Food - Drink
The Difference Between A Calzone And Stromboli
By NATASHA BAILEY
When Italian immigrants came to the U.S. in the 20th century, they not only brought pizza pies with them, but also pizza's pocket-sized brother, the calzone. After a few decades, the exclusively American dish called stromboli became popular, and while calzones and strombolis are both pizza-like, they have plenty of differences.
The original calzone recipe used flour, water, oil, salt, and leavener in the dough, and fillings included ricotta, provolone, pecorino, and salami. Today, you can find many calzones with pizza sauce, but traditional, small calzones contain no sauce to drip or leak everywhere, making for a delicious street food you can eat on the go.
While strombolis also feature sauce and toppings stuffed inside dough, they are usually rectangular and rolled up to seal in the filling, while calzones are more like a circle folded in half. Strombolis also have a signature filling of ham, mozzarella, and tomato sauce, while calzone fillings have always varied throughout history.
In essence, strombolis are more akin to chopped-up pizza "burritos," whereas calzones are sealed pizza "tacos" meant for one. Another big difference is the huge time gap between the dishes' origins: calzones originated in 18th century Naples, Italy, while the stromboli wasn’t invented until the 1950s in Philadelphia.
