Pizza

HISTORY

A dish that resembled pizza was common in Roman times and called "focaccia".

The word ‘pizza’ is over 1000 years old. They were first found in Latin text in Naples, Italy in 997AD. These pizzas were herb and spice covered circles of dough that were cooked in a hot oven. They were served up as a snack or appetizer.

If you choose a looser definition of pizza as flat bread with toppings strewn on it, there is evidence that the Persian army around 500 AD used their shields to cook flat bread in this way out in the field. The soldiers would then cover the bread with things like cheese and dates for a quick meal.

Although the Italians have eaten pizza for centuries the first recorded use of the word "pizza" in English was by Baroness Bunsen in 1825.

The first pizza restaurant, Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba, opened in Naples in 1830. The oven in which the pizzas at Port 'Alba was cooked was lined with lava from Mount Vesuvius.

Pizzeria Port Alba in Naples

Alexandre Dumas's travel book Le Corricolo, published in 1843, contains one of the earliest literary accounts of Neapolitan pizza. He writes:

"In Naples, I ate pizza for the first time. It was a revelation. A thin crust, baked in a wood-fired oven, topped with tomatoes, cheese, and herbs. It was simple, yet delicious. I had never tasted anything like it before."

Dumas's description of pizza is notable for its emphasis on the simplicity of the dish. He notes that pizza is made with "simple" ingredients, and he describes it as "delicious" but not "fancy." This suggests that pizza was already seen as a relatively affordable and accessible dish in Naples in the 1840s.

The Neapolitan pizzamaker Raffaele Esposito created the Pizza Margherita on June 11, 1889, to honour the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy. The pizza was garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, to represent the national colors of Italy as on the Italian flag.

Pizza Margherita, the archetype of Neapolitan pizza

Gennaro Lombardi received a licence for the first pizzeria in North America on November 14, 1905. He opened it at 53½ Spring Street, in Little Italy,  New York City and soon had a loyal clientele, including Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. Others pizzerias quickly following in the Italian communities around the city.

Ike Sewell of Chicago decided in 1943 to make a pizza by combining traditional Italian pizza recipes with large quantities of the finest meats, spices, vegetables and cheeses using a cake mold. In doing so he created the Deep Dish Pizza. Sewell opened Pizzeria Uno as a restaurant specializing in his Deep Dish Pizza and it soon had more customers than he could handle.

College students Dan and Frank Carney founded the first Pizza Hut in Wichita, Kansas on June 15 1958. They opened the restaurant with $600 borrowed from their mom.

The story behind the restaurant chain's name isn't very complicated. The sign outside the original building only had room for eight letters, the title "Pizza Hut" just happened to fit on the sign.

The first Pizza Hut in Wichita. By Sanjay Acharya

Greek-born, Canadian-bred pizza maker Sam Panopoulos came up with the pineapple-topped “Hawaiian Pizza,” in 1962.  Panopoulos arrived in the Ontario town of Chatham with his brothers in 1956 where they opened a diner together. They called their eater the Satellite and attempting to distinguish his fare from his competitors, the brothers served customers pizza with things like anchovies, olives and rice. Panopoulos had the idea of putting pineapple and ham on a pizza naming it after the brand of canned pineapple he had taken off the shelf.

Pizza Express opened its first English restaurant at Wardour Street, London in 1965.

In 1960, brothers Tom and James Monaghan bought a small pizzeria named DomiNick's in Ypsilanti, Michigan for a reported $1,400. James, not wanting to commit to the full-time demands of running the pizzeria alongside his job as a postman, traded his half of the business to Tom for the Volkswagen Beetle they used for deliveries. Tom, seeing the potential in the pizza business, purchased two more pizzerias by 1965 and renamed the business Domino's Pizza. The rest, as they say, is history! 

Today, Domino's Pizza is the world's largest pizza delivery chain, with over 17,000 stores in more than 90 countries. 

Since 2004, Italian law insists Neapolitan pizza must include wheat flour, flour yeast, natural mineral water, peeled tomatoes, mozzarella cheese or fresh cherry tomatoes, sea salt and extra olive oil to be considered pizza.

CONSUMPTION 

Each man, woman and child in America eats an average of 46 slices (23 pounds) of pizza a year.

About 75 acres of pizza are eaten in America every day.

Americans will buy 12.5 million pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday, with an average order value of $26.45.

The busiest day Dominos Pizza ever had wasn't thanks to a Super Bowl but the O.J. Simpson Bronco Chase

The average large pizza from Dominos and Pizza Hut in Japan costs $35. Delivery pizza is considered a luxury.

VARIETIES

Fifty percent of the pizzas sold in the United States have pepperoni on them.

The Hawaiian Pizza was invented in Canada, and is the most popular pizza in Australia, accounting for 15% of pizza sales.

No ingredient in Hawaiian Pizza originated from Hawaii. Its creator, Greek-Canadian Sam Panopoulos named his invention "Hawaiian" after the brand of canned pineapple he used for it.

In 2005 the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, insulted Finnish cuisine and joked that Finns ate “marinated reindeer”. In 2008, Finland won an international pizza contest, beating Italy. The name of the winning pizza was “Pizza Berlusconi” which was made of smoked reindeer.

According to Domino's, some of the more popular international toppings are pickled ginger, minced mutton and tofu in India, squid and Mayou Jaga (mayonnaise, potato and bacon) in Japan, and green peas in Brazil.

RECORDS 

The world's most expensive pizza can be found in The Industry Kitchen restaurant in New York’s South Street Seaport. The pie, topped with 24-karat gold leaves, foie gras, truffles and dollops of caviar costs $2,000 - that’s a hefty $250 a slice.

The most expensive delivery was made in 2001 when Pizza Hut made a delivery to the International Space Station. They paid the Russians $1 million to transport the pizza.

In May 2016, Pizza Hut delivered a pepperoni pizza to the top of Kilimanjaro. This was the world’s highest pizza delivery and celebrated Tanzania becoming the 100th country with a Pizza Hut restaurant.

The world's longest pizza was unveiled at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California on January 19, 2023.  Stretching an astonishing distance of 1,930.39 meters (6,333 feet), this culinary masterpiece incorporated 13,653 lbs (6,193 kg) of dough, 4,948 lbs (2244 kg) of tomato sauce, over 8,800 lbs (3991 kg) of cheese, and roughly 630,496 pepperoni slices. It was crafted to celebrate the relaunch of Pizza Hut's Big New Yorker, a menu item the restaurant chain offered in the 1990s.

Moontower Pizza Bar located in the town of Burlson in Texas, USA offers the world’s Largest pizza commercially available. It measures 1.98m² (21 ft² x 48 in²) and is known as “The Bus” for its hefty rectangular shape. The pizza costs $299.95 (plus tax) including one topping, is deliverable within a specific area - and requires 48 hours notice.

The highest-grossing single-unit independent pizzeria in the USA, Moose's Tooth Pub and Pizzeria, is in Anchorage, Alaska. Its annual sales are approximately $6 million.

FUN PIZZA FACTS

Pizza delivery drivers have more dangerous jobs than firefighters, statistically speaking.

There are approximately 61,269 pizzerias in the United States (as at March 2015).

Approximately two-thirds of all U.S. households have at least one frozen pizza in their freezer.

Deep-fried pizza is a normal snack in Scotland; it is called Pizza crunch.

15% of people prefer eating their pizza cold.

The word for a professional pizza cook is "pizzaiolo" (plural: pizzaioli or pizzaiolos).

Bill Murray used to work at a Little Caesars pizza shop in Illinois; he says it's the best job he's ever had.

Sources Daily Express, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce