By Pam Teel
Ahh Pizza. We all know what it is. We’ve all had it, whether covered in mushrooms, anchovies, and yes, pitifully, even pineapples. Pizza, our modern-day food favorite, but did you know it existed in ancient Greece? According to many studies, the word pizza is linked to the word pita, a food prevalent around the Mediterranean. 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. The word “pizza” was first found in the town of Gaeta in central Italy in the year 997 AD. The meaning of the word pizza is however a bit more unclear. The two leading theories are that it comes from the Lombardic word “pizzo,” meaning “mouthful” or “bite” or that it has the same origin as the Greek word “pitta,” that means a round, flatbread baked in a hot oven.
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. Its origins are as street food in Naples, Italy, during the early 18th century. 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.
This regional street food made its way into the mainstream when in 1889, King Umberto and Queen Margherita of Italy visited Naples. Tired of their steady diet of French haute cuisine, the queen asked for an assortment of pizzas from the cities Pizzeria Brandi. Queen Margherita was offered many different varieties of street pizza, but she chose the one with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil on it because she thought it resembled the Italian flag. Thus, Margherita pizza was born and lives on to this day. Now when you eat a slice of margherita pizza, just know you are eating a piece of history!
Her love for this pizza literally put Naples on the map as a destination to try “real” pizza. The food became an icon of the city. Pizza’s increasing popularity in the U.S. came with the arrival of Italian immigrants at the beginning of the 19th century. The traditional recipe was adapted to regional American tastes—deep dish in Chicago, Brooklyn style in New York, but it wasn’t until the end of World War II that pizza turned into a national phenomenon. Queen Margherita’s blessing could have been the start of an Italy-wide pizza craze, but pizza would remain little known in Italy beyond Naples’ borders until the 1940s. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers who were stationed in Italy lived off of street pizza due to food rations. When they returned home, they brought the recipe with them. The tasty food spread, along with the migration of Italians in the 1950s and 60s, and pizzerias opening in many American cities. Immigrants to the United States from Naples were replicating their trusty, crusty pizzas in New York and other American cities, including Trenton, New Haven, Boston, Chicago and St. Louis. The Neapolitans were coming for factory jobs, as did millions of Europeans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; they weren’t seeking to make a culinary statement. But relatively quickly, the flavors and aromas of pizza began to intrigue non-Neapolitans and non-Italians.
One of the first documented United States pizzerias was G. (for Gennaro) Lombardi’s on Spring Street in Manhattan, licensed to sell pizza in 1905. (Prior to that, the dish was homemade or purveyed by unlicensed vendors.) Lombardi’s, still in operation today though no longer at its 1905 location, and has the same oven as it did originally. Debates over the finest slice in town can be heated, as any pizza fan knows. As far as I’m concerned, in my area of town, Vesuvio’s pizza/Millstone is our go to!
Pizza is no longer viewed as an ethnic treat; it’s well loved by people of all races and nationalities no matter what they put on it!
“Pizza” as we know the word today is actually an Italian word. However, there’s no “t” sound in the Italian pronunciation either. In Italian, they pronounce it: /’pid.dza/. While in English, however, you usually hear the word pronounced more like /’pit.tsa/, with a “t” sound. In other words, different from Italian.
The English pronunciation is actually closer to the Neapolitan way of pronouncing the word. But if you hear someone from Naples, you’ll notice that they pronounced the”zz” sound more like ” /tts/”. So, when you use the word “pizza” in your everyday English, you’re actually using speaking Neopolitan dialect.
You want a piece of history with your pizza pie, head to Pizzeria Brandi, the oldest and most illustrious pizzerias in Naples. In a city renowned for the wood oven-cooked delicacy, this is the grand-daddy; the Temple of Pizza. In business in the same spot since 1780, it started life as Pizzeria Pietro, after its founder (who was more affectionately known in the neighborhood simply as “il Pizzaiuolo” or the pizza guy). Having no heirs, he bequeathed his business to one Enrico Brandi and the place has been passed down through the generations ever since.
But its not just its longevity that places it among the most prized pies, Brandi also the documented birthplace of Italy’s most popular variety of pizza, the Margherita. When Umberto I and Queen Margherita of Savoy were at a ball at the palace of Capodimonte in 1889, the pizzeria owners, Maria Giovanna Brandi and her husband Raffaele Esposito, were invited to provide pizzas as a novelty. They arrived in a decorated cart pulled by a mule and served three varieties of their product, including one created and named especially for the queen – the pizza Margherita, which featured tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella pieces and basil leaves (the colors of the new Italian flag, according to legend). The creation won the applause of the queen and an official document from a royal representative attesting to her delight. The decree is still on display in the pizzeria, and an official plaque is posted on the wall outside declaring the place of historical significance.
Today, Pizzeria Brandi is still located on Salita Sant’Anna in one of those characteristic, super-narrow streets that teem with life in the heart of Naples. It still draws crowds and still serves excellent pizza. The Margherita is still the reigning queen of pizzas, but there are many varieties, and if you can’t decide you can opt for a tasting menu. There is Old World charm inside and a few tables scattered on the alley-street outside.
Bon Appetit!