What is PIZZA?

What is PIZZA?

Ask any kid this, and I venture that 9 out of 10 will say – PEPPERONI! It’s standard fare for American kids, at least. To say that the history of pizza has changed is like saying the ocean is full of water.

There’s no debate.

But luckily, some stick to tradition. There’s no Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Little Ceasar’s, or even Digiorno’s involved – though all are good options, don’t get me wrong! I’ve indulged in all of them and more myself.

The preparers of traditional pizza may turn their nose up at the pre-fab, fast-food versions of the beloved pizza pie; they’re still a rendition of tradition. Pizza still consists of two major components – a type of flatbread and a topping.

Descendants of pizza have been found in the form of baked leavened bread as far back as 7,000 years (I know, I was a bit shocked, too). And variations of flatbread encircle the globe. There’s focaccia in the Mediterranean regions, which is still popular today; pita bread from Greek origins; South Asian naan, which is leavened; roti, which is not leavened; and Finnish rieska.

All of this could have been included in my article “What is BREAD,” but then I’d be plagiarizing myself, huh?

In 1843, the iconic Margherita Pizza described by Alexandre Dumas was a tribute to the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita Savoy. It was a pizza topped with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil – representing the colors of the Italian flag. Its creator was Raffaele Esposito. Thank you, Raffaele! Your creation is still popular today, in the year 2021.

Pizza evolved into the tomato and bread dish served with cheese most popular today.

Let’s explore some pizza spin-offs:

 Schiacciata – a thin dough filled with tomatoes, cheese, etc., folded two or three times and baked to a golden brown;

 Calzones – simply a folded pizza filled with cheeses, meats, vegetables, or a combo of ingredients;

 Strombolis – a close cousin to schiacciata in that it’s a rolled dough filled with any popular filling similar to pizza; and

 A newcomer to my “foodie” world: Panzerotti - often mistaken for calzone, it’s fried, not baked (where have you been all my life?).

An interesting tidbit to add to our pizza story is that Europeans thought that the tomato was poisonous for many years! Brought to Europe in the 16th century by Americans (those villains!), thankfully, the poorer class around Naples were brave enough to try and incorporate the tomato into their food, especially the pizza. Pizza became a popular tourist attraction.

Pizza made its way back across the pond to America in the late 19th century among the Italian population of the bigger cities – New York and Chicago, for example. It was still touted as a lower-class food and didn’t expand much further until after World War II, when soldiers from the Italian Campaign proved it had a viable market.

I love the statement in Wikipedia saying, “By the 1960s, it was popular enough to be featured in an episode of Popeye the Sailor.” “It” being, of course, pizza.

I don’t remember the episode, but I watched a lot of Popeye on my beloved Saturday morning cartoon binges! Dear reader – you’re probably too young to remember those since cartoons are available around the clock now. (Insert smile emoji here.)

So we quickly emerge to the 20th, sorry 21st century and our current love of pizza around the globe, but especially here in the United States of America. One Google statement said Americans eat three billion pizzas a year. But this was also in 2019. I’m positive that thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 and 2021, that’s a conservative number.

While researching my little article here, I found a great page of fun facts from CreditDonkey – you have to check it out! https://www.creditdonkey.com/pizza-statistics.html

The funniest (or saddest, depending on how you look at it) statistic I saw was that the state of Arkansas – at the article’s publication date in 2016 – only had 139 pizzerias in the ENTIRE state! But before you judge them and make any remarks about ‘southern’ states, Wyoming wasn’t far behind with only 141 pizzerias. Wow.

So, if you’re hungry now, grab a slice of your favorite pizza (heavy meat, extra cheese, and mushrooms for me), ponder life, and be happy!

Life is too short to go without a good pizza…