Fun Pizza!

QUEZON City, Philippines (October 12) – This may be an exaggeration but it feels like everybody loves pizza! And everybody loves eating it anytime of the day. Pizza is a kind of food which makes us very hungry just upon hearing the word of it and my tummy’s grumbling right now as I am writing this. Ooops!

But before we start drooling for a box of pizza, let us get to know where pizza came from!

Pizza, according to the great and sometimes a very reliable source known as Wikipedia, is a flatbread generally topped with tomato sauce and cheese and baked in an oven. It is commonly topped with a selection of meats, vegetables and condiments. The term was first recorded in the 10th century, in a Latin manuscript from Gaeta in Central Italy. The modern pizza was invented in Naples, Italy, and the dish and its variants have since become popular in many areas of the world.

The origin of the word pizza is uncertain. The term “pizza” first appeared “in a Latin text from the southern Italian town of Gaeta in 997 AD, which states that a tenant of certain property is to give the bishop of Gaeta duodecim pizze (“twelve pizzas”) every Christmas Day, and another twelve every Easter Sunday.

The story is not done yet but I guess, you’re beginning to get distracted just by thinking about eating pizza at the moment. Haha!

Now, as you scroll down for more infos, let us now know how pizza is made.

Pizza is prepared fresh, frozen, and as portion-size slices or pieces. Methods have been developed to overcome challenges such as preventing the sauce from combining with the dough and producing a crust that can be frozen and reheated without becoming rigid. There are frozen pizzas with raw ingredients and self-rising crusts. In restaurants, pizza can be baked in an oven with stone bricks above the heat source, an electric deck oven, a conveyor belt oven or, in the case of more expensive restaurants, a wood- or coal-fired brick oven. On deck ovens, pizza can be slid into the oven on a long paddle, called a peel, and baked directly on the hot bricks or baked on a screen (a round metal grate, typically aluminum). Prior to use, a peel may be sprinkled with cornmeal to allow pizza to easily slide onto and off of it. When made at home, it can be baked on a pizza stone in a regular oven to reproduce the effect of a brick oven. Another option is grilled pizza, in which the crust is baked directly on a barbecue grill. Greek pizza, like Chicago-style pizza, is baked in a pan rather than directly on the bricks of the pizza oven.

Hhmmmm, now I can hear that tummy grumbling!

Now, here are the fun facts about pizza, from the pizzafan!

1. Pizza originated in Naples, Italy. Antica Pizzeria was the world’s first pizzeria. It opened in Naples, Italy in 1738.
2. The first pizzeria in the United States was opened by Gennaro Lombardi in 1905 in New York City (here is my review from when I was lucky enough to visit it).
3. Chicago-style deep-dish pizza was created by Ike Sewell at his bar and grill called Pizzeria Uno in 1943
4. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Americans really started noticing pizza. Celebrities of Italian origin, such as Jerry Colonna, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, and baseball star Joe DiMaggio all devoured pizzas. It is also said that the line from the song by famous singer, Dean Martin; “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore“set America singing and eating pizzas.
5. Frozen pizzas were introduced and found in local grocery stores in 1957. The first was marketed by the Celentano Brothers. Pizza soon became the most popular of all frozen food.
6. Italian food ranks as the most popular ethnic food in America.
7. Pizzerias represent 17% of all restaurants.
8. It is estimated that about three billion pizzas are sold in the United States every year.
9. The pizza industry is worth more than $30 billion yearly in the United States.
10. Pepperoni is the most popular pizza topping in the United States.
11. Americans eat approximately 100 acres worth of pizza every day, or about 350 slices per second.
12. An average person in the United States eats about 23 lbs., or 46 slices of pizza every year.
13. About 93% of Americans eat at least one pizza every month.
14. October is National Pizza Month in the United States.
15. There are over 61,000 pizza restaurants in the United States, and there are over 9,000 pizzerias in New York alone.
16. According to a recent Gallop Poll, children between the ages of three and eleven prefer pizza over all other food groups for lunch and dinner.
17. Women are twice as likely as men to order vegetarian toppings on their pizza (I apologize to the women readers for not enjoying vegetables on my pizza).
18. The record for the world’s largest pizza depends on how you slice it. According to Guinness World Records, the record for the world’s largest circular pizza was set at Norwood Hypermarket in South Africa in 1990. The gigantic pie measured 122 feet 8 inches across, weighed 26,883 pounds, and contained 9,920 pounds of flour, 3,968 pounds of cheese, and 1,984 pounds of sauce. In 2005, the record for the world’s largest rectangular pizza was set in Iowa Falls, Iowa. Pizza restaurant owner Bill Bahr and a team of 200 helpers created the 129 X 98.6-foot pizza from 4,000 pounds of cheese, 700 pounds of sauce, and 9,500 sections of crust. The enormous pie was enough to feed the town’s 5,200 residents ten slices of pizza each.

Now that a lot of facts! I bet someone’s hungry right now. Whatever flavor, how big or small it is, pizza will always be a part of our food history and people will always eat it no matter what. What’s more enjoyable is when you grab a snack with your loved ones and pizza’s there, waiting for you.

Let’s all grab some pizza!

(written by Joana Joyce Tan Marcaida, edited by Jay Paul Carlos, additional research by Lovely Ann Cruz)