Fact about Pizza

Pizza's History- brief

The truth is the Italians did not invent pizza, although they did improve upon it and make it famous. It is written that the Italian interpretation of pizza most likely evolved from cooking concepts started by the Etruscans who occupied Italian areas in the north and the Greeks in the south. From about 730 B.C. until about 130 B.C., Greeks, who were considered to be some of greatest bakers in ancient times, occupied the southernmost regions of Italy. The Greeks baked round, flat breads and garnished them with oils, garlic, vegetables and other foods, leaving a rim of crust to serve as a "handle."

1. The first pizzas were known as focaccia and were simply flat breads with herbs. After focaccia, came "Casa de nanza," which means "take out before." This early form of pizza was created as a peasant's food and was designed like the French crepe and Mexican taco as a food to be eaten without utensils, as a way to use fresh produce made locally and as a way to get rid of leftovers.

2. Pizza as we know it could not have came into existence until Europeans got over their fear that tomatoes were poisonous. Tomatoes were brought back to Europe by explorers who found the fruit in Mexico and Central America.

3. So when did the word "pizza" first appear? "The term pizza is clouded in some ambiguity, though it may derive from an Old Italian word meaning a point, which in turn led to the Italian word pizzicare, meaning to pinch or pluck. The word shows up for the first time in print as a Neapolitan dialect word--piza or picea--about 1000 A.D., possibly referring to the manner in which something is plucked from a hot oven."

4. "The world's first true pizzeria is though to be 'Antica Pizzaria Port'Alba,' which opened in 1830 in Naples, Italy, and is still in business today." "Modern pizza is attributed to baker Raffaele Esposito of Napoli (Naples) in the Italian region of Campania. In 1889, Esposito of Pizzeria di Pietro (now called Pizzeria Brandi) baked pizza especially for the visit of Italian King Umberto I and Queen Margherita and for one of the pizzas embellished the classic Pizza Alla Marinara with mozzarella and basil. The pizza was very patriotic and resembled the Italian flag with its colors of green (basil), white (mozzarella), and red (tomatoes). This pizza was named Pizza Margherita in honor of the Queen and set the standard by which today's pizza evolved and spread to Northern Italy and beyond, firmly establishing Naples as the pizza capitol of the world."

5. "Pizza was imported to the United States by Italian immigrants. For many years, pizza was mostly available in cities with large Neapolitan populations [New York, Boston, New Haven, Philadelphia, Baltimore etc.]. The ingredients immigrants found in their new country differed from those in the old: In New York there was no buffalo-milk mozzarella, so cow's milk mozzarella was used; oregano, a staple southern Italian herb, was replaced in America by sweet marjoram; and American tomatoes, flour, even water, were different. Here pizza evolved into a large, sheet-like pie, perhaps eighteen inches or more in diameter, reflecting the abundance of the new country." The first pizzeria opened in the U.S. was in New York City in 1895 by an Italian immigrant named Gennaro Lombardi. The pizzeria is Lombardi's and it is still open. It wasn't until American soldiers returned from WWII that pizza became a national phenomenon. Returning American GI's brought back a taste for the pizzas they had had in Naples along with the assumptions that pizza, like spaghetti and meatballs, was a typical Italian dish, instead of a regional one.