Pizza

Pizza is an Italian dish made from a flat, leavened wheat dough, typically topped with tomato, cheese, and other ingredients, and baked at high heat—traditionally in a wood-fired oven. The modern version of pizza is often attributed to Raffaele Esposito, who created it in Naples in the late 1800s.

The word "pizza" first appears in a Latin manuscript from the year 997, found in the southern Italian town of Gaeta. In 2009, Neapolitan pizza was recognized by the European Union as a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed dish. Eight years later, in 2017, the art of making Neapolitan pizza was added to UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage.

Pizza and its many variations are among the most popular foods worldwide. It is sold in pizzerias, Mediterranean restaurants, as street food, and through delivery services. In Italian restaurants, pizza is served whole and eaten with a knife and fork; in casual settings, it is cut into slices and eaten by hand. Grocery stores sell pizza in frozen form or as kits for home assembly, which are cooked in a home oven.

In 2017, the global pizza market was valued at US$128 billion. In the United States alone, it was worth $44 billion, spread across 76,000 pizzerias. On any given day, 13% of the U.S. population aged two and older eats pizza.

The earliest recorded use of the word "pizza" comes from May 997, in a notarial Latin document from Gaeta, then part of the Byzantine Empire. It states that a tenant must give the bishop of Gaeta twelve pizzas, a pork shoulder, and a kidney each Christmas, plus twelve pizzas and two chickens each Easter. Several etymologies have been suggested: from Byzantine Greek and Late Latin *pitta* (related to modern Greek pita bread and the flatbread *pitta* of Apulia and Calabria), which may trace back to Ancient Greek *pikte* ("fermented pastry") or *pissa* ("pitch") or *pētea* ("bran"); from dialectal *pinza* ("clamp"), from Latin *pinsere* ("to pound"); or from the Lombardic *bizzo* or *pizzo* ("mouthful"), linked to English "bit" and "bite," with the shift from *b* to *p* possibly due to the High German consonant shift. A person who makes pizza is called a *pizzaiolo*. The word entered English from Italian in the 1930s; before that, English speakers often called it "tomato pie," a name still used for some regional variations.

Pizza-like foods appear throughout ancient history. In the 6th century BC, Persian soldiers under Darius the Great baked flatbreads with cheese and dates on their shields, and ancient Greeks topped bread with oils, herbs, and cheese. In the *Aeneid*, Celaeno prophesies that the Trojans will eat their tables, which later turn out to be round cakes topped with vegetables. In 2023, a fresco in Pompeii showed a dish resembling pizza on a silver platter; Italy’s culture minister called it a possible distant ancestor. The first written mention of the word "pizza" is from 997 in Gaeta.

Modern pizza evolved from flatbread dishes in Naples during the 1700s or early 1800s. Earlier flatbreads were topped with garlic, salt, lard, and cheese. Tomatoes could not have been added before the 16th century and the Columbian Exchange. Pizza was sold from street stands and bakeries until around 1830, when Neapolitan pizzerias began offering tables for customers to eat on-site. A popular legend says that in 1889, Raffaele Esposito created a pizza for Queen Margherita, using red tomato, white mozzarella, and green basil to match the Italian flag. The queen preferred it, and it was named after her. An official letter from her household is still displayed at Esposito’s shop, Pizzeria Brandi. However, later research has cast doubt on this story, noting a lack of contemporary media coverage and suggesting the name and tale were promoted later.