140,000 people best known as the home of Yale University, is known for a unique type of pizza that brings in foodies on pilgrimages from across the country. Locals call it "apizza," (pronounced "ah-beetz"), a nod to the dialect of early Italian immigrants who settled in the city.
Apizza is a thin-crust, coal-fired Neapolitan take on the classic pie that originated in 1925 at New Haven's Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, and is now served at many other noted pizzerias in the area, like Sally's Apizza and Modern Apizza. Celebrities like Conan O'Brien, Hillary Clinton and Paul McCartney have publicly expressed their love for apizza, with O'Brien once signing a pizza box for the staff at Sally's, writing that the shop is "not the best pizza in New Haven — the best pizza EVER."
Neapolitian pizzas are famously baked in ovens that reach over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit to give them their crispy crusts. New Haven apizzas are baked in the same ovens but at a further distance from the heat source. They cook for roughly five to 12 minutes, giving the pies their signature "char."
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A "plain" New Haven apizza is typically comprised of crust, oregano, tomato sauce and a little bit of grated Pecorino Romano cheese. Foodies have called it a "tomato pie," since mozzarella is technically considered a topping.
The cheese wasn't originally included on the pizzas because Frank Pepe's didn't have a refrigerator in its early days, as reported by Food Republic. The restaurant instead stocked up on items that didn't need to be kept cold, like canned tomatoes, grated cheese, garlic and anchovies.
Frank Pepe's is also credited for inventing the "white clam pie," a pizza crust with olive oil, oregano, grated cheese, chopped garlic and little neck clams. The restaurant, now a chain with locations up and down the Eastern seaboard, will have representatives on hand for Wednesday's formal declaration.
"I am looking forward to dropping the hammer on this debate and formally declaring in the Congressional Record that New Haven is the Pizza Capital of the United States," DeLauro said.
Asked for comment on DeLauro's bold proclamation, a representative from the New York City Mayor's Office told Greenwich Time:
"More than a century of satisfied customers, the residents of the five boroughs, and nearly 62 million visitors to New York City each year have already settled what was never really a debate — New York City is the premiere destination for pizza. Period.
"The residents of New Haven know the country's best pizza is just a short train ride away and this claim is just a cheesy stunt."
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