WHERE IS PIZZA FROM?

A short history of the world’s favorite food

Pizza is certainly one of the world’s favorite foods. But where does pizza come from? And who made the first one?

In fact, people have been making pizza for a very long time. People in the Stone Age cooked grains on hot rocks to make dough—the basic ingredient of pizza. Over time, people used the dough as a plate, covering it with various other foods, herbs, and spices. They had developed the world’s first pizza.

In the early 16th century, European explorers brought back the first tomatoes from the Americas. Tomatoes are a standard ingredient in many pizzas today. At first, however, most Europeans thought they were poisonous (in fact, only the leaves and roots are). For about 200 years, few people ate them.

Slowly, people learned that tomatoes were safe to eat, as well as tasty. In the early 19th century, cooks in Naples, Italy, started the tradition of putting tomatoes on baking dough. The flat bread soon became popular with poor people all over Naples. In 1830, cooks in Naples took another big step in pizza history—they opened the world’s first pizza restaurant.

Today, up to five billion pizzas are served every year around the world. In the U.S. alone, about 350 slices are eaten every second! People may not know it, but every piece is a slice of history.