Pizza
The term pizza was first recorded in 997AD, in a Latin manuscript from the Southern Italy town of Gaeta, in Lazio, on the border with Campania.[Arthur Schwartz, Naples at Table: Cooking in Campania (1998), p. 68. .][John Dickie, Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food (2008), p. 186.][Father Giuseppe Orsini, Joseph E. Orsini, Italian Baking Secrets (2007), p. 99.]
Pizza and its variants are among the most popular foods in the world. Pizza is sold at a variety of restaurants, including (pizza specialty restaurants), Mediterranean restaurants, via pizza delivery, and as street food.
In 2017, the world pizza market was US$128 billion; in the US, it was $44 billion spread over 76,000 pizzerias.
Etymology
The oldest recorded usage of the word
pizza is thought to be from May 997CE, appearing in the
Codex diplomaticus Caietanus, a notarial
Latin document from the town of
Gaeta, then still part of the
Byzantine Empire.
The text states that a tenant of certain property is to give the bishop of Gaeta
duodecim pizze (),
a
pork shoulder and kidney annually on Christmas Day, and twelve pizzas and a couple of chickens annually on
Easter Sunday.
Suggested etymologies include:
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Byzantine Greek and Late Latin pitta > pizza, cf. Modern Greek pita bread and the Apulia and Calabrian (then Byzantine Italy) pitta,
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The Etymological Dictionary of the Italian Language explains it as coming from dialectal pinza, 'clamp', as in modern Italian pinze, 'pliers, pincers, tongs, forceps'. Their origin is from Latin pinsere, 'to pound, stamp'.
[ "pizza" (), Online Etymology Dictionary.]
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The Lombardic word bizzo or pizzo, meaning 'mouthful' (related to the English words bit and bite), which was brought to Italy in the middle of the 6th century AD by the invading Lombards.
A small pizza is sometimes called
pizzetta.
A person who makes pizza is known as a
pizzaiolo.
The word pizza was borrowed from Italian into English in the 1930s; before it became well known, pizza was called "tomato pie" by English speakers. Some regional pizza variations still use the name tomato pie.
History
Records of pizza-like foods can be found throughout ancient history. In the 6th century BC, the
Persian people soldiers of the Achaemenid Empire during the rule of Darius the Great baked flatbreads with cheese and dates on top of their battle shields
and the
ancient Greeks supplemented their bread with
vegetable oil, herbs, and cheese.
An early reference to a pizza-like food occurs in the
Aeneid, when Celaeno, queen of the
Harpies, foretells that the Trojans would not find peace until they are forced by hunger to eat their tables (Book III). In Book VII,
Aeneas and his men are served a meal that includes round cakes (such as pita bread) topped with cooked vegetables. When they eat the bread, they realize that these are the "tables" prophesied by Celaeno.
In 2023, archeologists discovered a fresco in
Pompeii appearing to depict a pizza-like dish among other foodstuffs and staples on a silver platter. Italy's culture minister said it "may be a distant ancestor of the modern dish".
The first mention of the word
pizza seemingly comes from a notarial document written in Latin and dating to 997CE from
Gaeta, demanding a payment of "twelve pizzas, a pork shoulder, and a pork kidney on Christmas Day, and 12 pizzas and a couple of chickens on Easter Day".
Modern pizza evolved from similar flatbread dishes in Naples, Italy, in the 18th or early 19th century.
A popular legend holds that the archetypal pizza, pizza Margherita,
Pizza was taken to the United States by Italian-American in the late 19th century
The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana () is a non-profit organization founded in 1984 with headquarters in Naples that aims to promote traditional Neapolitan pizza.[Official Journal of the European Union, Commission regulation (EU) No 97/2010 , February 5, 2010.][International Trademark Association, European Union: Pizza napoletana obtains "Traditional Speciality Guaranteed" status , April 1, 2010.] and in 2017 the art of its making was included on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage.
Preparation
Pizza is sold fresh or
Frozen food, whole or in portion-size slices. Methods have been developed to overcome challenges such as preventing the sauce from combining with the dough, and producing a crust that can be frozen and reheated without becoming rigid. There are frozen pizzas with raw ingredients and self-rising crusts.
In the US, another form of pizza is available from take and bake pizzerias. This pizza is assembled in the store, then sold unbaked to customers to bake in their own ovens. Some grocery stores sell fresh dough along with sauce and basic ingredients, to assemble at home before baking in an oven.
File:Pizza 1 bg.jpg|Pizza dough being Kneading before being left undisturbed and allowed time to proof
File:Pizza being tossed.jpg|Tossing pizza dough to stretch it
File:Neapolitan pizza.jpg|An unbaked Neapolitan pizza on a metal peel, ready for the oven
File:Frozen pizza.jpg|A wrapped, mass-produced frozen pizza to be baked at home
Baking
In restaurants, pizza can be baked in an oven with
above the heat source, an electric deck oven, a
conveyor belt oven, or in traditional style in a wood or coal-fired
brick oven. The pizza is slid into the oven on a long paddle, called "peel", and baked directly on hot bricks, a screen (a round metal grate, typically aluminum), or whatever the oven surface is. Before use, a peel is typically sprinkled with cornmeal to allow the pizza to easily slide on and off it.
When made at home, a pizza can be baked on a
pizza stone in a regular oven to reproduce some of the heating effect of a brick oven. Cooking directly on a metal surface results in too rapid heat transfer to the crust, burning it.
Some home chefs use a wood-fired pizza oven, usually installed outdoors. As in restaurants, these are often dome-shaped, as pizza ovens have been for centuries,
in order to achieve even heat distribution. Another variation is grilled pizza, in which the pizza is baked directly on a barbecue grill. Some types, such as
Sicilian pizza, are baked in a pan rather than directly on the bricks of the pizza oven.
Most restaurants use standard and purpose-built pizza preparation tables to assemble their pizzas. Mass production of pizza by Pizza chain can be completely automated.
File:Pizza im Pizzaofen von Maurizio.jpg|Pizzas baking in a traditional wood-fired brick oven
File:Pizza baking in Wood-fired oven.jpg|A pizza being removed with a wooden peel
File:Pizza Margherita stu spivack.jpg|A pizza Margherita
File:Eataly Las Vegas - Feb 2019 - Sarah Stierch 12.jpg|Charred crust on a pizza Margherita, an acceptable trait in artisanal pizza
File:Grilled_pizza_2.jpg|Pizza grilling on an outdoor gas range
Crust
The bottom of the pizza, called the "crust", may vary widely according to style—thin as in a typical hand-tossed
Neapolitan pizza or thick as in a deep-dish Chicago-style. It is traditionally plain, but may also be seasoned with garlic or herbs, or stuffed with cheese. The outer edge of the pizza is sometimes referred to as the
cornicione.
Some pizza dough contains sugar, to help its yeast rise and enhance browning of the crust.
Cheese
Mozzarella is commonly used on pizza, with the buffalo mozzarella produced in the surroundings of Naples.
Other cheeses are also used, particularly
burrata,
Gorgonzola,
provolone,
pecorino romano,
ricotta, and
scamorza. Less expensive
or
have been developed for
mass-market pizzas to produce desirable qualities such as browning, melting, stretchiness, consistent fat and moisture content, and stable
shelf life. This quest to create the ideal and economical pizza cheese has involved many studies and experiments analyzing the impact of
vegetable oil, manufacturing and culture processes, denatured whey proteins, and other changes in manufacture. In 1997, it was estimated that annual production of pizza cheese was in the US and in Europe.
Varieties and styles
A great number of pizza varieties exist, defined by the choice of toppings and sometimes also crust. There are also several styles of pizza, defined by their preparation method. The following lists feature only the notable ones.
Varieties
| +Italian varieties
!class="unsortable" | Image
!Name
!Characteristic ingredients
!Origin
!First attested
!Notes |
| | Pizza Margherita | Tomatoes, mozzarella, basil. | Naples, Italy | June 1889 | The archetypical Neapolitan pizza. |
| | Pizza marinara | Tomato sauce, olive oil, oregano, garlic. No cheese. | Naples, Italy | 1734 | One of the oldest Neapolitan pizza. |
| | Pizza capricciosa | Ham, mushrooms, artichokes, egg. | Rome, Lazio, Italy | 1937 | Similar to pizza quattro stagioni, but with toppings mixed rather than separated. |
| | Pizza quattro formaggi | Prepared using four types of cheese (, 'four cheeses'): mozzarella, Gorgonzola and two others depending on the region. | Lazio, Italy | Its origins are not clearly documented, but it is believed to originate from the Lazio region at the beginning of the 18th century. |
| | Pizza quattro stagioni | Artichokes, mushroom, ham, tomatoes. | Campania, Italy | | The toppings are separated by quarter, representing the cycle of the seasons. |
| | Seafood pizza | Seafood, such as fish, shellfish or squid. | Italy | | Subvarieties include pizza ai frutti di mare (no cheese) and pizza pescatore (with mussels or squid). |
Styles
| +Italian styles
!class="unsortable" | Image
!Name
!Characteristics
!Origin
!First attested |
| | Calzone | Pizza folded in half turnover-style. | Naples, Italy | 1700s |
| | Deep fried pizza ( pizza fritta) | The pizza is deep fried (cooked in oil) instead of baked. | Naples, Italy | |
| | Pizzetta | Small pizza served as an hors d'oeuvre or snack. | Italy | |
| +North American styles
!class="unsortable" | Image
!Name
!Characteristics
!Origin
!First attested |
| | California-style pizza | Distinguished by the use of non-traditional ingredients, especially varieties of fresh produce. | California, U.S. | 1980 |
| | Chicago-style pizza | Baked in a pan with a high edge that holds in a thick layer of toppings. The crust is sometimes stuffed with cheese or other ingredients. | Chicago, U.S. | |
| | Colorado-style pizza | Made with a characteristically thick, braided crust topped with heavy amounts of sauce and cheese. It is traditionally served by the pound, with a side of honey as a condiment. | Colorado, U.S. | 1973 |
| | Detroit-style pizza | The cheese is spread to the edges and caramelizes against the high-sided heavyweight rectangular pan, giving the crust a lacy, crispy edge. | Detroit, U.S. | 1946 |
| | New York–style pizza | Neapolitan-derived pizza with a characteristic thin foldable crust. | New York metropolitan area (and beyond) | Early 1900s |
| | St. Louis–style pizza | The style has a thin cracker-like crust made without yeast, generally uses Provel cheese, and is cut into squares or rectangles instead of wedges. | St. Louis, U.S. | 1945 |
By region of origin
Italy
Authentic
Neapolitan pizza (Italian:
pizza napoletana) is made with San Marzano tomatoes, grown on the volcanic plains south of
Mount Vesuvius, and either
mozzarella di bufala campana, made with milk from water buffalo raised in the marshlands of
Campania and
Lazio,
or
Mozzarella.
Buffalo mozzarella is protected with its own European protected designation of origin (PDO).
Other traditional pizzas include
pizza marinara, supposedly the most ancient tomato-topped pizza,
pizza capricciosa, which is prepared with mozzarella cheese, baked ham, mushroom, artichoke, and tomato.
A popular variant of pizza in Italy is Sicilian pizza,
United States
The first pizzeria in the US was opened in New York City's Little Italy in 1905.
Common toppings for pizza in the United States include anchovies, ground beef, chicken, ham, mushrooms, olives, onions, peppers,
pepperoni, pineapple, salami, sausage, spinach, steak, and tomatoes. A pizza with no toppings is called a "cheese pizza" or a "plain pizza".
Distinct regional types developed in the 20th century, including Buffalo,
California, Chicago, Detroit,
Greek pizza, New Haven, New York, and St. Louis styles.
These regional variations include deep-dish, stuffed, pockets, turnovers,
Pizza rolls, and pizza-on-a-stick, each with seemingly limitless combinations of sauce and toppings.
Thirteen percent of the United States population consumes pizza on any given day.
Argentina
Argentine pizza is a mainstay of the country's cuisine,
especially of its capital
Buenos Aires, where it is regarded as a cultural heritage and
Cultural icon of the city.
[ Pizzerías de valor patrimonial de Buenos Aires (2008), p. 11.] Argentina is the country with the most pizzerias per inhabitant in the world and, although they are consumed throughout the country, the highest concentration of pizzerias and customers is Buenos Aires, the city with the highest consumption of pizzas in the world (estimated in 2015 to be 14 million per year).
As such, the city has been considered as one of the world capitals of pizza.
The dish was introduced to Buenos Aires in the late 19th century with the massive Italian immigration, as part of a broader great European immigration wave to the country.
Thus, around the same time that the iconic
pizza Margherita was being invented in Italy, pizza were already being cooked in the Argentine capital.
The impoverished Italian immigrants that arrived to the city transformed the originally modest dish into a much more hefty meal, motivated by the abundance of food in Argentina.
In the 1930s, pizza was cemented as a cultural icon in Buenos Aires, with the new pizzerias becoming a central space for sociability for the working class people who flocked to the city.
The most characteristic style of Argentine pizza—which almost all the classic pizzerias in Buenos Aires specialize in—is the so-called pizza de molde (Spanish for 'pizza in the pan'), characterized by having a "thick, spongy base and elevated bready crust".
Other styles of Argentine pizza include the iconic fugazza and its derivative fugazzeta or fugazza con queso (a terminology that varies depending on the pizzeria),
Dessert pizza
The terms
dessert pizza and
sweet pizza are used for a variety of dishes resembling a pizza, including
chocolate pizza and
fruit pizza.
Some are based on a traditional yeast dough pizza base,
while others have a
cookie-like base
and resemble a traditional pizza solely in having a flat round shape with a distinct base and topping. Some pizza restaurants offer dessert pizzas.
Nutrition
Many
mass-produced pizzas by American
have been criticized as having an unhealthy balance of ingredients. Pizza can be high in salt and fat, and is high in
Food energy. The
USDA reports an average sodium content of 5,100 mg per pizza in fast food chains.
Similar dishes
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Calzone and stromboli are similar dishes that are often made of pizza dough folded (calzone) or rolled (stromboli) around a filling.
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Coca is a similar dish consumed mainly in Catalonia and neighboring regions, but that has extended to other areas in Spain, and to Algeria. There are sweet and savory versions.
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Farinata or cecina is a Ligurian ( farinata) and Tuscan ( cecina) regional dish.
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Flammekueche is a food speciality of the Alsace region.
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Focaccia is a flat Leavening agent oven-baked Italian bread, similar in style and texture to pizza; in some places, it is called pizza bianca ().
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Garlic fingers is an Atlantic Canadian dish, similar to a pizza in shape and size, and made with similar dough. It is garnished with melted butter, garlic, cheese, and sometimes bacon.
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İçli pide, or simply pide, is a Turkish dish, similar to a pizza in being made of wheat-based dough topped with tomato, cheese, and other ingredients, and usually formed in a boat-like shape.
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Khachapuri is a Georgian cheese-filled bread.
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Lahmacun is a Middle Eastern flatbread topped with minced meat; the base is very thin, and the layer of meat often includes chopped vegetables.
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Manakish is a Levantine flatbread dish.
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Matzah pizza is a Jewish pizza dish.
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Okonomiyaki, often referred to as "Japanese pizza", is a Japanese dish cooked on a hotplate.
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Panzerotti are similar to calzones, but fried rather than baked.
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Pastrmajlija (nicknamed Macedonian pizza)
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Piadina is a thin Italian flatbread, typically prepared in the Romagna historical region.
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Pissaladière is similar to an Italian pizza, with a slightly thicker crust and a topping of cooked onions, anchovies, and olives.
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Pizza bagel is a bagel with toppings similar to that of traditional pizzas.
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Pizza cake is a multiple-layer pizza.
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Pizza rolls are a frozen snack product.
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Pizza strips is a tomato pie of Italian-American origin.
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Wähe is a Swiss type of tart.
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Zanzibar pizza is a street food served in Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania. It uses a dough much thinner than pizza dough, almost like filo dough, filled with minced beef, onions, and an egg, similar to Moroccan Pastilla.
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Zwiebelkuchen is a German onion tart, often baked with diced bacon and caraway seeds.
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Banitsa, is a traditional pastry prepared by layering a mixture of whisked eggs, plain yogurt, and pieces of white brined cheese between filo pastry and then baking it in an oven.
See also
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List of baked goods
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List of pizza chains
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List of pizza varieties by country
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Pizza cheese – cheese for use specifically on pizza
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Pizza delivery – service in which a pizzeria delivers pizza to a customer
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Pizza farm – farm split into sections like a pizza split into slices
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Pizza party – social gathering at which pizza is eaten
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Pizza saver – object used to prevent the top of a food container from collapsing
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Pizza theorem – equality of areas of alternating sectors of a disk with equal angles through any interior point
Notes
Further reading
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Explanation of eight pizza styles: Maryland, Roman, "Gourmet" Wood-fired, Generic boxed, New York, Neapolitan, Chicago, and New Haven.
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