A new exhibit tracing the roots of pizza in America opened Wednesday at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration.

Five of the restaurants featured in the exhibit brought their specialty pizza pies for visitors to sample at the launch of the exhibit. It was a celebration of an American tradition with some old-world recipes.

“This is beautiful. This is what talking about our elders is all about,” says Mike Mandara of Posa Posa Pizza. “Letting people know about the hardships of immigration to America and how they can succeed.

Jerry Willis, with the National Park Service which runs the museum, says that food plays an important part in American history. And what better way to show this than with a pizza summit.

“It's a really fun way for us to connect immigration history to our visitors and make the history come alive by sharing the food of the many different types of immigrants who came through Ellis Island,” he says.

Visitors Jordan and Rachel Moran are from Kentucky. They say that they have never tasted anything like the world-famous New York-style pizza before.

"I think food itself can also be a history lesson. Most of the stuff we eat here in America just comes from so many different cultures because we’re a huge melting pot,” Jordan Moran says. “So anytime we eat anything it's a history lesson."

The pizza exhibit inside the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration runs through mid-October.