History of Pizza Part One: Tracing the Origins of Pizza: From the Stone Age to the Middle Ages

With the story of the pizza, you find out that it is a mystery with no clear starting point. We cannot begin with its etymology. The word “pizza” is derived from the Latin word picea, which means “burning bread using an oven.” Pizzicare is Italian for pizza and means ‘to pinch or pluck’. The origin of pizza begins when man invented fire.

The history of pizza can begin more than 20,000 years ago. Archaeologists discovered that cavemen combined crushed wheat germ with water and cooked this mixture over burning stones. The first stone for pizza! Cavemen didn’t invent pizza as we know it. Who invented it? It remains a mystery, but here are some facts.

The history of pizza evolved in the Stone Age when the flatbread began to take a similar shape to pizza. Early settlers in modern Italy topped flatbread with various toppings. Pizza flatbread was the poor man’s substitute for a plate or utensil. Some hold that this substitution originated with the Greeks, as they used a round, flat bread known as plankuntos that was baked with a variety of ingredients and then used as a dish.

The ancient Egyptians contributed to the history of pizza making by developing both the “rising dough” technique and the first cone-shaped oven – the first pizza oven. They used this oven invention to make flatbreads that were garnished with herbs to celebrate their pharaoh’s birthday. The ancient Egyptians invented the first pizza party!

The Persian Empire has a place in the history of pizza. Legend has it that Darius the Great’s army baked flatbread on metal shields and used cheese and dates as toppings. This pizza-like food fed armies as they conquered the world at the time.

The Roman Empire was involved in recording the history of pizza. A Roman historian, Marcus Porcius Cato, also known as Cato the Elder, described the Roman form of pizza as a “round flat dough garnished with olive oil, herbs, and honey baked on stones.” Virgil referred to this food in “The Aeneid” as “flour cakes or bread cakes which the Romans devoured happily”.

“Under the shade of a tree, the hero stretched out

His table on the grass, with loaves of bread;

And, with his bosses, he fed on fruits of the forest.

They affirm; and, (not without the command of the god,)

Your home food gone, the hungry gang

Invade their trenches below, and soon devour,

To mend the meager food, their flour cakes.

Ascanio observed this, and smiling said:

“Look, we devour the dishes on which we feed ourselves.”

(Book VII, lines 141 – 49)

The cookbook “De Re Coquinaria” by Roman Marcus Gavius ​​Apicius advanced the history of pizza making. Apicius described a pizza-esque meal as a bread base topped with ingredients such as chicken, cheese, garlic, pepper, oil, and mint, among others. Excavations at the Pompeii site uncovered locations with equipment used to create this pizza-like street food. Are these signs from the first pizzeria? What we do know is that this pizzaesque food had been a staple in Pompeii over 1900 years ago.

A close look at the history of pizza cannot conclusively answer who invented pizza. Even today, many Chinese believe that the origin of pizza begins with the Chinese green onion pancake, or cong you bing. Those who study the history of pizza say that pizza could have evolved from China. In 1295, Marco Polo returned from China persuading a chef from Naples to recreate this stuffed pancake. Although difficult to recreate, Marco Polo moved the pizza story forward when he suggested that the filling be placed on top rather than inside. This technique was very successful and added to the history of pizza. Although the creation of the flatbread with toppings resembles a green onion pancake, it remains a mystery if the history of pizza began in China.