It can be said that pizza is a culinary icon. Humbly stated, it is so beloved that there have been many renditions of it, one of which is the French bread pizza. You may know it: a twice-cut end slice of French bread, topped with the usual accouterments of sauce, cheese, seasonings, and possibly a meat like pepperoni or sausage. It’s one of the best store-bought frozen pizzas, but where the heck did it come from, and who thought of this wonderful handheld delight? Thankfully, while many things in food history tend to be a mixed bag of cultural inspirations (such as Italy’s heavily influenced pizza), the French bread variety is a bit more direct, and — despite it being made with French bread — one thing we can confirm is that it’s certainly not French. In actuality, it finds its origins in the United States.

French bread pizza originated in Ithaca, New York — more specifically, on the campus of Cornell University. It was there that Robert “Hot Truck Bob” Petrillose operated his food truck, Johnny’s Hot Truck, named after his father, Johnny Petrillose Sr. Petrillose sold open-faced sub sandwiches made from French bread and pizza toppings, which were dubbed “poor man pizzas”  by college students. According to lore, Petrillose would work daily with his wife when school was in session, and the concept was allegedly copied by Stouffers after being requested as a frozen food item by a student. After 40 years of serving Cornell students their meals, Petrillose retired in 2000, selling his food truck to Ithaca’s Shortstop Deli before passing in 2008.

Read more: 16 Store-Bought Frozen Pizzas, Ranked Worst To Best

Cornell may be the birthplace of French bread pizza, but you don’t need to be a student to get itclose up of Stouffer's Pepperoni French Bread Pizza

close up of Stouffer’s Pepperoni French Bread Pizza – JJava Designs/Shutterstock

While Robert Petrillose is credited with inventing French bread pizza, and Stouffer’s still offers it as a product, the core concept of combining pizza and French bread isn’t necessarily exclusive to either. Without diminishing any of the facts, Stouffer’s isn’t the only frozen food brand offering French bread pizza since Red Baron and the Aldi’s white label Mama Cozzi both offer a take.

Both French bread and pizza have existed for centuries, and the combination can be traced globally as far as Poland, where it’s been known as zapiekanka since the early 1970s. Further, people are always trying to find new, unconventional ways to create pizza, whether it’s replacing the crust with white bread as an affordable hack, or using the grill instead of the oven or microwave to upgrade a lackluster frozen pizza.

French bread pizza is very popular and has been since the ’80s and ’90s. Copycat recipes can be found across the internet that recreate it with traditional pizza ingredients, enhance it with the likes of two cheeses and extra garlic, switch out the mozzarella for a melty cheese, or double-bake it for extra crispiness. Naturally, the possibilities are endless for an at-home take on French bread pizzas. Whether this was directly inspired by Petrillose is uncertain, but it can be said that Petrillose left behind a delicious legacy for both Cornell University and New York as a whole.

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