Pizza
Italian flatbread dish with tomato, cheese, and toppings.
Pizza is an Italian dish typically consisting of a flat base of leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomato, cheese, and other ingredients, baked at a high temperature, traditionally in a wood-fired oven. Raffaele Esposito is often credited with creating the modern version of pizza in Naples at the end of the 19th century.
- place of origin
- Italy (Naples, Campania)
- credited modern creator
- Raffaele Esposito
- US market value (2017)
- US$44 billion
Lore & Background
The text states that a tenant of certain property is to give the bishop of Gaeta duodecim pizze (twelve pizzas), a pork shoulder and kidney annually on Christmas Day, and twelve pizzas and a couple of chickens annually on Easter Sunday. Suggested etymologies include Byzantine Greek and Late Latin pitta, Lombardic bizzo or pizzo meaning 'mouthful', and dialectal pinza meaning 'clamp'.
Reader's Guide
Pizza and its variants are among the most popular foods in the world. Pizza is sold at a variety of restaurants, including pizzerias, Mediterranean restaurants, via delivery, and as street food. In Italy, pizza served in a restaurant is presented unsliced, and is eaten with the use of a knife and fork. In casual settings, however, it is typically cut into slices to be eaten while held in the hand. Pizza is also sold in grocery stores in a variety of forms, including frozen or as kits for self-assembly. Store-bought pizzas are then cooked using a home oven. Overall, 13% of the US population aged two years and over consumed pizza on any given day.
Did You Know?
- Raffaele Esposito is often credited with creating the modern version of pizza in Naples at the end of the 19th century.
- The word pizza was borrowed from Italian into English in the 1930s; before that it was called 'tomato pie' by English speakers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Pizza?
Pizza is a baked Italian dish built on a flat, leavened wheat dough and layered with tomato, cheese, and assorted toppings. It is traditionally cooked at high heat, most often in a wood-fired oven.
Who is credited with creating the modern version of Pizza?
Raffaele Esposito, a Neapolitan baker working in the late 1800s, is widely recognized as the person who shaped pizza into the form we know today.
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