I remember as a kid that perhaps the next best thing, if not better, to pizza was a calzone. In the neighborhood, House of Pizza and Calzones on Union Street was the place to head to if you were hankering for one.  It was large, filled abundantly with ricotta cheese and mozzarella, and ham – except on Fridays in observance of “no meat” days for Catholics. One bite into the hot-crusted calzone and warm cheese just oozed out in melted, flavorful goodness. On second bite, the combined flavors of the cheeses mixed with the ham was, in my opinion, just too good to be true. 

I never gave much thought to the origins of calzones, except that on Christmas Eve, between my Molese and Gaetana parents we made traditional palm-sized calzones filled with anchovy and sweet sauteed scallions and Gaeta olives.  I never thought much about the dough either. My mother basically made it from scratch.  We, the children, assisted her in filling them, deep frying them and eating them as they came out of the piping hot oil. However, much to my mother’s annoyance there would never be enough left to put out on the Christmas Eve dinner table if we kept eating them out of the pot.