A Slice of Pizza History

As all Italian-Americans know -- and will tell you given the slightest opportunity -- Italians are a very proud people. Why? Obviously, because we have so much to be proud of.  When God handed out things to be proud of, Italians must have been his favorites.  Why else would  God put the Vatican in Rome? He sure as hell didn't put it in Paris or Dublin or Krakow.

Italian food, of course, is a source of incredible pride amongst Italians. And it ain't false pride!  There's a reason Italians are so proud of our food: It's the best food on the planet!

One of the Italian food groups Italians are exceptionally proud of -- well, besides pasta, our  Sunday Sauces/Gravies, meaballs, braciole, sawseege, our specialty cold cuts like salami, capocolla, proscuitto,  sub/hoagie/hero/grinder sangwiches, all the parms (eggplant, chicken, veal), all the fish served on Christmas Eves and more -- is pizza. Pizza rates right up there at or near the top of the long list of foods Italians are especially proud of. And yes, pizza is a food group all on it's own.

So, today I'm going to give you the Reader's Digest condensed version of those wonderful-yet-simple Italian flat-bread delights we all know by one word: pizza.

Since way back when, the city of Naples was a thriving, bustling, seaside town. It was jam-packed with Napoletans. (nah-buh-le-dons) A lot of those Napoletans lived and worked on or near the waterfront. The closer you got to the water, the more crowded and bustling Naples was.  I'm not talking about the rich or the aristocracy of Naples. I'm talking about the working classes.  Any time you've got lots of working-class people living and doing their things in a small area, someone's gonna step-up to feed them some cheap but delicious food. I'm not talking about restaurants, cafes, and other sit-down joints to eat, although I'm sure there were plenty of those as well.  I'm talking about street vendors. And that's just what happened in Naples.

Naples waterfront, 16th century, birthplace of pizza. That's not the world's biggest pizza oven in the background. It's Mt. Vesuvius, on the other side of the Bay of Naples, belching up some hot stuff.

If you're a street vendor, you probably want to be selling food that's fast and easy to make and can be eaten by hand by your customers.  Back then, there weren't a whole lot of prepared foods that fit that bill. But pizza certainly did! That's right, pizza was probably the world's first "fast food." And it was invented, like so many other fantastic things, by Italians.

During that time, most of the rich people were eating fancy French food because they thought that was more cultured. (Rich people, please.) They considered food like pizza to be beneath their dignity and station to eat. You know what? Vaffanculo to them. They had no idea what they were missing.  But then, one day in the late 19th century after Italy had unified,  the King and Queen of Italy came to Naples and the Queen, Queen Margherita, wanted to try some pizza. I guess she heard it was good or maybe she wasn't a snob like many rich people are, especially royalty. So, she ordered a few of her minions to go out on the streets of Naples and get her a variety of pizza from the local vendors. 

Queen Margherita with her name-sake pie.

When the minions brought back the pizza for Queen Margherita, she tried them all and decided the one she liked best was a thin-crust, flat-bread pizza topped with mozzarella cheese, red tomatoes, and basil leaves on top. (White, red, and green-- the colors of the Italian flag that pizza just happened to be.) To this day, a cheese and tomato pizza with basil leaves is still called a Margherita Pizza. 

Not long after, a whole lot of Italians immigrated to America and lots of them came from Naples and the areas surrounding Naples. Both my grandparents did. And guess what they brought with them? Yep. Pizza!  Since many Italian immigrants settled in the Northeast, especially in New York City and the surrounding areas, pizza vendors began springing up all over the place. Soon, Italians began spreading across America bringing pizza with them. It didn't take long for non-Italians to discover pizza and they, of course, fell in love with it. That's why pizza is one of the most popular foods in America. And we made it!

By the way, if you come from where I come from, North Jersey -- where the best pizza in the world is made -- we don't say, "I want a slice of pizza," or  "I'm going after a pizza pie," or simply the word pizza, by itself, without the pie added.  We just say we want "a slice."  Or, we say we're going to get "a pie."  If we want some other kind of pie, like an apple or a cherry pie, then we say we want a slice of apple pie or a cherry pie. When we want pizza, we just call it a "pie" or a "slice." You've been schooled. Well, some of you have. Some already knew that.

Next update: "Ernie Was Right!"  (The Ernie is Ermes Effron Borgnino, aka Ernest Borgnine.)