Calzones are basically folded-over pizzas, right? Filled with a few traditional pizza toppings, like sausage, and a bit of sauce. (If you're Italian, you spell the plural of calzone as calzoni, but we won't be sticklers.) You might argue that any baked sandwich falls into this category, from the Irish pasty to the Spanish empanada, and you wouldn't be completely wrong.
But the Italian concoctions have a range of styles and names, depending on where they're from, how they're served, (dry, or with some sort of sauce on top) and just what's inside. Regional names include scaccia or scacciata (from Palermo, in Sicily), cudduruni (another Sicilian version), and panzerotti (yet another Sicilian style, deep-fried).
What's known as a stromboli is also a "stuffed" pizza, designed for hand-held eating, but shaped like a jelly roll. A sfincione, on the other hand, has the fillings and sauce baked into the dough itself, no need to cut, fold, roll or dip.
Learned something new today? Good. Let's move onto a map of few Seattle pizzerias that extend their range to traditional calzones.
· All Pizza Week 2014 Coverage on Eater [-ESEA-]