For those who didn’t know we were the best “pizza state” in the country, where have you been ?! Much attention is paid to New York and even Chicago for great pizzas, but when it comes to volume, variety, and quality, you can’t beat New Jersey.

Food and Wine Magazine just ranked the best pizza states in the country and, unsurprisingly, New Jersey came out on top, Like it should be. It could be the overwhelming number of Italian immigrants, especially from the pizza house, Naples Italy, who live and work here. This could be intense competition as it is estimated that there are more 2,000 pizzerias in New Jersey.

That probably doesn’t even include the countless number of other Italian restaurants that also make pizza, but don’t call themselves “pizzerias.” There is a pizza place at each end of my street within a mile and a half of each other. Then if you turn right at the end of the street you will meet another one about a mile on the left. And this is the suburbs, where everything is spread out. In inner cities and narrower towns, the concentration is much higher.

Interestingly, a good number of these pizzerias only come from a few towns in southern Italy. In my neck of the woods, two towns in the trunk have a lot of these pizzerias. One is the town of Monte di Procida, near Naples, and the other is Carini in Sicily, near the city of Palermo.

One by one the word of their good fortune here in New Jersey came home and more and more people came to be part of a thriving pizza culture here in our state. Perhaps it is the competition between these rivals from the “old country” that makes the “za” so good here, but whatever the reason, we are definitely the beneficiaries!

The above post reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy. All opinions expressed are those of Dennis Malloy.