Pizza History

Pizza History

Today Blog Pizza will step back for a moment and present a lesson on pizza history. The discussion today will analyze many aspects of pizza’s origin including where it came from, what areas had influenced it, and the history of pizza in America. This may help to bring some understanding of how pizza has evolved from the ways of the ancient world to being able to order pizza online.

First, let’s go way back in time. I would like to make one disclaimer though. The history of pizza is highly debatable and specifics about many things are still unknown. Specifically, the details are the most debatable before the 18th century.

Pizza oldest origins have been traced back to many cultures. It really depends on what part of the pizza that you would like to dissect first. If you would like to analyze the bread part of the pizza, then that part of the history of pizza has many origins from the Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and the Chinese. The Persians had used a form of its pizza during their battles. The pizza was cooked on the shield of the Persians and spiced with garlic, cheese, onions and dates (common to that region). The Chinese history is much debatable. However, they have been cooking what is known as the Chinese pizza for several hundred years. It is possible that when Marco Polo came to China in the 1200s that he adapted some of the techniques used in China for their pizza and brought it back to Italy. This theory has limited weight because Italians were cooking various forms of bread since B.C.

Many other Mediterranean cultures have used bread with various spices on it for thousands of years. It is hard to pinpoint who originated this idea because the Mediterranean people have mixed many of their cultures through numerous wars. It could only be noted that if Mediterranean history in general were to be used as an indication of the history of pizza, usually the knowledge was derived first from the Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Italians, respectively. This has been the general chronological pattern of ideas. Each time a new ruler had stepped to the plate to defeat an older empire, they would take their ideas and refine it better. If this theory has any weight to the complete history of pizza it would probably be minimal as we shall see that the tomato hadn’t arrived in Europe until the 1500s.

The history of the pizza in Italy can be dated back to the use of flatbreads of various sorts that have origins in many of the regions mentioned above. It may even be possible that India had a role to play in pizza’s history because their bread called naan has been used for thousand s of years as well. So now that we have analyzed the possible history of pizza from the perspective of the dough (you like that), let’s take a look at pizza history from another angle.

A complete history of the pizza must include a discussion of the tomato. The tomato was eaten by the Aztecs in Mexico from before the time of Christ. There has also been debate as to whether the tomato was originally used in Peru (some say it wasn’t there before the Spanish arrived). What we do know is that the Spanish were responsible for the mass marketing campaign that encircled the globe once it was discovered. The Spanish introduced the tomato all over the Caribbean, Europe, and the Philippines around the 16th century. Once it was introduced into these regions, the interest in the tomato spread all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East and everywhere in between. This is how the tomato made in to Italy.

Once the tomato arrived in Italy it still was not eaten by Italians until about the 17th century. The Italians like the color of it so they kept it as a decoration for table settings. Eating the tomato was a different story for the Italians because at first they had thought that the tomato was poisonous.

We are now reaching the point in history where pizzas various origins are meeting up with each other. As the saying goes, “and army of many can’t stop an idea whose time has come.” Pizza time had come!

In the streets of Naples, Italy the history of pizza as we know it had begun. The lower class people had peddled pizza to make a day’s pay. It was poor man’s food. Isn’t this ironic because just like lobster, which was originally thought as poor people’s food, has progressively transcending its levels in the social classes. By the 18th century pizza was used commonly in Naples with tomato base as its topping.

One of the first pizzerias that is still open today is in Naples, Italy called “Antica Pizzeria Port’ Alba.” This pizzeria dates back to approximately the 1730s. I would also like to mention for those disbelievers that need proof, pizza was mentioned and described by a French writer named Alexandre Dumas around 1830. This has helped bring the history of pizza into a more organized snapshot of its chronology.

There is one more major point to make about the history of pizza. Pizza was, as stated, a meal for the poor until about the 19th century. There are two major types of original pizzas from Naples. There is the margherita pizza and the marinara pizza. They are both examples of pizza in its barest form. Marinara is simply tomato, garlic, olive oil, and basil on top of dough. Margherita pizza is even simpler: basil, mozzarella, and tomato. This pizza was invented by Raffaele Esposito and served for the queen. Its main ingredients share the color of the Italian flag: red, white, and green.

Our final analysis of the history of pizza will discuss modern pizza in America. Pizza was brought to the United States of America in the late 1900s with the massive waves of Italian immigrants. Pizza was kept a secret for about forty years amongst the Italian community. During World War Two, many Americans from various areas of the United States had spent much time in Italy. It was during this time that they became acclimated to the idea of pizza.

Pizza is one of those foods that once you eat you can’t live without. Pizza is an addiction. American soldiers became addicted to the taste of pizza while stationed in Italy. When the war was over and they came back home they still needed to eat pizza. Many of the local Italian pizzerias in America suddenly became crowded with other forms of Americans. The problem was that the Italian American pizzerias were found mainly in cities with Italian American communities like Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and San Francisco. Pizza grew in popularity so fast that eventually corporate America wanted a slice of that pizza pie.

Several major events transpired to revolutionize pizza history in America: First, the opening of Pizzeria Uno in 1943 in Chicago; Second, the first commercial pizza mix was mass produced in Massachusetts in 1948; finally, the history of the first Pizza Hut began in 1968 in Wichita, Kansas. Other pizza chains eventually followed including: Dominos Pizza and Papa Johns. These events were the foundation of the subsequent mass marketing in America and the world of the concept of “pizza.” The rest is pizza history!