ABSTRACT: Pizza is probably one of the best loved foods in the American diet, but how many know of its origins?
CONTENT: If you're like me, every once in awhile you may wonder about the history and origins of some of our favorite foods that have almost become staples in the American diet, such as pizza, hamburger and fried chicken. Well I decided to look into one of these favorite foods, that is pizza, to find out its history and where it had originated.
Who doesn't absolutely love pizza? The modern day version can have every kind of topping one can think of, from the more "traditional" type, that being simple tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and a variety of spices, to more non-traditional such as when one adds sausage, ground meats, olives, green peppers, vegetables such as broccoli, seafood to even pineapple slices. Whichever way it's served, pizza is probably one of the best combo foods going as it includes a bit of all the food groups that are needed in one's daily diet, grains (from bread), protein (cheese, meats, seafood) to vegetable (tomato, green peppers, etc) and if one adds something like pineapple slices, adds from the fruit source.
As to how far back pizza goes in history, there is some question, yet it is felt that it's early origins may have gone as far back to ancient times. The early civilizations of the Egyptian, Greek and Babylonian cultures all made their own forms of bread, but not necessarily the bread we usually think of, that is the kind that uses yeast, but more often similar to the flatter breads like the Greek pita style breads, yet leavened bread wasn't entirely unknown. And like most of us today, rarely was bread of any kind eaten plain during ancient times , but usually with some kind of addition, just like the way we like melted butter or jam on our toast. And just like in modern times, bread came in a variety of shapes. Also, no doubt in ancient times they may have had their own type of what we call pizza, but certainly not what we think of that defines the true pizza, and why? One simple answer and key ingredient for pizza: tomato sauce.
Many people might be unaware of the fact that tomatoes were only indigenous to the South America area, so in other words, if the "New World" hadn't been discovered, pizza and any food product containing tomatoes would never have existed either. Just think of all those savory Italian dishes that would never have been invented if it hadn't been for the tomato! When the early explorers started exploring the Americas, not only did they discover a whole new world, a different race of people, but discovered many foods, not only tomatoes, but corn (maize), potatoes and so forth and took them back to Europe, more notably Italy and Spain.(1)
At first, not only the tomato, but potatoes weren't widely accepted by Europeans. Since both are of the nightshade family, many people thought tomatoes (and potatoes) as being poisonous. People seemed to be justified in their assumptions of the so-called poisonous qualities of the tomato when many people got deathly sick after eating them. Why? People of the richer class and could afford them, often ate on dishes made of pewter. The acidic reaction from tomatoes with these pewter plates created a leeching of the lead from the plates, resulting in lead poisoning and often death. Ironically, only the poorer classes who couldn't afford the pewter plates and instead used wooden plates never suffered from this problem. (2)
The origins of tomato sauce probably goes back to Aztec times but the idea of making a sauce from tomatoes probably didn't become popular until the late 1700s and grew even more popular in the mid-1850s, when the idea of "canning" became popular, that is preparing foods in larger quality, cooking them, and placing them in "cans" though the name is misleading, as so-called cans were the glass type we often now call the Mason type jars.
As far as when the earliest tomato-based pizza came into existence, we can thank the poorer people of the Naples, Italy area. Pizza was a relatively cheap meal to make for the poorer classes since the flat bread used was filling and the addition of topping the flat bread with a early form of tomato sauce gave it a satisfying taste. The popularity of this simple poor fare of a meal however, spread, and not only were the poorer classes eating pizza but also the wealthier classes including the king and queen of Italy . The original pizzas however, were only the tomatoes themselves and a blending of garlic, olive oil and basil...this was the basis for the sauce we know as Marinara. It wasn't until around 1889, that the Neapolitan baker Raffaele Esposito also added mozzarella cheese in honor of Italy's Queen Margherita of Savoy to represent the color of Italy's flag, red (tomatoes), white (mozzarella cheese) and green (basil) and thus the true pizza that we think of was born.(3)
As you probably can guess, pizza was introduced to America with the arrival of Italian immigrants in the late 1800s and quickly became popular in the larger cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia, however, pizza was generally only eaten by the immigrants themselves. It is thought that the first true pizzeria officially opened in the Little Italy section of New York City by Gennaro Lombardi around 1905(4). During the following years, in all the major cities, many more pizzerias were to open up, yet the popularity of pizza to people of non-Italian origins didn't come about until around the 1940s.
To this day, pizza is probably one of those meals we just can't imagine being without. Can one imagine not eating a pizza while watching a SuperBowl game for instance? The pizza has certainly come a long way from the simple fare of just tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and basil and now a whole array of toppings are used.
History of Bread
History of Bread
History of Tomatoes
(1)
History of Tomatoes
(2)
Tomato History
History of Pizza
(3)(4)
Wiki History of Pizza
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