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Global Cuisines

This Old-School Italian Sandwich Brings Serious Pizza Energy By Garrett Palm Nov. 4, 2025 12:09 pm EST

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Just south of Naples, the city that created modern pizza in the 1700s, an Italian sandwich was created around 100 years later that can best be described as pizza as a sandwich. The Panuozzo di Gragnano is a giant panino (Italian toasted sandwich) made with pizza dough shaped into a long oval, baked, sliced down the middle, and filled with cheese, vegetables, and meats, then placed back in the pizza oven to get a distinctive crisp and char. Created in 1983 by Giuseppe Mascolo, the pizzaiolo at Pizzeria Mascolo in the town of Gragnano, hence the name. He was just trying to entertain his children by making something other t

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