What's The Difference Between Calzone And Stromboli?
Like so many cultures, a large percentage of Italy's global diaspora resides in the United States and has for a long time. Nearly 16 million Americans reported Italian ancestry in 2021, according to a United States Census Bureau survey, which aligns with similar statistics on the subject that go back decades in the agency's archive. If our math serves us, that means nearly 6% of the entire U.S. population is composed of Italian-Americans and their coveted culinary gifts.
It also means that authentic Italian dishes (which originated in the Bel Paese and have seen little, if any, variation) have undergone some changes during their time in North American kitchens. In fact, some of the most common items on your average Italian-American menu, such as spaghetti and meatballs, aren't technically Italian at all. The dish became falsely linked to Italy when, in the late 19th century, Italian immigrants started taking advantage of less expensive American meat to liven up their pasta (via Smithsonian magazine). Likewise, cioppino was invented in San Francisco by an Italian-American fisherman in the early 1900s (via KQED).
But what about calzone and stromboli, those similar-upon-first-glance pizza-sandwich hybrids without which we probably wouldn't have Hot Pockets? There are several differences between them, but here's a big one: The calzone is authentically Italian, while the stromboli is not.
One's a pinwheel, one's a half-moon, and the former is technically American
According to Britannica, the Naples-born calzone is usually filled with meats, cheeses, and vegetables, folded into a half-moon-shaped dough, and is either baked or fried. Calzones tend to be less popular than a pie at your average Italian-American pizza joint, but we can't imagine why. Pizza is great, but these portable pockets of melty bliss should really get more love.
Unlike calzones, the stromboli — which has its origins in a Philadelphia pizza shop, per The Chicago Tribune — is a pinwheel enclosed-sandwich layered with cold cuts of meats, vegetables, and cheese. The stromboli is decidedly less saucy and ooey-gooey (yes, that's a technical term) than the calzone. If you prefer home cooking to takeout and are stumped on which dish to make, the calzone might be a safer bet for beginners, simply because of the more straightforward folding process. We hope to never find ourselves trapped in the low-cal calzone zone, but if we do, at least we'll know we're not in stromboli land.