Inovation
The innovation that led to flat bread pizza was the use of tomato as a topping. For some time after the tomato was brought to Europe from the Americas in the 16th century, it was believed by many Europeans to be poisonous, as some other fruits
of the Solanaceae (nightshade) family are. However, by the late 18th century, it was common for the poor of the area around Naples to add tomato to their yeast-based flat bread, and so the pizza began.The dish gained popularity, and soon pizza
became a tourist attraction as visitors to Naples ventured into the poorer areas of the city to try the local specialty.
Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba in Naples, which is widely believed to be the world’s first pizzeria.
According
to documents founded by historian Antonio Mattozzi in State Archive of Naples, in 1807 already 54 pizzerias existed, with their owners and addresses. In the second half of the nineteenth century they increased to 120.
In Naples, two
others figures connected to the trade existed — the pizza hawker (pizzaiuolo ambulante ), who sold pizza, but he did not make it, and the seller of pizza “a oggi a otto”, who made pizzas, but sold them in return for a payment for seven days.
he
pizza marinara method has a topping of tomato, oregano, garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. It is named “marinara” because it was traditionally the food prepared by “la marinara”, the seaman’s wife, for her seafaring husband when he returned
from fishing trips in the Bay of Naples. The first pizza in America is Lombardi’s, which was originally a grocery store, started selling pizzas in 1905.
This lead to the explosion of pizzerias around New York City within the coming
years, as pizza was still looked at as a foreign food until the late 1940s.
Do you know?
Pizza hut became the first restaurant to deliver a pizza to space when it rocketed a pizza to astronaut yuri usachov at the international space station. the pizza was topped with extra spices (since tastebuds are dulled in space) and salami, so
it wouldn’t mold.
The first pizza ordered by computer happened in 1974: the artificial language laboratory at michigan state needed to test out its new “speaking computer,” so they used it to order a pepperoni, mushroom, ham, andsausage pizza from a local pizza
joint.
The only pizza-themed superhero movie made to date is called pizza man—released in 2011, the film stars frankie muniz as a pizza delivery guy who acquires super powers from eating a genetically modified tomato.
Memo Mozzarella
Mozzarella was first made in Southern Italy near Naples. Records show that the Romans were already making a similar kind of cheese from sheep’s milk during the middle of the first century A.D. And the cheese got its name because of the tradition
during the third century in which the monks from San Lorenzo di Capua would give out bread and self-made cheese which they called “mozza” to the people in need. And the name mozzarella was developed from the mozza which came from the Italian
word “mozzare” which means to separate or to cut off. But when water buffalo farming emerged during the 16th century, they quickly switch from making the cheese with sheep’s milk to buffalo milk.
Because mozzarella was not made
from pasteurized milk and there was no refrigeration that was available during that time, the cheese had a very short shelf-life
and it somehow never left the southern region of Italy where it was made. But as technology, transportation systems, and refrigeration improved the cheeses were able to reach other regions of Italy. And in the middle of 20th century, mozzarella
was able to be transported all throughout Europe.
