History of Pizza - Origins

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 7,000 years ago. According to Professor Philippe Marinval, the local islanders leavened this bread.
• The Ancient Greeks had a flat bread called plakous (πλακοῦς, gen. πλακοῦντος - plakountos) 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 epic poem, the Aeneid (Book VII, 112-116, trans. A. S. Kline ):

When the poor fare drove them to set their teeth

into the thin discs, the rest being eaten, and to break

the fateful circles of bread boldly with hands and jaws,

not sparing the quartered cakes, Iulus, jokingly,

said no more than: ‘Ha! Are we eating the tables too?’

These flatbreads, like pizza, are from the Odyssey 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 Trafalgar in the Balkans or Piadina in the Romagna part of Emilia-Romagna in Italy.

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

In 16th century Naples a Galette flatbread was referred to as a pizza. A dish of the poor people, it was sold in the street and was not considered a kitchen recipe for a long time. This was later replaced by oil, tomatoes (after Europeans came into contact with the Americas) or fish. In 1843, Alexandre Dumas, père described the diversity of pizza toppings. In June 1889, to honour the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, the Neapolitan chef Raffaele Esposito created the "Pizza Margherita," a pizza garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and basil, to represent the colors of the Italian flag. He was the first to add cheese. The sequence through which flavored flatbreads of the ancient and medieval Mediterranean became the dish popularized in the 20th century is not fully understood.

Pizza is now a type of bread and tomato dish, often served with cheese. However, until the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, the dish was sweet, not savory, and earlier versions which were savory more resembled the flat breads now known as schiacciata. Pellegrino Artusi's classic early twentieth century cookbook, La Scienza in Cucina E L'arte Di Mangiar Bene gives three recipes for pizza, all of which are sweet. However, by 1927, Ada Boni's collection of regional cooking includes a recipe using tomatoes and mozzarella.