The Origins of Pizza

There are not many countries in the world that can lay claim to national dishes which went on

to become international phenomena. Italy has two: pasta and pizza. Pizza is famous the

world over. In America, it falls into two distinct categories: Chicago style, or traditional

Italian thin-crust. Italy also has two styles: those made by Italians, and cheap imitations!

Pizza is one of the most, if not the most popular Italian dish, favoured by Italian food fans the

world over like Tony Freeman.

The ancient Greeks covered unleavened bread with olive oil, cheese and herbs. The Romans

cooked a dish called "placenta cake", which consisted of a sheet of dough topped with honey

and cheese which was flavoured with bay leaves. It is widely believed that pizza, as we

know it today, evolved from a similar flatbread dish which was consumed in Naples, Italy, in

the latter part of the 18th or early 19th century. Up until that time, flatbread was eaten with

toppings of lard, salt, garlic, cheese and basil. There are many conflicting opinions as to

when tomato was added. Pizza Margherita, the forefather of pizza as we know it today, is

first recorded in 1889 when Neapolitan pizzailolo, Raffaele Esposito (the first recorded pizza

maker in history) was commissioned by the Royal Palace of Capodimonte to create a pizza to

honour the visit of Queen Margherita. He created three different versions, of which the

Queen showed a strong preference for that in the colours of the Italian flag: flatbread swathed

in white mozzarella, green basil, and, of course, red tomato.

Pizza was introduced to the United States by Italian immigrants in the late 1800s. It became

widespread in areas with larger number of Italian immigrants. Lombardi's was the first

pizzaria established in the United States. It opened in 1905, on the corner of Mott Street in

New York's Manhattan. Back then it was a grocery store selling "tomato pies", wrapped in

paper parcels tied with string, to workers of New York factories. Gennaro Lombardi received

the relevant license to operate as a restaurant in 1905, quickly gaining a loyal clientele which

included the famous Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. Gennaro passed on the family business to

his son, George. After a decade of closure in 1984, Lombardi's re-opened at 32 Spring Street,

under the command of Gennaro Lombardi III, the founder's grandson.

Authentic Italian pizzerias cook to order, using a traditional wood fired oven. Early recipes

include the Pizza Capricciosa, featuring a topping of prosciutto, mushrooms, artichoke hearts,

olives and half a boiled egg.

The biggest pizza ever made was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records on 8th

December 1990. Weighing a staggering 12.19 tonnes and measuring an incredible 37.4 m in

diameter, the pizza was made at Norwood Hypermarket, Norwood, South Africa.