Speaking of cuisine, we can say that every place in the world is also characterized by what its inhabitants eat. Each state, each region, each city, each country has its own typical dish, something that says to the others "we are like this". Then there are dishes and recipes that enter so deeply into the culture and customs of a people that they become a symbol of it. In the case of Italy, what represents and identifies us more than Pizza?
The origins of pizza
How was this fantastic dish born that has become one of the most recognizable symbols of the entire nation? It is not easy to answer this question. Certainly to understand how pizza is born we must start from the origin of bread making.
Already in the Neolithic era, men understood how to cook polenta made from toasted and ground cereals on the stone. Since these first forms of bread making, men have always tried to add different ingredients to give new flavor. Then with the use of yeasts (discovered by the Egyptians to produce beer) the crushed or ground cereal mixtures become, after cooking, softer, lighter, tastier and more digestible. And so the bread spreads. A type of baked bread dating back to 3000 years ago has been found by some archaeologists in Sardinia. Proof of the fact that, on the island, they already knew the use of yeast at that time.
A bread with different shapes and tastes
Throughout history, bread spreads and begins to have different shapes and tastes. The ancient Greeks prepared a flat-shaped bread that they share with different types of flavors, including garlic and onion. In ancient Rome, the peasants prepared a round focaccia cooked on the fire, obtained starting from a mixture of flour of wheat grains ground with water, aromatic herbs and salt. These kinds of bread discs were used to contain juicy dishes. Even earlier, the Etruscans also prepared flat breads similar to focaccia. Similar foods can be found all over the world and continue to be consumed today.
To start talking about pizza you have to wait until the beginning of the second millennium. In a document of Penne (Abruzzo) of 1195 and in some of the 1300s of the Roman curia, the terms "pizis" and "pissas" refer to typical bakery products of the central south of that period.
Pizza in Naples
The history of pizza as we know it today begins in Napoli. In 1535 the poet Benedetto Di Falco in his work "Description of the ancient places of Naples" states that "focaccia, in Neapolitan is called pizza". It was still a flatbread of wheat flour mixed and seasoned only with garlic, lard and coarse salt in the cheaper version, or with caciocavallo and basil in the richer “mastunicola”. In this version, a little at a time, the olive oil replaces the lard. In the 700s, tomatoes began to be used and pizza became similar to the modern one. Not peeled, not pureed but fresh tomatoes in bunches following a scrupulous conservation procedure. The true ancestor of modern Neapolitan pizza is the marinara, the one with tomato, abundant garlic, oil and oregano.
It is cooked in wood-burning ovens and sold on the streets or in outdoor stalls. In this period it becomes the best-selling street food, easy to consume, inexpensive and good even lukewarm. Little by little he also conquers the nobles of the city. At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the custom of eating it began to spread, as well as on the street or at home, at the ovens that prepare it. Thus the first pizzerias were born. Pizza is now widespread throughout southern Italy and is offered in countless variations.
In 1889, At the visit to Naples of King Umberto I and the queen Margherita, the pizza maker Raffaele Esposito, made for them the three classic pizzas, the “mastunicola ”, the“ Marinara ”and the tomato, mozzarella and basil pizza, recalling the Italian tricolor. The sovereign especially appreciated the last one and hence the name "Pizza margherita".
The worldwide spread
Until the mid-twentieth century, pizza was a typical dish especially from southern Italy. After the Second World War, following the rapid industrial growth of the north and the consequent emigration from the south, pizza is also known in other regions. Within a few years, pizzerias opened all over the peninsula and pizza became everyone's dish. From here it spreads like wildfire all over the world, from America (where it was actually already known in some community of Italian emigrants, especially to New York) in the north and south, to all of Europe, from China. to the Middle East. It is now so widespread and appreciated all over the world that it was two years ago UNESCO recognized the Art of the Neapolitan Pizzaiuolo Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
