History

Origins

Foods similar to pizza have been prepared since the Neolithic age. Records of people adding other ingredients to bread to make it more flavorful can be found throughout ancient history.

  • In Sardinia, French and Italian archeologists have found a kind of bread baked over 3,000 years ago. According to Professor Philippe Marinval, the local islanders leavened this bread.[2]
  • The Tuscan tribes of Northern Italy believed Pizza to hold the spirits of deceased relatives.[3]
  • The Ancient Greeks had a flat bread called plakous (πλακοῦς, gen. πλακοῦντος – plakountos)[4] which was flavored with toppings like herbs, onion, and garlic.
  • In the 1st century BCE, the Latin poet Virgil refers to the ancient idea of bread as an edible plate or trencher for other foods in this extract from his Latin poem, the 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.”

These flatbreads, like pizza, are from the Mediterranean area and other examples of flat breads that survive to this day from the ancient Mediterranean world are focaccia (which may date back as far as the Ancient Etruscans), coca (which has sweet and savory varieties) from Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands, the Greek Pita or Pide in Turkish. Lepinja or Somun in the Balkans or Piadina in the Romagna part of Emilia-Romagna in Italy.[5]

Similar flat breads in other parts of the world include the Indian Paratha, the South Asian Naan, the Sardinian Carasau, Spianata, Guttiau, Pistoccu and Finnish Rieska. Also worth note is that throughout Europe there are many similar pies based on idea of covering flat pastry with cheese, meat, vegetables and seasoning such as the Alsatian Flammkuchen, German Zwiebelkuchen, and French Quiche.

[edit] Innovation

The innovation that gave us the flat bread we call pizza was the use of tomato as a topping. For some time after the tomato was brought to Europe from the Americas in the 16th century, it was believed by many Europeans to be poisonous (as are some other fruits of the nightshade family). However, by the late 18th century, it was common for the poor of the area around Naples to add tomato to their yeast-based flat bread, and so the pizza was born.[citation needed] The dish gained in popularity, and soon pizza became a tourist attraction as visitors to Naples ventured into the poorer areas of the city to try the local specialty.

Until about 1830, pizza was sold from open-air stands and out of pizza bakeries. Pizzerias keep this old tradition alive today. It is possible to enjoy pizza wrapped in paper and a drink sold from open-air stands outside the premises. Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba in Naples is widely regarded as the city’s first pizzeria.[6] It started producing pizzas for peddlers in 1738 but expanded to a pizza restaurant with chairs and tables in 1830. It still serves pizza from the same premises today.

A description of pizza in Naples around 1830 is given by the French writer and food expert Alexandre Dumas, père in his work Le Corricolo, Chapter VIII.[7] He writes that pizza was the only food of the humble people in Naples during winter and that “in Naples pizza is flavored with oil, lard, tallow, cheese, tomato, or anchovies.”

The Neapolitans take their pizza very seriously. Purists, like the famous pizzeria “Da Michele” in Via C. Sersale (founded 1870),[8] consider there to be only two true pizzas — the Marinara and the Margherita — and that is all they serve. These two “pure” pizzas are the ones preferred by many Italians today.

The Marinara is the older of the two and has a topping of tomato, oregano, garlic and extra virgin olive oil. It is named “Marinara” not because it has seafood on it (it doesn’t) but because it was the food prepared by “la marinara”, the seaman’s wife, for her seafaring husband when he returned from fishing trips in the Bay of Naples.

The Margherita, topped with modest amounts of tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil is widely attributed to baker Raffaele Esposito. Esposito worked at the pizzeria “Pietro… e basta così” (literally “Peter… and that’s enough”) which was established in 1880 and is still operating under the name “Pizzeria Brandi.” In 1889, he baked three different pizzas for the visit of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita of Savoy. The Queen’s favorite was a pizza evoking the colors of the Italian flag — green (basil leaves), white (mozzarella), and red (tomatoes).[1] This combination was named Pizza Margherita in her honor.

“Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana”[9] (“True Neapolitan Pizza Association”), which was founded in 1984 and only recognises the Marinara and Margherita verace, has set the very specific rules that must be followed for an authentic Neapolitan pizza. These include that the pizza must be baked in a wood-fired, domed oven at 485°C for no more than 60 to 90 seconds; that the base must be hand-kneaded and must not be rolled with a pin or prepared by any mechanical means (i pizzaioli — the pizza makers — make the pizza by rolling it with their fingers) and that the pizza must not exceed 35 centimetres in diameter or be more than one-third of a centimetre thick at the centre. The association also selects pizzerias all around the world to produce and spread the verace pizza napoletana philosophy and method.

There are many famous pizzerias in Naples where these traditional pizzas can be found like Da Michele, Port’Alba, Brandi, Di Matteo, Sorbillo, Trianon and Umberto (founded: 1916).[10] Most of them are in the ancient historical centre of Naples. These pizzerias will go even further than the specified rules by, for example, only using “San Marzano” tomatoes grown on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius and only drizzling the olive oil and adding tomato topping in a clockwise direction.

The pizza bases in Naples are soft and pliable. In Rome they prefer a thin and crispy base. Another popular form of pizza in Italy is “pizza al taglio” which is pizza baked in rectangular trays with a wide variety of toppings and sold by weight.

In December 2009, the pizza napoletana was granted Traditional Speciality Guaranteed status by the European Union.[11]