 The word "pizza" is from the Italian word
pizza (IPA: /pittsa/), with plural form
pizze (IPA: /pit:tse/). The term was
originally used to refer to a range of
dough-based dishes, and is thought to be
derived from pinza ← Latin pincere "to mash
up".
A restaurant
which serves pizza is called a pizzeria
(from Italian); in the US, the phrase pizza
parlor is also used. Pizza can also be
purchased in grocery stores or supermarkets
(usually but not always frozen); in many
countries, pizza can also be ordered by
phone (or, increasingly, via the Web) to be
delivered, hot and ready to eat, to almost
any address within range of the restaurant.
History:
Kosher and Non-Kosher Pizza
The history of food items which may have
served as the roots of modern pizza can be
traced to the Greek colonies of Magna
Graecia (southern Italy). Such products
arguably have their first written mention in
Book VII of Virgil's Aeneid:
Their homely fare dispatch’d, the hungry
band
Invade their trenchers next, and soon
devour,
To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of
flour.
Ascanius this observ’d, and smiling said:
“See, we devour the plates on which we fed.”
In the 3rd century BCE, the first history of
Rome, written by Marcus Porcius Cato,
mentions a "flat round of dough dressed with
olive oil, herbs, and honey baked on
stones". Further evidence is found in
Pompeii, the city "frozen in time" since 79
CE, where archaeologists have excavated
shops that closely resemble modern
pizzerias.
Though several kinds of flat bread made with
flour, often cooked with oil and spices,
were familiar to ancient Romans and popular
in all the Mediterranean area, they were
considerably different from pizza as it is
known today. The tomato was still unknown in
Europe and the Indian water buffalo, whose
milk is used to make the real mozzarella
cheese, had not yet been imported to
Campania, the area around Napoli (Naples).
The crust of pizza is very similar to
focaccia bread common in Italian cuisine
today.
The
tomato was first believed to be
poisonous (as some other fruits of the
nightshade family are), when it came to
Europe in the 16th century. However, by the
late 18th century even the poor of the area
around Naples added it as an ingredient to
their yeast-based flat bread, and the dish
gained in popularity. Pizza became a tourist
attraction, and visitors to Naples ventured
into the poorer areas of the city to try the
local specialty.
The first dynasties of Neapolitan pizza
makers (Italian: pizzaioli) originate in
these years: modern pizza is attributed to
baker Raffaele Esposito of Naples in the
Italian region of Campania. In 1889
Esposito, who worked in the pizzeria
"Pietro... e basta così" (literally
"Peter... and that's enough", established in
1780 and still in activity; now called
"Pizzeria Brandi") baked a special pizza for
the visit of the King Umberto I and Queen
Margherita of Savoy. The pizza was very
patriotic in its evocation of the Italian
flag with its colors of green (basil
leaves), white (mozzarella), and red
(tomatoes), and was named Pizza Margherita
in honor of the Queen. This set the standard
by which today's pizza evolved and spread
worldwide.
Until about 1830, pizza was sold from
open-air stands and street vendors out of
pizza bakeries. The world's first true
pizzeria, Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba, opened
in Naples in that period.
Pizza met the aristocratic taste (the King
of Naples Ferdinando II of Borbone greatly
enjoyed the pizza made by 'Ntuono Testa at
Salita S. Teresa) and an even more decided
popular favour, establishing itself as a
daily course, dinner and supper of the
Neapolitans.
An Italian immigrant to the US in 1897 named
Gennaro Lombardi opened a small grocery
store in New York's Little Italy. An
employee of his, Antonio Totonno Pero (also
an Italian immigrant) began making pizza for
the store to sell. Their pizza became so
popular, Lombardi opened the first US
pizzeria in 1905 at 53 1/3 Spring Street,
naming it simply Lombardi's. The price for
an entire pizza was 5 cents, but since many
people couldn't afford the cost of a whole
pie, they could rather say how much they
could pay and they were given a slice
corresponding to the amount offered (not
unlike how pizza is often sold today). It
was closed in 1984 and then reopened in 1994
a block down, at 32 Spring Street. On
November 10, 2005, Lombardi's celebrated its
100th anniversary by selling pizzas at the
1905 price, 5 cents, for the whole day.
In 1924, Totonno left Lombardi's to open his
own pizzeria on Coney Island called
Totonno's. Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana
opened in New Haven in 1925. Boston was
introduced to pizza in 1926 by Anthony
Polcari when he opened Pizzeria Regina in
Boston's North End. The D'Amore family
brought pizza to Los Angeles in 1939. At
this point in time in the U.S., pizza
consumption was still limited mostly to
Italian immigrants.
The international breakthrough came after
World War II. Allied troops occupying Italy,
weary of their rations, were constantly on
the lookout for good food. They discovered
the pizzerias, and local bakers were hard
pressed to satisfy the demand from the
soldiers. The American troops involved in
the Italian campaign took their appreciation
for the dish back home.
With its rising popularity in the 1950s,
especially in the US, pizza became a
component of the growing chain-restaurant
industry. Some leading early pizza chains
were Shakey's Pizza (inventor of the term
pizza parlor; formerly, the term pizzeria
was preferred) and Pizza Hut, both founded
in 1954, in Sacramento and Wichita,
respectively. Some later entrants to the
dine-in pizza market were Happy Joe's,
California Pizza Kitchen, and Round Table
Pizza. Today, the American pizza business is
dominated by companies that specialize in
home delivery, including Domino's, Little
Caesar's, and Papa John's. Even Pizza Hut
has shifted its emphasis away from pizza
parlors and toward home delivery. These
national pizza chains often coexist with
locally-owned pizza restaurants.
Pizza is also found in supermarkets as a
frozen food. Considerable amounts of food
technology ingenuity has gone into the
creation of palatable frozen pizzas. The
main challenges include preventing the sauce
from combining with the dough and producing
a crust that can be frozen and reheated
without becoming rigid. Modified corn starch
is commonly used as a moisture barrier
between the sauce and crust. Traditionally
the dough is somewhat pre-baked and other
ingredients are also sometimes pre-cooked.
Lately, frozen pizzas with completely raw
ingredients have also begun to appear.
Types of pizza
In recent years, pizza has become an
international food since the toppings can be
extensively varied to meet local variations
in taste. These pizzas consist of the same
basic design but include an exceptionally
diverse choice of ingredients, such as
anchovies, egg, pineapple, grilled lamb,
coconut, sauerkraut, eggplant, lamb,
couscous, chicken, fish, and shellfish,
meats done in ethnic styles such as Moroccan
lamb, kebab or even chicken tikka masala,
and non-traditional spices such as curry and
Thai sweet chili. Pizzas can also be made
without meat for kosher and vegetarians, and
without cheese for vegans. Breakfast pizzas
are topped with ingredients such as
scrambled eggs. "Supreme" pizzas typically
include a thick layer of many different
toppings.
Pizza styles:
Kosher Pizza
Italian
pizzas:
-
Neapolitan pizza (pizza Napoletana).
According to the rules proposed by the
Associazione vera pizza napoletana and
other sources quoted by the BBC [3], and
the legal EU document with the Vera Pizza
Napoletana Specification in translation.
The genuine Neapolitan pizza dough
consists of Italian wheat flour (type 0
and/or 00), natural Neapolitan yeast or
brewer's yeast, and water. For proper
results, strong flour with high protein
content (as used for bread-making rather
than cakes) must be used. The dough must
be kneaded by hand or with an approved
mixer that moves in a clockwise direction.
After the rising process, the dough must
be formed by the right hand and the first
two fingers of the left without the help
of a rolling pin or other mechanical
device, and may be no more than 3 mm (1/8
in) thick. The pizza must be baked for
60–90 seconds in a 485 °C (905 °F) stone
oven with an oak-wood fire. When cooked,
it should be soft and fragrant. Neapolitan
pizza has also gained in Italy the status
of "guaranteed traditional speciality".
This admits only three official variants:
+ Pizza marinara: with tomato, garlic,
oregano and oil;
+ Pizza Margherita: tomato, mozzarella in
listels, basil and oil;
+ Pizza Margherita Extra: tomato, buffalo
mozzarella from Campania in listels, basil
and oil.
- Veneto
style: Pizza in Veneto (Venice, Padova) is
very thin (0.5 cm), crispy in the outer
ring but soft, almost flimsy, in the inner
portion. Little sauce is used, and a
popular topping is strips of Prosciutto.
- Lazio
style: Pizza in Lazio (Rome), as well as
in many other parts of Italy is available
in 2 different "flavours": 1) In take-away
shops so-called "Pizza Rustica" or "Pizza
a Taglio". Pizza is cooked in long,
rectangular baking pans and relatively
thick (1-2 cm). The crust similar to that
of an English muffin and mostly cooked in
an electric oven. When purchased, it is
usually cut with scissors or knife and
priced by weight. 2) In Pizza Restaurants
(Pizzerie), where it is served in a dish
in its traditional round shape, it
features a very thin crust compared to
Neapolitan recipe. It is mostly cooked in
a wood-fired oven which gives pizza its
unique flavour and taste. In Rome a "Pizza
Napoletana" is topped with tomato,
mozzarella, anchovies and oil (thus, what
in Naples is called "Pizza Romana", in
Rome is called "Pizza Napoletana").
Strange enough, there is no such "Pizza
Napoletana" in Naples and no "Pizza
Romana" in Rome.
- Pizza
Romana (in Naples): tomato, mozzarella,
anchovies, oregano, oil;
- Pizza
Viennese: tomato, mozzarella, German
sausage, oregano, oil;
o Pizza with Ham and Mushrooms: tomato,
mozzarella, ham, mushrooms;
- Pizza
Capricciosa ("Caprice Pizza"): mozzarella,
tomato, mushrooms, artichokes, cooked ham,
olives, oil (in Rome raw ham is used and
half hard-boiled egg is added ;
- Pizza
Quattro Stagioni ("Four Seasons Pizza"):
same ingredients for the Capricciosa, but
ingredients not mixed;
- Four
Cheeses Pizza: tomato, mozzarella, other
cheeses;
-
Sicilian-style pizza has its toppings
baked directly into the crust. An
authentic recipe uses neither cheese nor
anchovies. Sicilian Pizza in the United
States is typically a different variety of
product made with a thick crust
characterized by rectangular share and
topped with tomato sauce and cheese (and
optional toppings). Pizza Hut's Sicilian
Pizza, introduced in 1994, is not an
authentic example of the style as only
garlic, basil, and oregano are mixed into
the crust.
American
pizzas:
- New
York-style pizza is a style originally
developed in New York City, where pizza is
often sold in oversized, thin and flexible
slices. It is traditionally hand-tossed
and light on sauce. The slices are
sometimes eaten folded in half, as its
size and flexibility may otherwise make it
unwieldy to eat by hand. This style of
pizza tends to dominate the Northeastern
states and is very similar to the basic
style common through the United States and
known simply as pizza. Many pizza
establishments in the New York
metropolitan area offer two varieties of
pizza: "Neapolitan", or "regular", made
with a relatively thin, circular crust and
served in wedge-shaped slices, and
"Sicilian", made with a thicker,
rectangular crust and served in large,
rectangular slices.
-
Chicago-style pizza, or deep dish pizza
contains a crust which is formed up the
sides of a deep dish pan. It reverses the
order of ingredients, using crust, cheese,
filling, then sauce on top. Some versions
(usually referred to as "stuffed") have
two layers of crust with the sauce on top.
Deep dish pizza was purportedly invented
and first served in 1943 at Pizzeria Uno,
which is still operating along with its
twin restaurant, Pizzeria Due, in the
River North neighborhood.
- St.
Louis-style pizza is a distinct style of
pizza popular in Saint Louis, Missouri and
its surrounding areas. It is also
sometimes duplicated in other areas of the
Midwest. The most notable characteristic
of St. Louis-style pizza is the
distinctively St. Louisan provel cheese
used instead of (or rarely in addition to)
the mozzarella common to other styles of
pizza. The pizza has a thin, round crust,
as opposed to Chicago's deep-dish style or
New York's pan-style. The crust of a St.
Louis pizza is somewhat crisp and cannot
be folded easily, and is typically cut
into three- or four-inch squares instead
of the pie-like wedges typical of other
pizza. It is often salty and seasoned with
more oregano than other pizza types.
Despite its thin crust, it can be layered
deeply with many different toppings.
Sauces tend to have a sweetness to them,
some more noticeably than others. The two
largest St. Louis-style Pizza chains are
Imo's Pizza and Cecil Whittaker's
Pizzeria.
-
California-style pizza (often termed in
the United States gourmet pizza) refers to
pizzas with non-traditional ingredients,
especially those that use a considerable
amount of fresh produce.
- White
pizza (pizza bianca) uses no tomato sauce,
often substituting pesto or dairy products
such as sour cream. Most commonly, the
toppings consist only of mozzarella and
ricotta cheese. In Rome, the term pizza
bianca refers to a type of bread topped
only with olive oil.
- Greek
pizza is a variation popular in New
England. It has a thicker, chewier crust
and is baked in a pan in the pizza oven,
instead of directly on the bricks. Plain
olive oil is a common part of the topping.
- Hawaiian
pizza has Canadian bacon and pineapple
toppings and is especially popular in the
Western United States. A style referred to
as "The Perfect Pizza" consists of
Hawaiian-style on one half and pepperoni
on the other. Ham and pineapple is also a
popular topping combination in Australia
although, notably, not in Hawaii, this
type is also common within the EU as Pizza
Hawaii.
- Grilled
pizza, invented in Providence, Rhode
Island, uses a fairly thin crust cooked on
a grill; the toppings are placed on the
baked side after the pizza has cooked for
a bit and flipped over.
o Pizza Puffs are dough pouches, usually
deep fried, filled with the ingredients of
a pizza, such as cheese, pizza sauce,
sausage, and pepperoni.
o English muffin or French bread pizza are
common convenience pizzas made at home in
an oven or toaster, usually with a simple
topping of spaghetti sauce, sliced cheese,
and perhaps pepperoni. French bread pizza
is sometimes available commercially.
Similar
dishes:
- The
Alsacian tarte flambée (German:
Flammekueche)
[non-kosher]
is a
thin disc of dough covered in crème
fraîche, onions, and bacon.
- The
Anatolian Lahmacun (Arabic: lahma bi
ajeen; Armenian: lahmajoun; also Armenian
pizza or Turkish pizza)
[non-kosher]
is a
meat-topped dough round. The bread is
usually very thin; the layer of meat often
includes chopped vegetables.
- The
Provençal pissaladiere is similar to an
Italian pizza, with a slightly thicker
crust and generally a topping of cooked
onions, anchovies, and olives.
Regional
specialties
- Long
Island, New York is the birthplace of the
"pizza bagel", which substitutes bread
with a half sliced bagel, but otherwise
has normal toppings and ingredients
- In New
Haven, Connecticut, the local specialty is
known as apizza. This thin-crust pizza
originated with the Frank Pepe Pizzeria
Napoletana in the Wooster Square
neighborhood of New Haven. The canonical
New Haven-style pizza is a white clam pie.
- In San
Francisco, California, the Indian Pizza
(see below) has become a source of pride.
Sourdough crust pizza is the type most
commonly associated with San Francisco,
however.
- In
Baltimore, Maryland, pizza is
traditionally served with a thick, doughy
crust and a heavy amount of sauce.
- In
Colorado, a type of pizza, called mountain
pie, is a regional favorite. Made popular
by the originating restaurant, BeauJo's,
it is piled high with toppings and kept
from spilling over by a large, hand-rolled
crust that can also be used as an in-pie
dessert.
- In St.
Louis, Missouri, Saint Louis-style pizza
is made with a thin crispy crust, often
heavily seasoned with salt and oregano,
topped with provel cheese, and served in
small squares rather than pie-like slices.
- In
Buffalo, New York, pizza is made with a
thicker, doughier crust than traditional
New York style pizza, with a slightly
thicker and sweeter sauce, mozzarella
cheese and (usually) pepperoni cooked
until it is burned and crispy on the
edges.
- In
Utica, New York, a type of pizza called
tomato pie is common. This type of pizza
is usually served cold, and is topped only
with a light layer of Pecorino Romano
cheese
- In
Dayton, Ohio, the local preference is for
pizza with thin crust and a light sauce
cut into small squares.
-
Youngstown, Ohio's "Brier Hill Pizza"
features a thick sauce topped with a
mixture of Parmesan and Romano cheese and
green peppers. Brier Hill is the city's
historically Italian area.
- Rhode
Island's strip pizza, commonly sold in
bakeries, consists of thick, chewy dough
and is topped with a very thick tomato
sauce. It has a minimal amount of cheese
and is served cold. It is usually (but not
always) wrapped in individual strips
(hence the name). This style also is
sometimes called "bakery pizza." A similar
product is made in bakeries in Italy.
- In
Scotland, a "pizza supper" commonly sold
in fish and chip shops consists of a
portion of fried chips (french fries) and
a frozen pizza which has been deep fried
rather than baked.
- In
Canada, the topping combination of bacon,
pepperoni and mushrooms is called
'Canadian Pizza' . In Quebec, the same
topping combination is called a 'Québécois
Pizza'. A pizza with mushrooms, pepperoni,
and green bell pepper is referred to as
"all-dressed". Also available in Canada
are donair pizzas. These pizzas come with
donair ingredients (cheese, spiced meat,
sometimes onions and tomatoes) and have
the tomato sauce replaced by donair sauce.
- In
Australia, a commonly sold style is the
Aussie pizza, which is topped with ham,
bacon, cheese and egg. "Hawaiian pizza"
(see above) is the most popular topping
combination in Australia, accounting for
20 percent of all sales. In "barbecue
pizza," barbecue sauce is poured on top of
the cheese, with usually a meat such as
chicken or beef.
- In
Japan, pizza toppings may include corn,
diced potatoes, scrambled eggs,
mayonnaise, Camembert cheese, curry sauce,
and various kinds of seafood. Tabasco
sauce is often used as a condiment. Salad
pizza, a pizza topped with tossed salad,
is occasionally seen. [4] Another
variation is rice pizza, substituting
baked rice for the crust. [5] The Japanese
dish okonomiyaki is occasionally referred
to in English as "Japanese pizza",
although its ingredients, preparation
method, and taste are substantially
different from traditional pizza.
- In South
Korea, kimchi and bulgogi are used as
toppings, as well as many of the toppings
used in Japan. In addition, sweet potato
puree in a circular ring near the edge of
the crust is very popular.
- In Hong
Kong, Pizza Hut customers may choose to
have their pizzas dressed with Thousand
Island dressing instead of tomato sauce.
- In
Mexico, pizza is often enjoyed dipped in
ketchup and/or hot sauce. Some pizzas
include ingredients such as beans, beef,
poblano pepper, jalapeño pepper, corn
nibblets, chorizo, onion, etc.
- In
India, pizza toppings include vegetables
and other traditional sauces or chunks of
tandoori chicken.
- In São
Paulo, Brazil, pizzas are often made
without cheese (if they are not cheese
flavoured), emphasizing the topping
ingredients. Borders are sometimes
optionally filled with cheddar or
catupiry.
- In South
Africa, the St. Elmo's pizza chain has
popularized the 'Caribbean Pizza', with
ground bacon, banana slices and minced
garlic as toppings.
Crusts and baking methods
Pizza may be baked with a thin bread
bottom (Italian or "hand-tossed" style) or
with thicker bread (pan pizza).
The crust can be very thick as in
Chicago-style pizza or almost non-existent
as in the Roman pizza. Some pizzas are now
made with a cheese-filled crust.
In restaurants, pizza can be baked in a
gas deck (stone bricks above the heat
source) oven, an electric deck oven, a
conveyor belt oven or, in the case of more
expensive restaurants, a wood- or
coal-fired brick oven. On deck ovens, the
pizza can be slid into the oven on a long
paddle called a peel and baked directly on
the hot bricks or baked on a screen (a
round metal pan that has holes in it like
a screen). When making pizza at home, it
can be baked on a "pizza stone" in a
regular oven to imitate the effect of a
brick oven. Another option is grilled
pizza, in which the crust is baked
directly on a barbecue grill. Greek pizza,
like Chicago-style pizza, is baked in a
pan rather than directly on the bricks of
the pizza oven.
In home-made pizza, there are many
variations on the bread used for crust. In
some countries, creations such as pita
pizza, bagel pizza, and tortilla pizza are
popular, especially with children. In
Japan, where full-size ovens are a rarity
in the home, pizza toast is a popular
version.
Frozen pizzas are generally considered
inferior in quality to pizzeria-made
pizzas, though there are some exemplary
frozen pizzas. Recently, frozen pizzas
with a rising-crust have appeared on the
market.
Tomato sauce
On those pizzas that use tomatoes, there
are several ways of adding them. The most
common is commercial pizza sauce, a
smooth, thick tomato sauce similar to
marinara sauce that is ladled and spread
onto the crust in pizza shops. It is also
not uncommon to use a raw tomato sauce
(usually made from canned tomatoes and
fresh herbs such as basil) that cooks
along with the pizza in the oven, or even
a simple topping of ground or diced
tomatoes and herbs on a deep-dish pizza.
Pizza in culture
In the film Splendor in the Grass, set in
1929, the character Bud Stamper visits a
New Haven pizzeria (see also apizza) as a
freshman at Yale University, and has to
ask the waitress, "What is pizza?" In the
1920s, pizza would have been virtually
unknown to a non-Italian Midwesterner.
Pizza plays a prominent role in other
films, such as Loverboy, Mystic Pizza and
Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.
Pizza was the food of choice of the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and features
heavily in the opening montage of New York
City in the second live-action movie.
Pizza has also been used in teaching
fractions and in computer games, such as
Pizza Tycoon.
Until the early 1990s, pizza delivery was
relatively unavailable in Britain. This
deficiency was the focus of an extended
passage in the Douglas Adams novel The
Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
Quotation
* "When the moon hits your eye like a big
pizza pie, That's Amore." sung by Dean
Martin, reached US number 2 in 1953.
|
In
its original form, a pizza (occasionally,
pizza pie) is an oven-baked, flat, usually
circular bread covered with tomato sauce and
cheese with optional toppings. The cheese is
usually mozzarella or sometimes a mixture of
several specialty cheeses such as parmesan,
romano, ricotta and feta.
