Some time ago, we gave space to pizza in our news, but we didn’t go into detail. This time we’d like to give you some more information about this ingenious invention of Neapolitan people.

For a start, there are various theories about the word ‘pizza’: some say it derives from the Lombard word ‘bizzo’ (bite), others, instead, say it derives from the word ‘pistor’ (baker), as the man who kneads and rolls out the pizza dough.

In any case, whatever its origin, pizza was born at the end of 18th century in Naples, as survival food, seasoned with fish or cheese.

King Ferdinand II, in 1835, wasn’t also able to resist curiosity and, in disguise, sneaked into the Mimì Testa’s pizzeria, where he discovered this delicious dish.

But pizza went officially into the Royal Palace in 1889, when Raffaele Esposito was called at court to make pizza for Their Majesties. This pizzaiolo (pizza maker) gave great pleasure to Royal Couple with three different pizzas: fish pizza, white pizza with cheese and basil leaves and pizza with mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce and basil leaves.

The third combination threw into ecstasies the Queen (pizza Margherita derives its name from her) and so the spread of pizza began its journey across the border.

Even Garibaldi loved it and the story goes that he ate it with his troops after the historical meeting at Teano.

Well, pizza is another historical dish, which was born from culture, needs and creativity of a people and which is nowadays symbol of the excellence of Italian cooking all over the world.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 9:40 am and is filed under italian cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.