Facts about Pizza
French bread pizza is sometimes available commercially as a frozen meal.
A Thai-inspired chicken pizza with peanut sauce, bean sprouts, and shaved carrots is a popular variant in California-style pizza restaurants, as are pizzas that use chicken and barbecue sauce as toppings.
Today, the American pizza business is dominated by companies that specialize in pizza delivery.
Pizza was brought to the Trenton area of New Jersey with Joe's Tomato Pies opening in 1910, followed soon by Papa's Tomato Pies in 1912.
Pizza is a dish of Italian origin, made with an oven-baked, flat, generally round bread that is often covered with tomatoes or a tomato-based sauce and mozzarella cheese.
The crust is thin and firm enough to have a noticeable crunch, unlike a New York-style pizza, yet thick enough to be soft and doughy on the top.
Feta cheese, which has an even lower saturated-fat content, is often used in homemade-pizza recipes.
New York-style pizza is a style originally developed in New York City by immigrants from Naples.
The origin of the word pizza has been suggested to be Germanic, related to the English word "to bite."
The Queen's favorite was a pizza evoking the colors of the Italian flag—green (basil leaves), white (mozzarella), and red (tomatoes).
Pizza consists of a flattened disk of bread dough topped with olive oil, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese (and in its variations other toppings), baked quickly, sliced into segments, and served hot.
Another popular form of pizza in Italy is "pizza al taglio," which is pizza baked in rectangular trays with a wide variety of toppings and sold by weight.
Mexicans and Guatemalans also have settled in small communities in North Philadelphia.
Indian pizzas are generally more spicy compared to their Western counterparts, in order to suit Indian taste.
Another option is grilled pizza, in which the crust is baked directly on a barbecue grill.
The most notable characteristic of St. Louis-style pizza is the distinctively St. Louisan Provel cheese used instead of (or rarely in addition to) mozzarella cheese.
Purists, like the famous pizzeria Da Michele (founded 1870) consider there to be only two true pizzas—the “Marinara” and the “Margherita”—and that is all they serve.
California-style pizza refers to pizza with non-traditional ingredients, especially those that use a considerable amount of fresh produce.
Along with Indian variations, more conventional pizzas are also available.
Grilled watermelon, known as watermelon steak due to its visual similarity to raw steak, has started to become a popular item in restaurants.
American pizza often has vegetable oil or shortening (often, but not always, olive oil) mixed into the dough; this is not as common in Italian recipes.
Due to the influence of Italian and Greek immigrants in American culture, the United States has developed a large number of regional forms of pizza, many bearing only a casual resemblance to the Italian original.
Today, there are many famous pizzerias in Naples where these traditional pizzas can be found; most of them are located in the ancient historical center of Naples.
Sao Paulo, a city that calls itself 'The Pizza Capital of the World', hosting more than 6,000 pizza establishments and where more than 1.4 million pizzas are consumed every day..
A considerable amount of food-technology ingenuity has gone into the creation of palatable frozen pizza.
Pizza outlets serve pizzas with several Indian-based toppings, such as Tandoori chicken and cottage cheese (Known as Paneer in India).
Many grocery stores and supermarkets also sell fresh, ready-to-bake pizzas.
Genuine Neapolitan pizza dough consists of Italian wheat flour (type 0 or 00, or a mixture of both), natural Neapolitan yeast or brewer’s yeast, salt, and water.
Neapolitan pizza has been given the status of a “guaranteed traditional specialty” in Italy.
Pizza could derive from a Lombardic word similar in form to the Old High German bizzo or pizzo, related to words meaning "bite."
Until about 1830, pizza was sold from open-air stands and street vendors out of pizza bakeries, a tradition that is still kept alive today by some pizzerie.
Wood-fired pizzas, cooked in an impressive-looking ceramic oven heated by wood fuel, are also popular.
Prior to the 1940s, pizza consumption was limited mostly to Italian immigrants and their descendants.
Greek pizza, like Chicago-style pizza, is baked in a pan rather than directly on the bricks of the pizza oven.
Pizza has emerged as a popular fast food in Indian urban areas, particularly among youth.
Chicago-style pizza, or deep-dish pizza, contains a crust which is formed up the sides of a deep-dish pan.
During the latter half of the twentieth century, pizza in the United States became an iconic dish of considerable popularity.
Chicago-style thin-crust pizza has a thinner crust than Chicago-style deep dish, and is baked flat rather than in a deep-dish pan.
St. Louis-style pizza is a thin crust variant that is popular in and around St. Louis, Missouri.
Often, "Americanized" foods such as barbecued chicken and bacon cheeseburgers are used to create new types of pizza.
Today, pizza is a symbol of several cultures: Italians, particularly from Naples, are proud of authentic pizza made with local ingredients and following strict guidelines for preparation.
The modern pizza industry, popular throughout the United States and with it uniquely American character, was born in the Midwestern United States.
Pizza first made its appearance in the United States with the arrival of Italian immigrants in the late-nineteenth century.
Pizza has a long and complex history, although pizza as we know it today originated in Italy, specifically in Naples.
More recently, frozen pizzas with completely raw ingredients have also begun to appear, as have those with “self-rising” crusts.
In 1889, he baked three different pizzas for the visit of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita of Savoy.
Pizza is a very popular dish in Brazil, brought by Italian immigrants to that country.
The pizza must be baked for 60 to 90 seconds in a 485 °C (905 °F) stone oven with an oak-wood fire.
In cities with large Italian populations, such as San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia pizza was first sold on the streets of Italian neighborhoods.
The dish gained in popularity, and soon pizza became an attraction to visitors who ventured into the poorer areas of the city in order to try the local specialty.
Countries throughout the world have adopted pizza as a favorite food, adding their own variations to make this dish their own.
When making pizza at home, it can be baked on a pizza stone in a regular oven to imitate the effect of a brick oven.
Pizza is popular in Australia, where a significant percentage of the population is of Italian descent.
The crust is thin and firm enough to have a noticeable crunch, unlike a New York-style pizza, yet thick enough to be soft and doughy on the top.
English muffin, French bread pizza, and pizza bagels are common convenience pizzas made at home in an oven or toaster, usually with a simple topping of tomato sauce, sliced or shredded cheese, and perhaps pepperoni.
An employee of his, Antonio Totonno Pero, began making pizza for the store to sell that same year.
Only pizzas which followed these guidelines could be called “traditional Italian pizzas,” at least in Italy.
The innovation that gave us the particular flat bread we call “pizza” was the use of tomato as a topping.
Taco pizza has ingredients usually associated with tacos, such as; lettuce, shredded beef or hamburger, chopped tomatoes, avocado, corn chips, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and taco sauce.
The default version is a “white” pizza topped with only garlic and hard cheeses; customers who want tomato sauce or mozzarella cheese have to ask for them explicitly.
Delicious and relatively nutritious, particularly when topped with fresh vegetables, pizza is an example of human creativity.
Brought to Europe from the Americas in the sixteenth century, the poor of the area around Naples began to add tomato to their yeast-based flat bread, and so the pizza was born.
A pizza has a very dark, “scorched” crisp crust that offers a distinctive bitter flavor, which can be offset by the sweetness of tomatoes or other toppings.
The pizza bases in Naples are soft and pliable, but in Rome they prefer a thin and crispy base.
The first recorded use of the word "pizza" dates from 997 C.E.
Wood-fired pizzas, cooked in an impressive-looking ceramic oven heated by wood fuel, are also popular.
The salt and saturated fat content of a homemade pizza is usually far less if using original recipes.
Hawks and humans have had a particularly close relationship in the sport of falconry, whereby humans hunted with trained hawks.
Some pizzas can be very high in salt and fat and concerns have been raised about the negative effect these pizzas can have on people’s health.
And it isn't healthy. Depending on the type of crust, the amount of cheese and the toppings used, pizza can rank anywhere from nutritionally decent to a diet disaster. Even healthy pizzas deliver a good amount of sodium from tomato sauce and cheese, so if you are watching your salt intake, you should eat with caution.May 5, 2017
Legend has it that Esposito was called upon to make a pizza for Italian King Umberto I and Queen Margherita when they visited Naples in 1889. That pizza, which featured fresh tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and basil, is still known as Pizza Margherita today.
An often recounted story holds that on 11 June 1889, to honour the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, the Neapolitan pizzamaker Raffaele Esposito created the "Pizza Margherita", a pizza garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, to represent the national colours of Italy as on the Italian flag.
The first known pizza shop opened in Port Alba in Naples and is still there today. Esposito was called to make some pizza for the visit of King Umberto and Queen Margherita of Italy in the late 1800s.
Chinese legend surrounding the invention of pizza. There is a story in China that suggests pizza is an adaptation of the scallion pancake, brought back to Italy by Marco Polo.
The Macedonian Pastrmajlija is a bread pie made from dough and meat. It is usually oval-shaped with chopped meat on top of it. The Provençal Pissaladière is similar to an Italian pizza, with a slightly thicker crust and a topping of cooked onions, anchovies, and olives.
Mix garlic into oil and cook just until fragrant, 1 minute more. Add fresh oregano and reduce heat to low; cook until oregano is wilted, 2 or 3 more minutes. Mix red pepper flakes, dried oregano, and tomatoes into olive oil mixture. Bring sauce to a simmer and season with salt, sugar, and black pepper.
Different theories abound on the net: I have read claims that it's called pie because it is cut in triangles, that its round shape is reminiscent of a pie chart, some who sustain that the first pizzas baked in the US were simply called tomato pies, and others who say pizza is Italian for “pie”; however, that last claim ...Jul 31, 2015
Pizza dough is also stretched by spinning the lump of dough in the air, which takes advantage of centrifugal force and rounds the dough out. ... If you're wondering why pizzas are round, but come in a square box, the answer is simple. It's actually cheaper to make square boxes than circular ones.Oct 27, 2016
piz. za. A baked pie of Italian origin consisting of a shallow breadlike crust covered with toppings such as seasoned tomato sauce, cheese, or sausage. [Italian, pie, tart, pizza, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German bizzo, pizzo, bite, morsel; see bheid- in Indo-European roots.]
Pizza is a common fast food category in the United States, with nationwide chains including Papa John's, Domino's Pizza, Sbarro and Pizza Hut. It trails only the burger industry in supplying children's fast food calories.