World Pizza Day is every 9th February. It was started in the year 2000 but, unfortunately, it is not clear who started it. The origin of pizza is flatbread from Naples in the 18th-19th centuries which was spread around the world by emigrants and tourists who had tried the cuisine. Prior to that time, flatbread was often topped with ingredients such as garlic, salt, lard, and cheese…but not tomatoes. It is unknown when the decision to add tomatoes was taken.
Interestingly the term pizza was first recorded in the 10th century within a Latin manuscript from the Southern Italian town of Gaeta in Lazio.
Pizzas have evolved to include ingredients and stylistic changes from various localities. Italian Americans developed the calzone and, from the 15th century, garlic bread has been the masterful dish with which pizza belongs.
Coming to the UK
Pizza first appeared in the UK when restaurateur Peter Boizot launched his Pizza Express restaurant in London’s Soho area in 1965 after an inspirational trip to Italy. The migrant influx of the 1960s was when most of our takeaway foods started being enjoyed in the UK.
Foods similar to pizza have been made since the Stone Age and there are countless records of people adding other ingredients to their bread to make it more flavourful. It is an easy and quick solution to add toppings and flavour to bread, which is why the idea has been favoured in some shape or form for centuries.
Revolutionary idea
In 1950, a man named Joseph Bucci in Philadelphia filed the first official patent for frozen pizza, titled “Method for Making Frozen Pizza”. Prior to his invention, the dish was created from fresh indigents every time and cooked straight after in an oven. The invention by Bucci revolutionised pizza and made it a quick and hassle-free meal for those who live busy lives and don’t have time to cook from fresh.
However you choose to have your pizza, be sure to enjoy Pizza Day and make sure to be thankful for those who have been instrumental in the history of the pizza. Without them, we would be without one of the world’s favourite meals.
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