| Bread was invented in the Neolithic period; and ancient | | | | pizzas for street peddlers in chef coats, and which |
| records reveal many people including other ingredients | | | | became a pizza restaurant in its own right in 1830 (and |
| in bread to improve its flavor. In Ancient Greece a flat | | | | is still in business at the same premises now). |
| bread flavored with toppings such as onions, garlic, and | | | | Alexandre Dumas the elder, writing in 1830, explained |
| herbs was very popular. Persian soldiers in uniform | | | | that pizza was the main food of the poor people of |
| jackets under Darius the Great baked flat bread on | | | | Naples during the winter, and that this pizza was |
| their shields, and then put on toppings of dates and | | | | flavored with oil, tallow, lard, cheese, tomatoes, or |
| cheese. The word pizza is a medieval Latin term first | | | | anchovies. In 1889, in order to honor Italy's Queen |
| used in 997 AD to mean a flatbread galette. | | | | consort Margherita of Savoy, "Pizza Margherita" was |
| A pizza was merely a piece of dough which bakers | | | | created by chef Rafaele Esposito: this pizza was |
| used in order to test the temperature of their ovens, | | | | garnished with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil |
| and which was sold to poor people who couldn't | | | | in order to symbolize the colors on the Italian flag. |
| afford to buy real bread. In the sixteenth century white | | | | Pizza came to the United States with the Italian |
| sauce was first used to cover the pizza; and later oil, | | | | immigrants in chef jackets who began arriving in the |
| cheese, or fish were used as toppings. The innovation | | | | late nineteenth century. American cities with large |
| which gives pizza its unique place in culinary history is | | | | populations of Italians, such as New York, Philadelphia, |
| the use of tomatoes for a topping. Tomatoes were | | | | Chicago, and San Francisco, featured pizza peddlers in |
| introduced into Europe from America in the sixteenth | | | | their Italian neighborhoods who sold their wares from |
| century; but at first they had the false reputation of | | | | cylindrical copper drums with false bottoms filled with |
| being poisonous (since they belong to the nightshade | | | | charcoal (from the pizza oven) to keep the pizzas hot. |
| family). However, the late eighteenth century saw poor | | | | Soon groceries and small cafes in Italian neighborhoods |
| people in Naples adding tomatoes to their flat bread; | | | | began offering pizza. An entire pizza pie cost five |
| and thus pizza was born. The dish grew in popularity, | | | | cents; but since this was too expensive for many |
| sold on the streets of Naples at open air stands and | | | | people, slices were sold for a penny each. It is believed |
| by street vendors who obtained their pizzas from | | | | that the first pizzeria in America was Gennaro |
| bakeries. | | | | Lombardi's grocery store in New York City's Little Italy |
| The oldest pizzeria in the world is Naples' Antica | | | | section, which opened as a pizzeria in 1905. |
| Pizzeria Port'Alba, which in 1738 began producing | | | | |