tomato pie

English

Noun

tomato pie (countable and uncountable, plural tomato pies)

Italian-American tomato pie

1. (dated) pizza
   • 1903 December 6, “Do firey foods cause firey natures?”, in New-York Tribune:

     The "pomidore pizza", or tomato pie, is made in this fashion. Take a lump of dough, and, under a roller, flatten it out until it is only an inch thick. On this scatter tomatoes and season plentifully with powdered red pepper.

   • 2023 October 6, Mari Uyehara, “The Many Lives of Tomato Pie”, in The New York Times:

     Once upon a time, almost all pizza — then a word unknown to the general American public outside Italian enclaves — was called tomato pie in the United States. In the 1930s, English-language newspapers featured job listings for tomato pie bakers and advertisements for tomato pie ovens, sometimes including that obscure term "pizza" in parentheses.

2. (regional) In some Italian-American and Italian-Canadian communities, any of a number of variations of pizza consisting only or largely of dough and tomato sauce.
   • 2023 October 6, Mari Uyehara, “The Many Lives of Tomato Pie”, in The New York Times:

     In Philadelphia, tomato pie is a springy, square flatbread slathered with tomato sauce and comparable to the Sicilian sfincione.

3. (regional) A savory summer pie from the American South, containing tomatoes topped with grated cheese mixed with mayonnaise or a white sauce.