Pizza; An Origin Story

Who doesn’t love a slice of good old pizza? But hey, who came up with this word and this dish? In the initial 1800s, English speakers started saying the word ‘pizza’. Nonetheless, an early English lexicographer, John Florio, recorded the word pizza even previously in the Italian-English dictionary in 1598. The meaning then was “a tiny cake or wafer.”

The first evidence of the word “pizza” was in a Latin text in 997 AD where it specified the patriarch of the Italian municipality Gaeta was to obtain ‘Duodecim pizze’ meaning twelve pizzas on Christmas Day/ Easter Sunday.

Origin Theories
It’s evident that the word pizza comes from Italy, but the profound origins of the word are a bit less flawless. Dissimilar historians will give altered answers to where precisely pizza came from. It also hinges on how you describe pizza.

Some persons consider that pizza comes from the Greek term pitta, or pita, implicating “pie”. Additional people say it originates from the Langobardic language, which is an antique German language from northern Italy. The word bizzo in Langobardic translates to “bite.”

Suppose you describe pizza as flat bread sweltered in an oven. In that case, the recognition for pizza should go to the Babylonians, Israelites, or Egyptians in from the Middle East since they consumed flatbread baked in ovens prepared from mud.

In this day and age, if you describe pizza as bread with toppings, then the Romans and Greeks should be attributed to the creation of pizza. The Romans and Greeks ate bread crowned with olive oil and seasonings. Now we call this the Focaccia bread.

Who Invented Pizza?
When it comes to the olden times of pizza, Italians are recognized for creating modern pizza. Still, baked bread with coatings has numerous other dynasties in additional cuisines.

Italy’s form of the dish, particularly from Naples, is the one we are most acquainted with. But pissaladière from Provence, coca from Catalonia, and lahmacun (amongst additional forms) from the Middle East all have an extraordinary similarity to pizza.

As the fable goes, modern pizza—an open-faced pie smothered in tomato sauce and mozzarella—was known to us in the 18th century via the baker Raffaele Esposito in Naples, Italy. In 1889, he prepared a patriotic pie crowned with mozzarella, basil, besides tomatoes. These were the ingredients in the shades of the Italian flag in respect of King Umberto and Queen Margherita’s stopover. It is understood the Queen relished the pie, and consequently, it became recognized as a Margherita.

In the USA, Italian settlers vended pizza in their markets. And the primary pizzeria (Lombardi’s) was commenced in 1905 on Spring Street in New York City by Gennaro Lombardi. But pizza did not truthfully become popular in the states until World War II.

Posted in Italy, numerous American and European soldiers savored pizza. And they carried a craving for this no- omnipresent dish back with them. At the moment, you’ll find pizza ended in Italian food eateries and by street vendors everywhere in the world. And you’ll certainly not need to look far if you’re longing for a flatbread pizza with crispy crust baked with olive oil. Delicious!


Is It a Pizza, or a Pie? Maybe Pizza Pie?
What do you call pizza? On the Eastern Coast of the USA, pie or pizza pie are general terms for a whole pizza. These languages would never be used in additional regions (and external to the US).

Nonetheless, the usage of pie for pizza goes back to the 1800s. In 1903, a New York Tribune editorial said, "Pie has usually been deliberated as a Yankee dish completely" and went on to label a “pomidore pizza,” a dish prepared of dough and tomatoes.

Za is another variety of pizza. This is called a clipping: a complete word condensed while keeping its actual meaning.

How to Pronounce the Word Pizza
So why is there a "t" resonance in the word pizza? There is no "t" in the word pizza, correct?

"Pizza", as we know the word nowadays, is really an Italian word. Though, there’s no “t” sound in the Italian articulation either. In Italian, they say it: /ˈpid.dza/. Though in English, nevertheless, you typically hear the word marked more like /ˈpit.tsa/, using a “t” sound. Needless to say, it's dissimilar from Italian.

The English articulation is actually nearer to the Neapolitan way of saying the word. But if you hear somebody from Naples, you’ll see that they spoke the ”zz” sound closest to "tts”. Consequently, when you say the word “pizza” in your ordinary English, you're really speaking the Neopolitan language.

Chicago Pizza
As quickly as the 1930s, Italian-Americans founded many pizzerias in New Jersey, Manhattan, and Boston. At that time in 1943, a man by the title of Ike Sewell began a restaurant named Uno’s in Chicago.

Consequently, Chicago-style pizza was shaped. Notwithstanding the fact that pizza’s admiration continued to increase, it was still seen as a dish for the poor working-class menfolk.


Chicago Deep Dish Pizza
You consume maximum pizzas with your hands, but deep-dish pizza is typically eaten using a knife and fork. It instigates in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune tells a thought-provoking story regarding deep-dish pizza. They say that it might have come from a badly made enchilada.

The fable says that two buddies, Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo, decided to open an eatery back in 1943. Sewell was a Texan, and he sought to help with Mexican food. But after the sample mealtimes made the men vile, they chose to cast off Mexican food completely. Riccardo then recommended pizza, which he had savored when he was posted in Italy all through the war.

Today Pizza is consumed all over the globe, from famous Chicago Style Deep Dish to New York Pizza, which is typically a thin-crust or Sicilian-crust variation. Because of it's wide adoption you even see Pizza used as a mail order gift, or for gift boxes during holidays or anniversaries because of it's fabled notoriety.

Summary
Pizza has a drawn-out and intricate history that dates back to antique Greece and has gone over the world. It is really a beloved dish of the mainstream people. Each slice contains information about dissimilar sections of the world’s olden times. Pizza's communal, financial, and cultural backgrounds are seared into its delectableness. So if you've been wondering why we exist here at RedCarpet™, here's your answer.

With time, the toppings have changed to imitate the miscellaneous cultures of the world that have swayed them. Notwithstanding the fact that bakers worldwide are now making personalized pizzas, the end product has stayed the same. And that's what makes this food creation so special and timeless.