History of Pizza

piz' za, n. (It.) A baked pie of Italian origin consisting of a shallow bread like crust covered with seasoned tomato sauce, cheese, and often other toppings such as sausage or onions.

As with the wheel, the "inventor" is lost to history. Very likely the "inventor" was part necessity, part circumstance, part ingenuity. Pizza has undergone a very slow process of evolution over the centuries, but it is definitely the cultures of the Mediterranean that deserve credit for creating it. Historical records suggest that people in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome all ate things that are very similar to the modern pizza.

Ancient Egyptians had a custom of celebrating the Pharaoh's birthday with a flat bread seasoned with herbs, and Herodotus, a Greek historian described Babylonian recipes that are very similar to contemporary pizza crust. The word pizza may be a derivative of the Latin word picea, a word used to describe the blackening of bread in an oven.

Pizza took the form that we are now familiar with in pre-Renaissance Naples, a large city in central Italy. Poor peasants used their limited ingredients (wheat flour, olive oil, lard, cheese and natural herbs) to make a seasoned, flat bread garnished with cheese and using leftovers. This meal was originally called fococcia. Mozzarella cheese was one benefit of an invasion from Asian peoples, who brought the water buffalo to Italy. Today, the best mozzarella cheese is still made from water buffalo milk.

The word pizza, as it is currently spelled, also emerged some time in the Middle Ages. It was used to describe both sweet and salty bread pies that were becoming increasingly popular among Italian aristocracy.

Europeans returning from Peru and Mexico brought with them what was originally thought to be a very poisonous fruit; the tomato. Precisely how they decided that the tomato was actually edible is unclear, but as Southern Europeans overcame their suspicions, the tomato became enormously popular. Today, the tomato is a crucial component of Mediterranean cuisine.

Naples gradually assumed its reputation as having the finest pizza in Italy throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century, pizza became a popular fast food, mostly due to its convenience.

Before pizzerias became very popular, however, street vendors (typically young boys) walked around the city with small tin stoves, calling out to attract customers. While undoubtedly uncomfortable for these 19th-century delivery boys, this street-vending method made pizza more popular and paved the way for the opening of the world's first pizzeria.

The world's first true pizzeria, "Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba", opened in 1830 and is still in business today at Via Port'Alba 18 in Naples. Pizzerias in this era usually included a large brick oven, a marble counter where the crust was prepared, and a shelf lined with ingredients.

Some writers have considered the pizza an invention of the man who is responsible for making it an international phenomenon (but the fact that this man worked in a pizzeria makes it difficult to call him the father of pizza!).

In 1889, Rafaele Esposito of the Pizzeria di Pietro e Basta Cosi (now called Pizzeria Brandi) baked pizza especially for the visit of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita. To make the pizza a little more patriotic-looking, Esposito used red tomato sauce, white mozzarella cheese (not usually used then) and green basil leaves as toppings. Queen Margherita loved the pizza, and what eventually became Pizza Margherita has since become an international standard. Pizzeria Brandi, now more than 100 years old, still proudly displays a royal thank-you note signed by Galli Camillo, "head of the table of the royal household", dated June 1889.

In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi opened the first American pizzeria, Lombardi's Pizzeria Napoletana in New York City. The popularity of pizza exploded throughout the country when World War II servicemen returning from Italy raved about the great Italian dish.

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