10 Fun Facts About The History Of Pizza
There is a great deal of debate when it comes to pizza. Whether you’re talking about where it originated or who makes the best pie, you are sure to find different answers everywhere you look. Perhaps this is what makes pizza so interesting, aside from the amazing taste that is. Here we take a look at ten fun facts about the history of pizza.
“The first written attestation of the word pizza dates back to 997 AD. It comes from the Latin pinsa, past participle of the verb pinsare, which means “to flatten out” and likely refers to the shape of pizza itself.”
“It seems the Etruscans — who lived in modern-day Tuscany and Latium between the 9th and 1st centuries BC — were the first people in Europe to enjoy baked, pizza-like flatbreads. But let’s not forget the ones who invented baking were the Egyptians!”
“The first pizza wasn’t made in Italy or USA. It was ancient Greeks who gave birth to Pizza. They used to bake flat and round large breads and topped them with veggies, potatoes, spices and olive oil. Definitely that was the earliest version of pizza known to have exist in human society.”
“Bakers in Naples prepared the first dish to be known as a “pizza” in the 1600s. This street food was sold to the poor Neapolitans who spent much of their time outside their one-room homes. These Neapolitans would purchase slices of pizza and eat it as they walked, which led contemporary Italian authors to call their eating habits “disgusting.”
“One of the first documented United States pizzerias was G. (for Gennaro) Lombardi’s on Spring Street in Manhattan, licensed to sell pizza in 1905. (Prior to that, the dish was homemade or purveyed by unlicensed vendors.) Lombardi’s, still in operation today though no longer at its 1905 location, “has the same oven as it did originally,” notes food critic John Mariani, author of How Italian Food Conquered the World.”
“During the first few decades of the 20th century, pizza was predominantly eaten and sold by working class Italian immigrants.”
“During World War II, many American GI’s popularized the dish after trying it overseas for the first time. They came home craving pizza and sought pizzerias in Italian neighborhoods to share with their friends and family. People loved it.”
“A survey was conducted in America and it was found that around 93% of the people of America order pizza at least once a month and on the day of Super Bowl Sunday around 58% of the American people order pizza making it the highest selling pizza as compared to the other day of the year.”
“Consumers all around world buy approximately 5 billion pizzas annually (3 billion in United States alone), in the environment where fast growing pizza industry shifted their efforts from the serving pizzas in restaurants to the delivering them directly to the consumer homes.”
“Luis XIII in Salerno, Italy has the world’s most expensive pizza with a price tag of $12,000! This is no ordinary pizza, first the dough is aged perfectly before the chief arrives at your home. Yes, they will create this masterpiece in your home kitchen. Some of the ingredients include, three types of caviar, lobster from Norway, Cilento, bufala mozzarella cheese and grains of pink Australian sea-salt from the Murray River.”
“In America, the pizza industry grosses over $30 billion every year and 17% of U.S. restaurants are actually pizzerias.”
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