Pizza first made its appearance in the United States with the arrival of Italian immigrants in the late 19th century. According to a 2009 response published in a column on Serious Eats, the first printed reference to "pizza" served in the US is a 1904 article in The Boston Journal.
Pizza became popular in the New World thanks to the large wave of Italian immigrants who arrived between 1880 and 1920, bringing their skills and appetites with them. At the start, Italian Americans would make and sell the pizzas out of their homes.
In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi applied to the New York City government for the first license to make and sell pizza in this country, at his grocery store on Spring Street in what was then a thriving Italian-American neighborhood. In 1912, Joe's Tomato Pies opened in Trenton, New Jersey.
We know that pizza was popping up all over Italy in the late 1800s. However, many historians date the dish's origins to be much earlier than that.
According to history.com, pizza did indeed get its start in Italy, around the late 1700s in the city of Naples. During this time, the population of this waterfront city was made up of mostly the working poor. They required food that was inexpensive and could be eaten quickly.
An often recounted story holds that on June 11, 1889, to honour the queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, the Neapolitan pizza maker Raffaele Esposito created the "Pizza Margherita", a pizza garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, to represent the national colours of Italy as on the Flag of Italy.
Pizza has become one of the Australia's favourite dishes. That's surprising considering that pizza was only really introduced in Australia in the late-1940s, when Italians and Greeks migrated to Australia following the Second World War. Since then, our country's pizza market has evolved rapidly.
The ancient people living around the Mediterranean made the first step by eating all their flatbreads with toppings. Then the people of Naples took it and created pizza as we understand it today.
Pizza has a long history. Flatbreads with toppings were consumed by the ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks. (The latter ate a version with herbs and oil, similar to today's focaccia.)
Specifically, baker Raffaele Esposito from Naples is often given credit for making the first such pizza pie.
Though it's unclear who invented the word “pizza,” the first documented instance is credited to Gaeta, Italy in 997 AD. In 1994, the first pizza was ordered online, making it the first documented Internet purchase. Today, Americans eat 350 slices of pizza every second.
Based on etymology, the “Vocabolario Etimologico della Lingua Italiana” reveals that pizza comes from the dialectal pinza from the Latin pinsere, which means to pound or stamp. Other etymologists suggest it is related to the Lombardic word bizzo or pizzo, which means mouthful, and is related to the English word bite.
But during WW2, thousands of American soldiers battled long and hard in the Italian Campaign. The Allied troops stationed in Italy soon developed a love of the local Italian foods and brought their newfound taste of pizzas back with them to the United States.
Originally, pizza was considered peasant food and was only topped with cheese and basil. Over time, pizza became very popular in the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.
The History of Pasta
According to history, however, pasta's earliest roots begin in China, during the Shang Dynasty (1700-1100 BC), where some form of pasta was made with either wheat or rice flour. Pasta also appears to be a feature in the ancient Greek diet in the first millennium BC.
Into the Middle Ages pizza was said to have taken on a more modern look and taste. However, it was more similar to what we know today as focaccia, a flatbread. The dish was favored by peasants, who used simple ingredients like yeast to make the dough. They topped it with olive oil and herbs.
Archaeological findings show that the Vikings in the ninth century AD already ate flat, round pastry based loafs showing all kind of ingredients, which were baked in ovens that look like something like modern pizza ovens. This was about eight hundred years before the first mention of pizza in Italy.
Unfortunately, Ancient Romans enjoyed no pasta, and Caesar never ate pizza. So, what were Ancient Italians eating?
Caesar likely enjoyed dishes like roasted boar, venison, or bird. These are accompanied by various vegetable dishes, often including lentils, beans, or cabbage. Cabbage and onions were a dish that upper class Romans might have enjoyed!
When a man once did the impossible, he was saved from almost certain death by the pizza place that he ordered from every day for ten years. Kirk Alexander, an Oregon man, was found in the ground of his Salem home on a Sunday after staff at a Salem Domino's Pizza called 911.
Speed eating champion Joey Chestnut holds this record as well. He ate 45 slices of pizza in a 10-minute span during a contest held in New York's Time Square.
Specifically, baker Raffaele Esposito from Naples is often given credit for making the first such pizza pie. Historians note, however, that street vendors in Naples sold flatbreads with toppings for many years before then. Legend has it that Italian King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples in 1889.
The "Aussie" was invented by the late Salvatore Della Bruna, the Picasso of Australia's pizza heritage who established this country's first pizza parlour, Toto's on Melbourne's Lygon Street.
A common unique type is the Aussie, Australian or Australiana, which has the usual tomato base or a seasoned base and mozzarella cheese with options of chicken, ham, bacon and egg (seen as quintessentially Australian breakfast fare). Pizzas with seafood such as prawns are also popular.
In 1961, Toto's Pizza House, the country's first dedicated pizza restaurant, opened its door in Carlton, Melbourne – a classic, modern Italian pizza place.