What Is the (Delicious) History of Pizza?

The concept of the pizza is a simple one. It is essentially a flatbread with toppings. Throughout thousands of years, these food items evolved and changed, shaped by the cultures that made them.

Today, pizza is one of the most common foods in the world, and it is distinctively Italian, although the influence of the United States and the transformation it underwent in this country cannot be understated.

From street food, to restaurants, and home delivery, pizza has become a staple of American culture, and its popularity has spread to every corner of the world. This is the history of one of the most beloved foods ever invented.

The idea of putting toppings on flatbread is not a particularly complex idea. Different flatbreads were produced all across the ancient world, and they were enhanced by putting local foods, herbs, and spices on top of them.

Much of what was eaten thousands of years ago is lost to history, and can only be the subject of speculation, however, several flatbreads are still known because they survive to this day!

Manakish is one of these foods. Popular in the Levant, manakish has been recognized by UNESCO as being emblematic of Lebanon. It is usually topped with za’atar, a mixture of ground beef and spices, or topped with cheese.

Popular in many parts of Spain is the coca, a form of flatbread that is eaten with a huge variety of toppings which include both savory and sweet.

The pita bread, often associated with Greece, actually has a history that stretches across the Middle East and was probably one of the very first types of bread to be cooked. The evolutionary start of the pita bread can be traced back to Natufian culture around 12,500 BCE. This was during the stone age when mankind had barely started experiments with farming.

In northern Italy, the flatbread of choice is the piadina, which is topped with a variety of ingredients, including cheese.

Perhaps the most direct evolutionary lineage of the pizza is the focaccia which has been around since before Roman times. It was eaten by the Greeks and Estruscans, and is a flatbread garnished with olive oil, herbs and spices. Of course, it is noticeable that the focaccia lacks two ingredients that are vital to the process of making a pizza – cheese and tomatoes.

Cheese would be readily available in the centuries that followed, but for tomatoes, the Italians would have to wait for them to be discovered in the New World.

Italy, known for its tomato-based recipes, only gained this reputation relatively recently. Significant trade started with the Americas in the 16th century, and is during this time that the tomato was introduced to Italy via Central and South America, where it is native.

The first mention of the word “pizza” comes from Naples during the 16th century. It referred to the local flatbread, but it is unlikely that the first iterations of the “pizza” were made with tomatoes. These pizzas were street food and generally made to cater to the poorer people in Napoletano society.

It is unknown exactly when tomatoes were introduced to Naples. Sources vary, with some claiming the introduction between the 16th to the late 17th century. For many decades after their introduction, tomatoes were considered poisonous because they are members of the nightshade family.

By the beginning of the 1800s, however, tomatoes were very much on the menu, and pizzerias began opening up all over Naples and tomatoes were being used as a topping on their culinary product.

A variation of pizza without cheese was developed called the “pizza marinara.” It was topped with tomato paste and various herbs, and according to legend, received its name because it was made by a mariner’s wife for when he came home after fishing in the Bay of Naples each day.

A standard form of the Neapolitan pizza, however, emerged that included mozzarella cheese and basil leaves. This became known as the margherita, and it is the standard form of pizza today, although in most cases outside of Italy, it is made without the basil leaves.

This pizza was allegedly created by Raffaele Esposito, a cook who was tasked with creating a pizza for the king and queen of Italy. Queen Margherita, for whom the pizza was named, wanted a dish that evoked the colors of the Italian flag, and thus the margherita was born.

This transformed the pizza’s reputation in Italy and it became a food accepted by all people of all walks of life, and gaining traction far beyond its birthplace of Naples. This expansion, however, was slow, and it would be decades before pizza became commonplace throughout all of Italy.

Pizza found a new home in the United States when it was created by Italian immigrants in the late 19th century. While the pizza continued to grow in popularity in Italy, it was really in the United States where the dish soared in popularity to become one of the most widely consumed foods in the world.

The first pizzeria to be opened was G. Lombardi’s, which opened in 1905 in the Little Italy section of Manhattan. Gennaro Lombardi is credited with creating the New York-style pizza. This style of pizza has a very thin base, which is only thick along the crust. It is by far the most popular style of pizza today.

One hundred nineteen years later, Lombardi’s is still in operation, making pizzas for the people of New York.

In the decades that followed, pizza spread throughout the New England area, but was generally a unique phenomenon, isolated in the areas of cities where Italian immigrants lived. The food had been introduced to those not of Italian heritage and in the English lexicon, pizza was named “tomato pie,” but had not made the leap into mainstream American culture.

In 1934, Tommaso’s Pizzeria opened in San Francisco, signaling the spread of pizza to the West Coast, and in 1943, Uno’s opened in Chicago.

It wasn’t until after the Second World War, however, when pizza became widespread amongst the American population as a whole. During the war, many American soldiers  fought up the boot of Italy and tasted the local cuisine, including pizza.

When these soldiers returned home, they sought out the pizza which they had grown fond of. One of these soldiers was Ira Nevin who invented the gas-fired pizza oven in 1945, allowing the baking of pizza to be done much faster. His “Baker’s Pride” oven revolutionized the pizza industry, and made it much more efficient.

Over the next few years, pizzerias began sprouting up all over the United States. The success of pizza during this time was partly due to the fact that it was large and cut into slices. It was the perfect communal food that brought people together.

Meanwhile, in Canada, the first pizzeria opened in Montreal in 1948, and as in the United States, the pizza gained immense popularity throughout the 1960s.

In the 1950s, frozen pizza became available for cooking and consumption in the convenience of one’s home. The Celentano Brothers were the first to introduce this trend to America, but the Totino brand from Minneapolis was the first big name in the frozen pizza market.

From 1958, the pizza industry exploded as franchises appeared. In this year the first Pizza Hut opened, followed by Little Caesar’s in 1959, and Domino’s in 1960. Nineteen years later, Papa John’s entered the business, and has become hugely successful over the past three decades.

In Canada, chains such as Boston Pizza and Pizza Pizza have become successful across the nation, and currently compete with American brands, which have moved into the lucrative Canadian market.

Pizza continues to grow on an international level. Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia Pacific are all experiencing significant growth in the pizza market, while other regions also increase at a steady pace. Western Europe competes with North America for the world’s largest share of the pizza market, and Norway leads the charge as the country with the largest per capita consumption. The average Norwegian consumes around eleven pounds of pizza every year, and pizzerias can be found almost everywhere in Norway.

Meanwhile, Germany, Russia, Japan, France, Australia, the United Kingdom, and of course, Italy, have significant per capita consumption rates.

Pizzas in America have also been characterized by delivery services, and as such, pizzas have become the ultimate convenience food for those not wishing to leave the house. Although other foods are now readily available for delivery to your doorstep, it was the pizza industry that popularized the trend.

Not only are pizzas convenient, but they are versatile. An infinite assortment of toppings can be applied and it can be argued that pizzas in this case, have more flavors than any other food! From pepperoni, to mushrooms, to asparagus to anchovies, and pineapple, the choices are truly endless.

Over three billion pizzas are eaten in the United States alone every year. On any given day, 13 percent of the American population consumes pizza. This is a phenomenal achievement which puts pizzas in the same league as hamburgers, French fries, buffalo wings, and many other staples of American cuisine.