Pizza also flourished in other cities, and it began to expand beyond its Italian roots. Eventually, pizzamakers trained at Lombardi’s began to spread across the city and open up second generation facilities, which still flourish to this day – Totonno’s in Brooklyn in 1924, John’s of Bleecker Street in 1929, and others. Made in the classic New York style using a coal oven and thin crust, Lombardi began the entire lineage of NYC pizza. In what is now known as Little Italy, Gennaro Lombardi opened the first pizzeria in 1905. Pizza’s journey in the United States began with Italian immigrants in New York.

It contained only tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil to represent the colors of the Italian flag. Then, in 1889, modern pizza was born when pizzamaker Raffaele Esposito created the “Pizza Margherita” for the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy. The first Italian pizza restaurant, Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba, began baking pizzas in 1738 as the dish grew in popularity, especially with tourists visiting Naples. At the very least, this was likely the first use of the word “pizza.” Initially a dish for poor people, the original Neapolitan pizza was sold in the streets with a diverse range of toppings. In reality, pizza was likely born in Naples, Italy decades after the tomato was first introduced to Europe. Flatbreads, naan, and plakountos are all early preparations that could be considered cousins to the modern pizza, but there isn’t a consensus as to which is first and whether these could even be considered precursors to pizza at all. From the Greeks to the Egyptians, from the Persians to the Indians, there have been incarnations of pizza served throughout history. In 2017 the process of pizza making in Naples was recognized by UNESCO as a piece of “intangible cultural heritage.” Cementing pizza’s place of significance alongside cultural traditions like reggae music in Jamaica and yoga in India.The story of pizza is a long one. The tasty food spread with an internal migration of Italians in the 1950s and 60s, and pizzerias opened in many American cities. Thousands of American soldiers who had occupied Italy turned to pizza due to food rations. When they returned home, they brought the recipe with them. The traditional recipe was adapted to regional American tastes - deep dish in Chicago, Brooklyn style in New York.īut it wasn’t until the end of World War II that pizza turned into a national phenomenon. came with the arrival of Italian immigrants at the beginning of the 19 th century. Pizza’s increasing popularity in the U.S. The food became an icon of the city that still attracts visitors to this day.

The endorsement from the royal family put Naples on the map as a destination to try “real” pizza. She was offered several kinds of pizza but chose the one with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil because she thought it resembled the Italian flag. Queen Margherita wanted to try the local delicacy. The regional street food made its way into the mainstream when the King and Queen of Italy visited Naples in 1889. Initially, it consisted of bread covered in pork fat or olive oil topped with cheese, but that changed with the introduction of fresh tomatoes in 1760. Its origins are as street food in Naples, Italy, during the early 18 th century. Pizza spelled the way we recognize it today first appeared on a rental agreement in 997 BCE promising the landlord payment in pork and pizza. From the eighth to fifth century BCE, the Greeks colonized southern Italy, bringing along their “plakous,” a round cheese pie with a crust that doubled as a handle. Pizza is a modern-day favorite - but did you know it existed in ancient Greece? A recent study linked the word “pizza” to “pita,” a food prevalent around the Mediterranean.

Pizza origin