Who Invented Pizza?
Did you know pizza took the United States by storm before it became popular in its native Italy?
Pizza has a long tradition. The ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks all ate flatbreads with toppings. (The latter ate a version with herbs and oil, similar to today's focaccia.) However, the modern birthplace of pizza is the Campania region of southwestern Italy, which includes the city of Naples.
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Around 600 B.C., it was founded. Naples was a thriving waterfront city in the 1700s and early 1800s as a Greek settlement. Although technically an independent kingdom, it was known for its swarms of working poor, or lazzaroni. "The closer you got to the bay, the denser their population became, and much of their living was done outdoors, sometimes in homes that were little more than a room," says Carol Helstosky, author of Pizza: A Global History and associate professor of history at the University of Denver.
These Neapolitans needed cheap food that they could eat quickly. This need was met by pizza—flatbreads with various toppings eaten for any meal and sold by street vendors or informal restaurants. "Judgmental Italian authors frequently referred to their eating habits as 'disgusting,'" Helstosky observes. These early pizzas, eaten by the poor of Naples, included tasty toppings like tomatoes, cheese, oil, anchovies, and garlic.
Italy was unified in 1861, and in 1889, King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples. According to legend, the traveling couple became bored with their steady diet of French haute cuisine and requested a variety of pizzas from the city's Pizzeria Brandi, the successor to Da Pietro pizzeria, which was founded in 1760. The queen's favorite was pizza mozzarella, a pie topped with soft white cheese, red tomatoes, and green basil. (Perhaps it was no coincidence that her favorite pie was decorated in the colors of the Italian flag.) According to legend, that particular topping combination was dubbed pizza Margherita from then on.
Queen Margherita's blessing could have sparked an Italian pizza craze. However, pizza would not become widely known outside of Naples until the 1940s.
An ocean away, however, immigrants from Naples were recreating their trusted, crusty pizzas in New York and other American cities such as Trenton, New Haven, Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis. The Neapolitans, like millions of other Europeans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, came for factory jobs, not to make a culinary statement. However, the flavors and aromas of pizza quickly piqued the interest of non-Neapolitans and non-Italians.
G. was one of the first documented pizzerias in the United States. Lombardi's on Spring Street in Manhattan was licensed to sell pizza in 1905. (Prior to that, the dish was either homemade or sold by unlicensed vendors.) Lombardi's, which is still in business today though not at its original location, "has the same oven as it did originally," according to food critic John Mariani, author of How Italian Food Conquered the World.
As any pizza fan knows, debates over the best slice in town can get heated. Mariani, on the other hand, credited three East Coast pizzerias with continuing the century-old tradition: Totonno's (Coney Island, Brooklyn, opened 1924); Mario's (Arthur Avenue, the Bronx, opened 1919); and Pepe's (Arthur Avenue, the Bronx, opened 1919). (New Haven, opened 1925).
Pizza's popularity in the United States grew as Italian-Americans and their food migrated from city to suburb, east to west, especially after World War II. It was no longer regarded as a "ethnic" treat, but rather as a quick and enjoyable meal. Regional, decidedly non-Neapolitan variations arose, eventually including California-gourmet pizzas topped with everything from grilled chicken to smoked salmon.
Postwar pizza finally made its way to Italy and beyond. "Like blue jeans and rock and roll, the rest of the world, including the Italians, embraced pizza simply because it was American," Mariani explains.
Today, about 60 countries have international outposts of American chains such as Domino's and Pizza Hut. Global pizza toppings can range from Gouda cheese in Curaçao to hardboiled eggs in Brazil, reflecting local tastes.
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