pizza gaina? pizza rustica?

Teri said:

Growing up I remember my aunt making something on Easter we called
pizzagaina.  Now - I found a recipe w/her handwriting that calls it pizza
rustica. Are these the same things? I tried searching online and the recipes
I can find are similar ... but my recipe also has some penne in it - whereas
the others online are more quiche-like. The recipe I have calls for
scamorse.  Is this basket cheese?  Is basket cheese the same thing as
ricotta?  or mozzerella?  TIA!
Teri

Pizzagaina is essentially a very fancy schmancy calzone (or garbage
calzone depending on perspective), but typically eaten cold:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1658,141186-241198,00.html

Growing up in Broklyn I remember pizzagaina being a very common way to
use all the weekend's leftovers to make lunches for bringing to work/
school during the week. There is no exact recipe, it's to clean the
fridge of whatever is left over. Each morning walking to school I
used to get offered more than I could possibly eat from the kids who
had pizzagaina for lunch, they were embarrassed to eat it in public
because of how it stigmatized one as a dirt poor WOP... hey, never
bothered me, they were so good, better than my mom's bologna
sammiches, so of course I'd trade. The last 'a' is silent, so it took
me a long time before realizing it wasn't "pizza again". Hey, I was
only seven years old, I wasn't such a wisaguy then... but still, if
you were a teacher you didn't want me in your class.

Sheldon

Sheldon said:

Growing up in Broklyn I remember pizzagaina being a very common way to
use all the weekend's leftovers to make lunches for bringing to work/
school during the week. There is no exact recipe, it's to clean the
fridge of whatever is left over. Each morning walking to school I
used to get offered more than I could possibly eat from the kids who
had pizzagaina for lunch, they were embarrassed to eat it in public
because of how it stigmatized one as a dirt poor WOP... hey, never
bothered me, they were so good, better than my mom's bologna
sammiches, so of course I'd trade. The last 'a' is silent, so it took
me a long time before realizing it wasn't "pizza again". Hey, I was
only seven years old, I wasn't such a wisaguy then... but still, if
you were a teacher you didn't want me in your class.

My father told of his High School years (Oyster Bay High School, Oyster
Bay, LI) and that the Italian kids always brought leftover fried pepper,
onion and perhaps fried potato sandwiches. They would be wrapped up in
waxed paper, and in a brown lunch bag. By lunch time the oil spots
always appeared on the brown bag which made it obvious as to what was
inside. Some were embarrassed by those peasant sandwiches...when the
American kids had store bought wonderbread and bologna or something
similiar. Nowadays I would take that Italian lunch ANY day over
wonderbread and coldcuts, wouldn't you?
I hadn't thought of pizzagaina in years!("pizzachain" it always sounded
to me as a kid) Now I wish I could have some and can't make it this
weekend either, darn it.

Teri said:

Growing up I remember my aunt making something on Easter we called
pizzagaina.

It is an American transmogrification of the Neapolitan pizza ripiena
(filled or stuffed pizza), in the local dialect "chiena".

Victor