The History Of The Pizza And How It Reached The Shores Of Every Country In The World

Although the average 21st century child might tell you this savoury, crisp and tangy dish comes from a guy on a scooter who rings the door bell, you might be amazed to know that the pizza as we know it was completely different in ancient times.

The Ancestors

If you think about it and break it down, modern pizza is flat-bread covered in tomato sauce, cheese, and a variety of toppings. While flat-bread was the oldest existing component of these four elements (starting with the ancient Egyptians), the pizza's earliest ancestor was a kind of flat-bread topped with dates and cheese. According to Genevieve Thier's essay History of Pizza it was prepared by Persian soldiers of Darius the Great, in 500 B.C, but without the use of an oven. They used their shields instead.

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Many still refuse to believe that the pizza could have been born in Iran, so let's bring in the Italian (or Greek) connection for them.

Naples is said to be the birth place of pizza in the Italian peninsula, but in the 1st Century B.C it was a Greek settlement called Neopolis. The Greeks are said to have baked the first pizza in round shapes and topped them with a variety of ingredients like meat, potatoes, olives and dry fruits.

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Medieval Naples

Naples soon grew into a major trading post and become home to an enormous working class population who couldn't afford a decent meal three times a day. That's when roadside vendors and informal restaurants started selling pizza as flat-breads with various toppings. This was looked downed upon by the rich minority as they were too busy gorging on the great and the good of pan European cuisine.

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After the 16th century, tomatoes were introduced in Europe from Peru. However, tomato sauce was not made a part of the pizza anatomy until much later, as the exotic fruit was considered poisonous. In the 17th century, Antony Latini recorded the first ever recipe of tomato sauce (not ketchup!) in a cookbook

The Modern Age of Pizza

It was only until the 19th century that Raffaele Esposito introduced sauce on pizza, as cheese baked on flat-bread just wasn't good enough. It became an instant hit in Naples and he was asked to prepare pizzas for the newly unified Italy's King Umberto I and Queen Margherita in 1889. The queen loved a combination that coincidentally also reflected the three colours of the Italian flag. It was named after her and that is why a pizza consisting of tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and garnished with basil leaves is known as a Margherita.

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Despite its now royal endorsements, the pizza was pretty much unknown beyond Naples.

The New World

In the 1800s and 1900s, several Southern Italians migrated to the eastern coast of the United States in search of better jobs in factories that were being set up. They took their traditional recipes with them and that included pizza. Despite the hardships of living up to the American dream, it was their food that kept them going.

Gennaro Lombardi opened the first pizzeria in Manhattan in 1905 and soon his new introduction to the American public attracted more than just Italian immigrants. In the 1920s, pizzerias took off around New York and the East coast, spreading from city to suburb.

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Meanwhile in Naples, pizza was mostly sold from stufa containers (pictured below) as opposed to their modern descendants, the cardboard disposable box.

stufa

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Post World War II

After the victory of the Allies, American marines who were stationed in Southern Italy returned home with a new craze for pizza and demand across the nation boomed. Recipes no longer remained traditionally Italian and different cities tried to come up with their own distinct styles, varying with crust sizes, sauce flavour and local toppings. As example is the deep dish pizza of Chicago.

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From America to the Rest of the World

Just like jeans, hairstyles and rock n' roll, the craze for pizza hit a recovering Europe that was over its post-war phase. Other parts of Italy soon grew a taste for the food that was barely known a hundred years ago.

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It wasn't just the work of international chains like Domino's and Pizza Hut that brought pizza to the world - it was it's potrayal in media. Children learned of pizza being a food to die for from the popular cartoon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The protagonists daily diet of this carb rich delicacy made kids of the 80s and 90s kids salivate for more while bringing on the business to pizza places now taking advantage of the low cost of preparation and the high demand.

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