EVERYBODY LOVES PIZZA

Surprising things you never knew about pizza By Dan Myers Published July 20, 2015. 

 

Ah, pizza. Ask a few people what their favorite food is, and it's bound to come up. Pizza is one of the most popular foods in America, and whether it's from a fast food joint, your supermarket's freezer section, a dollar-slice joint on the streets of New York, or an artisanal pizzeria, it always seems to taste good. But this magical combination of bread, cheese, and sauce didn't come into the world fully-formed, and we bet that there are some things you didn't know about it. People have been topping bread with stuff for thousands and thousands of years, and pizza can trace its roots to the earliest inhabitants of the Mediterranean. The ancient Greeks topped flatbreads with herbs, and the first documented use of the word "pizza" was in 997 AD in Gaeta, Italy. The precursor to modern pizza was developed in Naples, where by the late 1700s it became a local specialty of the city's poorer areas. Over time, two primary varieties developed in the city: marinara (topped with oregano, garlic, and olive oil) and Margherita (with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and olive oil) - named in honor of Queen Margherita of Savoy, wife of the Italian king Umberto I. To this day, these are the styles preferred by Italian pizza purists. Pizza first made its way to the United States around the turn of the twentieth century, along with the thousands of Italian immigrants who descended on cities including New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. The first "pizza pies" sold in the United States were offered by street peddlers, and small pizzerias soon opened in Italian neighborhoods. America's first pizzeria is widely considered to be the one opened by Genarro Lombardi in New York in 1905. While it's still in business today, it's not America's oldest continuously operated pizzeria; more on that later. Today, pizza is far more than a regional Italian specialty or a delicacy of Italian enclaves. It's one of the most ubiquitous foods around, for one main reason: It's delicious. Whether it's a strictly Neapolitan-style Margherita pie, a meat-lover's pizza from your local chain, Chicago-style deep-dish, or a frozen pizza heated up in the microwave, there's just something about pizza that connects with us on a deeper level, one that hits all the pleasure sensors in the brain. Want to learn more about pizza? Check out these fun facts. 1.  There's an Organization That Verifies 'True' Neapolitan Pizza Around the World.  Founded in 1984, the Associazione Verace Pizza Nepoletana ("True Neapolitan Pizza Association") has set specific rules that must be followed if a pizzeria is going to call its product authentic Neapolitan: It must be baked in a wood-fired, domed oven; must be made entirely by hand (without the aid of even a rolling pin); must be no more than 35 centimeters in diameter; and can't be more than one-third of a centimeter thick at the middle, among other requirements. Crushed red pepper flakes are optional. 2.  Nobody Knows How the Word Originated.  There are a few competing theories for the etymological origin of the word pizza: The Ancient Greek words pikte (for "fermented pastry") and pitta ("bran bread"), the Italian word pizzicare (meaning "to pluck" as in "plucking quickly from the oven"); and the Old High German word pizzo ("mouthful"), brought to Italy in the sixth century by the Lombards. 3.  Tomatoes Weren't Always a Crucial Component.  Pizza was around long before European explorers first brought tomatoes back from the New World in the late 1500s, but they eventually made their way onto pizzas and became an essential component of the pies we know today. Nobody knows exactly who the first person was to add tomatoes to pizza, but we should all be very thankful for the development. 4.  The Outer Edge Is Called the Cornicione.  If you want to impress your friends, the next time you're eating pizza and somebody leaves the "bones" behind, ask them why they didn't eat the cornicione (say "cor-nee-cho-nay"), which means the cornice or the molding. Don't call it the crust; that's the name for the base that the toppings are added to. And yes, this does mean that Pizza Hut's latest creation should technically be called a hot dog-stuffed cornicione pizza. 5.  You Won't Find Pizza Slices in Italy.  Pizzas in Italy tend to only be served whole (the smallish Neapolitan ones, for example) or cut into squares or rectangles from a large tray, called pizza al taglio. The large, round pies you find in New York are an American invention - enlarged versions of Neapolitan pizza. Early New York pizza sellers sold whole pies for around five cents, but for those who couldn't afford a whole pie, the sellers cut them into wedges and sold them for a couple cents apiece, and the New York-style slice was born.