So many things you thought you knew about pizza are untrue. Is it really Italian? Did
it always have sauce? Is the legend of Margherita real? These are the most shocking lies about
pizza since you were told it was a vegetable.
Everyone knows that pizza is Italian, but here's the thing: that isn't precisely true.
Pizza is essentially a flatbread crust with toppings, and that idea goes back to the Persian
army in the 6th century B.C. Soldiers fighting for King Darius I came up with a pretty ingenious
method of making their meals more interesting: they would cook a flat piece of bread on their
shields, then add toppings.
That idea was then picked up by the Greeks. They went head-to-head with the Persians quite
a lot, and while there were plenty of things in which the two cultures didn't see eye-to-eye,
the Greeks at least knew a good meal when they saw it. Prior to this, they tended to
bake seasonings and olive oils into their bread, but before long they were making round
flatbreads and adding ingredients on top. This particular dish even gets a shout-out
in The Aeneid.
Of course, pizza has come a long way since those days, and now it's most closely associated
with the Italian city of Naples. But what you don't often hear is that Naples was actually
founded as a Greek colony. And even until the 19th century, it wasn't technically Italian;
before that, Italy had existed more as a conglomeration of independent states rather than a unified
country. So you could argue that pizza is Persian, you could argue that it's Greek,
or you could argue that it's Neapolitan. But Italian? Not so much.
Pizza is almost shockingly popular: According to The Washington Post, America consumes the
equivalent of 100 acres of pizza each and every day. It wasn't always this way, though,
and originally, pizza was anything but universally beloved.
By the middle of the 18th century, pizza had taken on the shape that we recognize today.
It was sold on the streets of Naples and was most often fed to a class of people called
the lazzaroni. These were the tens of thousands of Naples residents who struggled to put food
on the table — which is where pizza came in. Vendors would cut a slice as big or as
little as a person could afford, and that person could eat on the run.
And that's exactly why pizza wasn't a hit. Because it was the food that the poor ate
when they couldn't afford anything else, pizza became known as the kind of dish that "respectable"
people ought not to acknowledge. Even when they did, they didn't have much nice to say;
in 1831, the inventor Samuel Morse wrote:
"[It's a] species of the most nauseating cake [...] covered over with slices of pomodoro
or tomatoes, and sprinkled with [a] little fish and black pepper and I know not what
other ingredients. It altogether looks like a piece of bread that has been taken reeking
out of the sewer."
[gagging]
Today, it goes without saying that a good tomato sauce is a must on basically any pizza.
That definitely wasn't always the case, however. Most of the earliest pizzas were topped with
ingredients such as herbs and mushrooms. Even by the time the lazzaroni of Naples were eating
it, they leaned heavily on widely available and cheap toppings. A pizza with salt, lard,
and garlic was traditionally the cheapest version, but there were also pizzas made with
horse's cheese and fish. It wasn't until the 1800s that tomatoes were included in most
recipes.
At that time, tomatoes were still fairly new in Europe, and many people refused to eat
them out of fear that they were deadly. There was actually something to that: The problem
happened when tomatoes were eaten off pewter plates, which was common enough among the
upper classes. The acidic tomatoes would draw lead from the plates and poison those who
ate them, though it wasn't the lead that was blamed, but the tomatoes. This tricky reputation
made tomatoes incredibly cheap, so they became an affordable topping for the pizza of the
poor — who didn't have fancy pewter plates, and could therefore safely eat them.
When it comes to popular pizza toppings, pepperoni is right at the top of the list. In fact,
according to The New York Times, in the short time leading up to the Super Bowl, Hormel
alone sells around 40 million feet of the stuff. For comparison, that's about the distance
from the North Pole to the South if you went straight through the Earth's core. And since
pepperoni is so inexorably linked with pizza, you've got to assume it's Italian, right?
But it's not. Pepperoni was an Italian-American creation that was only mentioned in print
for the first time in 1919. That's about the same time pizzerias started popping up in
the U.S., too, and that's not a coincidence. According to author and meat-curing expert
Michael Ruhlman:
"America has a way of taking a good idea, mass-producing it to the point of profound
mediocrity, then losing our sense of where the idea comes from."
In fact, Pepperoni isn't even closely related to Italian sausage. It's smoked rather than
cured, which makes it closer to the sausages found in countries like Germany.
One of the most popular tales about the history of pizza is the origin of the pizza Margherita.
This, of course, is the story of how chef Raffaele Esposito made a few pizzas for Queen
Margherita, and how she loved the one with mozzarella and basil so much that it was named
after her — and soon became wildly popular.
Sadly, this story appears to be a myth. Research undertaken by Italy's Umbra Institute looked
at the tale in a historical context and found that it's closer to something known as fakelore:
that is, folklore with a touch of truth. The king and queen were, indeed, in Naples in
1889. Confirming the part of the story that suggests she was sick of French food and wanted
to try pizza for the first time is difficult, however. And other elements of the story are
flawed, too. Historians have condemned the idea that the queen would summon a commoner
to not only cook her food, but to make her the food of the poor — especially at a time
when cholera outbreaks were a frequent occurrence among the lower classes.
Esposito also changed the name of his pizzeria to "Pizzeria of the Queen of Italy" six years
before he reportedly served the queen, and there are no contemporary mentions of such
a momentous event taking place. Today, the pizzeria claims to still have the thank-you
note handed to them by Queen Margherita's handlers, but the seal isn't official, and
it has been debated whether or not the person who signed it was even real.
"Mamma mia, that's a spicy meatball!"
We've all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so grabbing a piece
of leftover pizza as you run out the door usually comes with a little bit of a guilt
trip. After all, that kind of thing is more for college kids and people with killer hangovers,
right? And while most sensible adults might scoff at the idea of a pizza breakfast, here's
the thing — they'd be wrong to do so.
Nutritionist Chelsey Amer told The Daily Meal that it all has to do with the quality of
most typical breakfast foods. A cup of the deceptive Raisin Bran still has a whopping
18 grams of sugar in it — and that's one of the better cereals out there. A slice of
cheese pizza, on the other hand, has more of the good stuff — like the protein that's
going to help keep you feeling full until lunch.
And sure, pizza is hardly the best or healthiest option out there when it comes to breakfast,
but it's nothing to scoff at, either. The bottom line is, while you probably shouldn't
do it every day, there are much worse breakfast choices you could make. And of course, if
you whip up your own pizza with your own ingredients, you can keep things even healthier. What's
not to love?
Here's another bit of pizza folklore: the dish became popular in the U.S. after it was
brought back by soldiers who had fought in Italy during World War II. But like so many
other stories about the history of pizza, this one is a total dud.
Pizza had been in the U.S. long before World War II kicked off. It first came over with
Italian immigrants in the late-19th century, and pizza places quickly became common sights
in cities like New York. By 1905, people were perfectly aware of the fact that they could
buy a piece of pizza for a nickel — and that's when it became really popular. Just
like it had in Naples, American pizza became the food of the poor. When times got tough
during the Great Depression, pizza recipes became a staple thanks to their versatility
and need for few ingredients.
All in all, World War II was unlikely to have played much of a role in popularizing pizza.
For one, supplies were scarce enough under Italy's fascist regime, and the war wouldn't
have made things much easier. Not only that, but the American soldiers who could get ahold
of pizza would have found a style entirely unlike that known in the United States.
Love it or hate it, it's impossible to deny that Hawaiian pizza is a thing. It might seem
logical that this is a regional delicacy that spread across the globe, fueled almost entirely
by hate and controversy. Funnily enough, however, Hawaiian pizza is more or less the opposite
of Hawaiian.
In 2017, Iceland's president made headlines when he said that he hated Hawaiian pizza
so much that he wanted to ban it outright — so CBC went straight to the source to
find out what was what. To do so, they spoke with the then 82-year-old Sam Panopoulos,
the inventor of the Hawaiian pizza. Panopoulos made it clear what he thought of the president
of Iceland, too. He said:
"When I was working on the pineapple pizza — he wasn't even born. [...] I don't care
what he does. He can say whatever he wants. He sells the fish over there, you know, that's
all he does. So he has to put the fish on the pizza."
A Greek immigrant in London, Ontario, Panopoulos was living in Canada when pizza was just becoming
popular. At the time, he made pizzas at his Satellite Restaurant, experimenting with all
kinds of toppings. During the early 1960s, he introduced Canada to his latest invention:
the Hawaiian pizza. Panopoulos himself passed away in 2017, but it's probably fair to say
that his impact on the world of pizza will still be felt for years to come … whether
you like it or not.
Pineapple on pizza is the make-or-break choice that people around the world use to judge
a person's taste in food. And it's fair to say that the recipe is pretty contentious,
too; hence why people got upset when Gordon Ramsay tweeted:
"Pineapples are for fruit salads not Pizza!"
So, surely it stands to reason that Hawaiian pizza is about as weird as it gets, right?
Well, no. Not by a long shot — just ask the Swedes.
When bananas first made it to Sweden in 1944, the Swedes went absolutely mad for them — and
even today bananas remain one of the country's staple pizza toppings.
"Bananas on pizza."
"It's a new thing."
"That shouldn't be a thing."
"It's not great."
"It's disgusting."
In fact, the people of Sweden use bananas like Americans use pepperoni — you'll even
find them on Hawaiian pizzas. The country's banana curry pizza is more or less a national
treasure.
They're not the only ones whose taste in pizza might look strange to you. Take Russia's Mockba
pizza, for example, which comes with sardines, salmon, tuna, mackerel, and onions. And the
Japanese love seafood toppings, too: eel and squid are particular favorites in their homeland.
Kinda makes plain old pineapple look boring, don't you think?
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