On the signs of pizza parlors throughout southern New England, you will see the word apizza where it seems like pizza is what’s meant. Starting in the 1930s, when bakeries in Italian neighborhoods began to turn their attention to pizza, the a was added at the beginning of the word to give it a Neapolitan flavor when spoken. To pronounce it correctly, do not simply add an a to the start of the word pizza. The last a is always silent and the p is treated like a b. With a slow-rolling halt at the first syllable and a downward spike on the second, the word is properly pronounced “uh-BEETZ.” If you want to get an apizza the way virtually every Connecticut pizzeria made it in the early days, and the way purists still demand it, ask for a tomato-only pie, with perhaps a sprinkling of grated hard cheese. Those in the know call out, “Uhbeetz, hold the mutz,” “mutz” being shorthand for mozzarella cheese (known to pizzaioli—pizza makers— as cream cheese in American pizza’s early days because of its consistency).
Derby, Connecticut: Roseland Apizza, named for the ballroom in New York, opened in 1935.
Wooster Street, New Haven, Connecticut. Sal Consiglio, cousin of Frank Pepe, opened his own place in 1938.