Pizza is one of Americans’ favorite foods, quintessential Italian with roots in ancient Greece.
Pizza at its most basic is a flat bread with toppings, such as herbs and cheese. But as archaeologists recently found, toppings traditionally included fruit and nuts. And of course, on modern pizzas we see a fusion of flavors and ingredients that reveal a vast array of creativity. Still, the opinions differ on what counts as pizza and what should be considered the first pizza.
A brief history:
Recent archeological work in Pompeii, Italy uncovered a fresco showing a flatbread topped with dates, pomegranate seeds, mixed with a herb pesto. It seems to indicate that “pizza” or an early version existed as early as 2000 years ago.
Pizza was first mentioned in writing in 997 in Italy, unfortunately this record does not mention any details that give us an idea how a pizza in that time may have looked or tasted.
The first written pizza recipes are from 1524. Based on these recipes we know that pizza for the rich, e.g. the pope included lots of butter in the dough and was topped with sugar and rose water, making it sound like a sweet croissant-like pastry to our modern palate. Pizza for the “poor” had a more traditional bread dough with toppings such as fruit and spices.
You may ask, what about tomatoes? Remember we are talking about pizzas of the 1500s and before. It took a couple more centuries for the tomato, a new world fruit, to reach, get accepted and become popular in Europe and Italy. The Margherita Pizza famous for its tomatoes, mozzarella and basil was not created until 1889.
The modern pizza:
When you read these articles and reports about the origins of pizza, authors typically compare earlier versions to what we expect of pizza today, which at its center has tomatoes and cheese. To me that seems narrow-minded. Yes, tomato and cheese are the ingredients we see most often on pizza, but there is so much variety in pizza toppings and quite a few do not include tomatoes as the main ingredients. Think of a white pizza with pesto and sausage, or a pizza with curry sauce, onions and mushrooms; BBQ chicken pizza; potato pizza (yes, a traditional pizza with sliced potato as topping – a very Italian version), Hawaiian pizza with pineapple and ham; pizza with squid and seafood, (I could go on forever) and they are clearly all pizzas.
The nice thing about our modern global world, when it comes to food, is access to ingredients and food traditions from all around the world. Pizza in all of its traditional and modern variations should be celebrated without limiting ourselves to stereotypes.
My goal is to be creative this summer with different pizza toppings and techniques. Remember, you can make pizza on your BBQ. One of my favorites when it gets too hot to be in the kitchen. It also gives the pizza a slightly smoky, and if you aren’t careful, charred taste.