history of Pizza 1010 Earliest signs of the greatest wonder of the world

Today I want to talk about the history of pizza, it is pretty new actually. At least in the form we know it. If we were to piece together the Darwinian makeup of pizza it would go something like this.

Kingdom: Breads

Phylum: flat breads

Class: food on the go

Order: food with cheese on it

Family: food with tomato in it

Genus: Italian

Species: pizza

Early Pizza

People have been putting stuff on bread for a long time. In the Mediterranean area of the world this has been an activity since the Neolithic age but they mostly put what they had on their bread and tomato sauce wasn't really thought of in the old world yet. More on that later.

It just seems like people need to use bread as a delicious-ingredients-delivery-device. Their ingredients just weren't as delicious as ours. 

Now, in the 16th century there was a dish sold and referred to as pizza. But the royals were unable to see its greatness for 100 years because it was thought of as the poor and working class food only. As we have discussed previously Pizza is far from a working mans mush. But it does transcend class and creed.

Anyway. Pizza was given its time to shine when baker Raffaele Esposito was asked to prepare a dish for the Queen Margherita of Savoy. He prepared a pizza decorated to be the Italian flag with tomatoes basil and mozzarella. This became known as the Pizza Margherita because it delighted the queen so much she propelled pizza into popularity generally before pizzas advent to the Americas it was found to be more sweet than savory. A lot of dishes demanded sweeter toppings but it eventually found its footing

The pizza we know and love.

When large waves of Italian immigrants began arriving in the United States, they brought with them the blessed recipe. And like so many immigrants have done before and since. They began the only true American enterprise. Restraunteering.  And thanks to that we have great pizza that came out of the great cities of the 1900's. Chicago and New York. And everywhere else just tries to be as good as these. So I am told.

Now, a video. Enjoy