She was born a lot of years ago. For God's sake, don't ask her age ... you'll be characterized as "rude"!! The only thing that we can reveal is that, according to some "rumors" she came to our world 3000 years ago.
Everybody knows that she is pure Italian, but if we search her past, we'll discover root in her genealogoical tree from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Some consider her as a common criminal because of the nicknames she has used over the years. To her friends, she introduces herself as "Pizza" and her last name varies - Margaarita, Napolitana, Calzone, etc. Her fans find her jicy, crusty and rich. As the years pass by, she remains young and desirable, and tmie works for her subversively. It just helps her improve and become better!
For those who don't understand yet, this article is a small dedication to pizza and how it intruded in our lives upsetting our traditional way of feeding.
The word "PIZZA" is not actually from any one place according to the experts. It's possible that it is an idiom of the Italian language for the word "pita" but this cannot be proved as it isn't found in any Italian dictionary. According to some, the word "pizza" came from the Latin word "placenta", which means bread with material in a liquid form on top.
Locating the one responsible for the discovery of pizza is like playing a puzzle game as most cultures have a traditional pita with 'liquid material' on it reminding us of today's pizza.
Recalling history, we find, with surprise, that ancient civilizations developed in the Mediterranean Sea present a large range of samples that could be considered ancestors of pizza. Actually, in the National Museum of Naples, there is a statue that was found in Pompeii named "Il Pizzaiolo" - meaning the man that works in a pizzeria. It is a name that was probably given by an imaginative observer. Others have declared that the idea of pizza came from the Ancient Greeks who ate "placentas". Placenta was a round, cooked bread that Greeks placed various materials, such as olive oil, herbs, garlic and onion, on.
In Ancient Egypt, there was a custom which took place on the Pharoah's birthday. Egyptians were making little breads with spices and herbs on them. Others declare, with unbridled imagination, that they know the 'real' story of pizza.
According to one, Roman legionaries, during their continuous travels, made dough in their helmets and cooked it on their shields with the help of the hot sun!!! Eventually, all ancient civilizations that had already developed the making of bread started to add more delicious materials (cheese, etc) to improve the experience. This is where we discovered the tortiya in Mexico, the chapatti in India and the souvlaki-pita in Greece.
Even though the ancient forms of 'pizza' are all delicious, they cannot really be compared with today's. Comparison is impossible because you can't have pizza without tomato sauce. Tomatoes came to Europe in the middle of the 16th century from Mexico and Peru where it had started to be cultivated over 200 years prior. Italians loved the unique fruit and named it "pomo d'oro" - meaning gold apple. Althoug the first "modern" pizza is attributed to the baker Raffaele Esposito from Naples.
According to the history of pizza, in 1889 the "Esposito of Pizzeria di Pietro" created a pizza especially for the visit of the Italian King Uberto the 1st and the Queen Margherita. In creating this special pizza, they had the brilliant idea to place "patriotic" materials forming an Italian flag. They used basil (green), mozzarella (white) and tomato (red). When the queen said she was impressed, the pizza was named Margherita in her honour. That was it!!!
The pizza to expand making Naples the capital of pizza all over the world. In the middle of the 19th century, pizza immigrated to the United States with the Italians. The new world was hesitant to try the new food and would require the future endorsement of some famous celebrities, such as Frank Sinatra, before it caught on and changed the feeding habits of Americans. At the end of the century, Italians started to open their own bakeries and sell pizz. The aromas made Americans discretely wipe their salivating chins. Pizza is a delicious food that provokes excitement and has been included in various popular songs - Dean Martin's "That's Amore"
When the moon hits your eye like a big-a pizza pie
That's amore
Since then, many years have passed and pizza continues to in the epicenter of the world's diet. Despite that, it has been said that pizza belongs in the junk food category, has no worth to the human organisms and it just plain bombs with fats and useless calories.
Research, such as the one at Queen Elizabeth College of London University (England) has revealed that pizza is not only just a junk food but in fact is the exact opposite.
The research states that a nine-inch pizza, with simple materials (tomato, olive oil, cheese, salt-pepper and basil) contains 750 calories. And for those who are on a diet, we have some good news. Pizza is recommended for losing weight because it contains a normal quantity of carbohydrates, around 57%, compared to the calories. It also offers 1/3 of the daily protein requirements, 99% calcium, 26% thiamine (vitamin B), 25% iron, 43% vitamin B2, 41% vitamin A and 23% vitamin C, quantities that are considered ideal for a man of age 18-35 with daily activities.