Food historian claims tomato sauce on pizza is an American invention, outraging Italians: ‘Blasphemous’

Italian pie-hards wanted a pizza him.

Food historian Alberto Grandi had the nation’s pie makers up in arms after controversially claiming that the US — and not The Boot — is responsible for “pizza rossa:” the red tomato sauce that tops pizza.

The culinary expert dropped these “blasphemous” gastronomic theories in his and fellow academic Daniele Soffiati’s book “La Cucina Italiana Non Esiste – Italian Cuisine Does Not Exist,” which strives to dispel myths surrounding the cuisine, the Telegraph reported.

“Pizza became red in America,” Grandi, who teaches at the University of Parma in northern Italy, declared in an interview with La Repubblica newspaper. “The plant is from America and so is the use of tomato sauce as the basis for our cuisine.”

The authors claim this so-called lifeblood of Italian cooking was only really discovered by Italians when millions started emigrating to the US during the “Italian diaspora” between 1880 and 1920. They then supposedly returned to the motherland with the now-ubiquitous secret sauce, effectively painting the town red with marinara.

Before this culinary cross-pollination, pizza in Italy consisted of a circular piece of focaccia with various toppings, authors contend.