Red Tomato, White Mozzarella Cheese and Green Basil

I was at lunch today with a couple friends and somehow we ended up talking about the origins of pizza. I’ve always known that it came from Italy, but i never really questioned where it came from prior to that. So, i did some reading on this favorite food of mine, and now i can tell you a bit about its origin.

Firstly, the word pizza may be a derivative of the Latin word picea, a word which the Romans used to describe the blackening of bread in an oven. The word pizza, as it is currently spelled, also emerged some time in the Middle Ages. It was used to describe both sweet and salty pies that were becoming increasingly popular among Italian aristocracy.

The common belief is that Italians invented the pizza; however the origins go back to the ancient times. Pizza has undergone a very slow process of evolution over the centuries and although the precise origin of it is rather blurry, quite certainly the cultures of the Mediterranean deserve credit for creating it. Historical records suggest that people in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome were eating flat, un-leavened bread that had been cooked in mud ovens, some even topped with olive oil and native spices. The bread was much like a pita, which is still common in Greece and the Middle East today. Also, ancient Egyptians had a custom of celebrating the Pharaoh's birthday with flat bread seasoned with herbs, and Herodotus, a Greek historian described Babylonian recipes that are very similar to contemporary pizza crust.

The lower class of the Naples, Italy is believed to have created pizza in a more familiar fashion. In 1889, an Italian baker named Raffaele Esposito was believed to have created a dish for visiting royalty. According to the story, the Italian monarch King Umberto I and his consort, Queen Margherita di Savoia were touring Naples on holiday. They called to their palace the most popular of the pizzaioli (pizza chef), Raffaele Esposito, to taste his specialties.

In order to impress them and to show his patriotic fervor Raffaele dicided to top flat bread with food that would best represent the colors of Italy: red tomato, white mozzarella cheese and green basil. The queen was so impressed that she sent to the pizzaioli a letter to thank him saying, "I assure you that the pizza you have prepared was very delicious." Raffaele Esposito dedicated his specialty to the Queen and called it... yeap, as you guessed… "Pizza Margherita."

Word quickly reached the masses and the end result was that the dish was well received, so much so that others began to copy it. This pizza set the standard by which today's pizza evolved and Naples has been firmly established as the pizza capitol of the world. The first known pizza shop, Port 'Alba in Naples was opened in 1830 ,and is still open today. Unfortunately, when i was there i didn't know this, otherwise you would have known where to find me every meal.

Some random pizza facts:

• Americans eat over 100 acres of pizza per day, and an average of 23 pounds of pizza each, per year...yikes!
• Pizza Hut, which is American, is the largest pizza company in the world.
• The world's largest pizza order came from the VF Corporation in North Carolina who ordered 13,386 pizzas for its 40,160 employees nationwide.
• October is National Pizza Month. It was first so designated in 1987.
• Pizza is a £30 billion per year industry, and over 5 billion pizzas are sold worldwide annually.
• There are approximately 10,000 pizzerias in the UK and 61,269 in the United States.
• Mozzarella cheese was originally made from the milk of water buffalo!