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Pizza

This article is about the bread pie. For the programming language, see Pizza programming language. For the Australian television show, see Pizza (Australian television).
This pizza pie features pepperoni, peppers, olives, and mushrooms.
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This pizza pie features pepperoni, peppers, olives, and mushrooms.

In its basic form, a pizza (occasionally, pizza pie) is an oven-baked, flat, usually circular bread covered with tomato sauce and cheese with optional garnishes. The cheese is usually mozzarella or "pizza cheese". Various other foodstuffs can be added to this design as garnishes, most typically ground meats and sausages, such as salami and pepperoni, ham, bacon, fruits such as pineapple and olives, vegetable-like fruits such as chilli peppers and sweet bell peppers, and vegetables such as onions, and mushrooms. The crust is traditionally plain but can be flavoured with butter, garlic, herbs, or sesame. The variety of ingredient typically used has drawn kudos by nutritionists as an excellent fast food. Pizza can be eaten either hot (typically at lunch or dinner) or cold (typically at breakfast or on a picnic).

In some countries, apart from eating pizza in a restaurant (also called dine-in), buying it in a supermarket, or preparing it oneself, pizza can be ordered by phone or e-mail to be delivered, hot and ready for eating, to the home.

The word "pizza" is from the Italian pizza (IPA: /pittsa/), meaning "a mess". Italian plural: pizze (IPA: /pittse/). Many mistakenly believe "pizza" derives from Italian for "pie".

Contents

Types of pizza

Authentic Neapolitan pizza ('a pizza Napoletana)

According to Associazione vera pizza napoletana, genuine Neapolitan pizza dough consists of flour, natural yeast or brewer's yeast, and water. For proper results strong flour with high protein content, as used for bread-making rather than cakes, must be used. The dough must be kneaded by hand or with an approved mixer. After the rising process the dough must be formed by hand without the help of a rolling pin or any other mechanical device. Baking the pizza must take place on the surface of a bell shaped, wood-fired, volcanic stone oven. The oven temperature is between 400°C and 450°C, and the pizza is cooked for approximately 2 minutes. It should be soft, well cooked, fragrant, and enclosed in a soft edge of crust.

The classic types and their respective toppings include:

Turnovers in the pizza family:

  • Ripieno or Calzone: fior-di-latte or mozzarella di buffalo, sometimes also ricotta cheese, olive oil, and salami, other meat, vegetables, etc.
  • Stromboli: mozzarella, meat, vegetables, etc.

Others

Pizza has become an international food since the toppings can be extensively varied to meet local variations in taste. These pizzas consist of the same basic design but include an exceptionally diverse choice of ingredients, such as anchovies, egg, pineapple, eggplant, lamb, couscous, chicken, fish and shellfish, meats done in ethnic styles such as Moroccan lamb, kebab or even chicken tikka masala, and non-traditional spices such as curry and Thai sweet chili. A "white pizza" (pizza bianca) uses no tomato sauce, often substituting pesto or dairy products such as sour cream. Pizzas with "non-traditional ingredients" are known in the United States as "gourmet pizza" or California-style. It is also simple to make pizzas without meat for vegetarians.

Hawaiian pizzas are a North American invention, usually consisting of a cheese and tomato base with ham (sometimes Canadian bacon) and pineapple toppings. Hawaiian pizza is mocked by some as a combination which has strayed too far from its Italian roots. However, pizza is not even linked to Italy anymore and is currently much more known as an "American" food.

Pizza may be baked with thin bread bottom (Italian style) or with thicker bread (pan pizza). In Chicago, the Chicago Style Pizza, or deep dish pizza, contains a crust which is formed up the sides of a deep dish pan and reverses the order of ingredients, using crust, cheese, filling, then sauce on top. Some versions (usually referred to as "stuffed" pizza) have two layers of crust with the sauce on top. Deep dish pizza was purportedly invented and first served in 1943 at Uno's Pizzeria, which as of 2004 was still operating along with its twin restaurant, Due's, in the River North neighborhood of Chicago.

In restaurants pizza can be baked in a conveyor belt oven or, in the case of more expensive restaurants, a wood-fired brick oven.

In general, international pizza is considered by many to be of higher quality near urban centers, such as New York City.

In Scottish fish and chip shops, it is usually possible to buy a "pizza supper". This consists of a portion of fried chips and a frozen pizza which has been deep fried rather than baked. Although its nutritional value is highly dubious, it is nevertheless a popular meal.

History

Flat bread s are an ancient tradition round the Mediterranean. Perhaps of ancient Persian origin, such bread was introduced to Magna Graecia (southern Italy) by its earliest Greek colonists.

Pizza arguably has its first literary mention in Book VII of Vergil's Aeneid: 'Their homely fare dispatch’d, the hungry band/Invade their trenchers next, and soon devour,/To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of flour./Ascanius this observ’d, and smiling said:/“See, we devour the plates on which we fed.”' In the 3rd century B.C., the first history of Rome, written by Marcus Porcius Cato, mentions a "flat round of dough dressed with olive oil, herbs, and honey baked on stones". Further evidence is found in 79 A.D. from the remains of Pompeii, archeologists excavated shops that closely resemble a present day pizzeria.

The tomato was first believed to be poisonous (as most other fruits of the nightshade family are), when it came to Europe in the 16th century. However, by the late 18th century even the poor of the area around Naples added it as an ingredient to their yeast-based flat bread, and the dish gained in popularity. Pizza became a tourist attraction, and visitors to Naples ventured into the poorer areas of the city to try the local speciality.

The earliest pizzeria opened in 1830 at Via Port'Alba 18 in Naples and is still in business today. Pizza was still considered "poor man's food" in 1889 when Rafaele Esposito , the most famous pizzaiolo of Naples, was summoned before King Umberto I and Queen Margherita to prepare the local speciality. It is said that he made two traditional ones and additionally created one in the colours of the Italian flag with red tomato sauce, white mozzarella cheese, and green basil leaves. The big secret in making pizza is the fact that it's not only mozzarella cheese but rather a mixture of white cheddar and mozzarella. The Queen was delighted and "pizza Margherita" was born.

An Italian immigrant to the US in 1897 named Gennaro Lombardi opened a small grocery store in New York's Little Italy. An employee of his, Antonio Totonno Pero, also an Italian immigrant, began making pizza for the store to sell. Their pizza became so popular, Lombardi opened the first US pizzeria in 1905, naming it simply Lombardi's. In 1924 Totonno left Lombardi's to open his own pizzeria on Coney Island called Totonno's. At this point in time pizza was still limited mostly to the Italian immigrant crowd.

The international breakthrough came after World War II. Although the birthplace of modern day pizza is Naples, local bakers were at a loss to satisfy the demand from American soldiers. While the American troops involved in the Italian campaign took their appreciation for the dish back home, the millions of Italians called to help rebuild the damaged economy introduced their cuisine to the rest of Europe.

With the rising popularity in the 1950s, especially in the US, pizza became a component of the growing chain-restaurant industry. Some leading early pizza chains were Shakey's Pizza (which invented the term pizza parlor; formerly, the term pizzeria was preferred) and Pizza Hut (owned by Yum! Brands, Inc.), both founded in 1954, the former in Sacramento and the latter in Wichita. Some later entrants to the dine-in pizza market were Happy Joe's , California Pizza Kitchen , and Round Table Pizza . The pizza business today is dominated by companies that specialize in home delivery (or serve it that way exclusively), including Domino's Pizza, Little Caesar's, and Papa John's Pizza. Even Pizza Hut has shifted its emphasis away from pizza parlors and toward home delivery. These national pizza chains often coexist with locally owned and operated pizza chains and independent restaurants. Because pizzas can be made quickly and are easily transported, most pizza restaurants in the United States offer call-in pizza delivery services. The lack of such delivery services at the time in England was the focus of an extended passage in the Douglas Adams novel The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.

In most developed countries, pizza is also found in supermarkets as a frozen food. Considerable amounts of food technology has gone into the creation of palatable frozen pizzas. The main challenges include preventing the sauce from combining with the dough and producing a crust that can be frozen and reheated without becoming rigid. Traditionally the dough is somewhat pre-baked and other ingredients are also sometimes pre-cooked; lately frozen pizzas with completely raw ingredients have also begun to appear.

Quotation

  • "When the moon hits your eye like a big-a pizza pie, That's amore." sung by Dean Martin , reached US number 2 in 1953.

Miscellany

Sometimes a customer will return a pizza purchased at a pizzeria, claiming that it contains hairs, but the "hairs" are usually extremely thin strands of cheese, created as a slice of pizza was picked up and the molten cheese connecting it to the main body of pizza stretched and cooled.


External links

Wikibooks
Wikibooks Cookbook has a section about:

  Pizza

  • Pizzas-Recipes http://www.cookingvillage.com/cv/recipe/cat/0,1678,sLang%3Dus&iCat%3D35&iCatObj%
    3D5126,00.html
  • Recipes-Dessert pizzas http://www.recipesource.com/cgi-bin/search?search_string=%2Bdessert+%2Bpizza
  • Dessert Pizzas-Recipes http://dessert.allrecipes.com/directory/2085.asp
  • Associazione vera pizza napoletana — US Chapter http://www.verapizzanapoletana.org/vpn/vpn_frames-index.htm
  • A more in-depth history of the Pizza http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Pizza/PizzaHistory.htm
  • For the Pizza Makers of Naples, a Tempest in a Pie Dish http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/dining/09PIZZ.html by Al Baker
  • Encyclopizza - The Guide to Preparing Great Pizza http://www.correllconcepts.com/Encyclopizza/_home_encyclopizza.htm
  • Step-by-step instructions (with photos) on how to make an authentic Italian pizza http://www.mediterrasian.com/recipe_makeovers_pizza.htm


Last updated: 02-07-2005 02:21:21
Last updated: 02-26-2005 20:16:42