Global pizza

by Cornie Odone

So you thought the hamburger was the world’s most popular fast food? After all, McDonald’s Golden Arches span the globe. But no, there is another truly universal fast food. It’s easy to make, easy to serve, much more varied than the hamburger, can be eaten with the hands, and it’s delivered to your front door or served in fancy restaurants. It has been one of America’s favourite foods for over 50 years. It is, of course, a pizza.

A Brief History of Pizza.

It’s kind of silly to talk about the moment when pizza was ‘invented’. It gradually evolved over the years, but one thing is for certain – it’s been around for a very long time. The idea of using pieces of flat, round bread as plates come from the Greeks. They called them ‘plakuntos’ and ate them with various simple topping such as oil, garlic, onions and herbs. The Romans enjoyed eating something similar and called it ‘picea’. By about 1000 A.D. in the city of Naples, ‘picea’ had become ‘pizza’ and people were experimenting with more topping: cheese, ham, anchovies, and finally the tomato, brought to Italy from Mexico and Peru in the sixteen century. Naples became the pizza capital of the world. In 1889, King Umberto I and Queen Margherita heard about pizza and asked to try it. They invited pizza maker, Raffaele Esposito, to make it for them. He decided to make the pizza like the Italian flag, so he used red tomatoes, white mozzarella cheese, and green basil leaves. The Queen loved it and the new pizza was named ‘Pizza Margherita’ in her honour.

Pizza migrated to America with the Italians at the end of the nineteenth century. The first pizzeria in the United States was opened in 1905 at 5½ Spring Street, New York City, by Gennaro Lombardi. But the popularity of pizza really exploded when American soldiers returned from Italy after World War II and raved about ‘that great Italian dish’. Americans are now the greatest producers and consumers of pizza in the world.

10.Answer the questions.

1.What does ‘McDonald’s Golden Arches span the globe’ mean?

2.What are the similarities and differences between the hamburger and the pizza?

3.What year was pizza invented?

4.Which came first, picea or plakuntos?

5.Why are Mexico and Peru important in the development of pizza?

6.What do the Italian flag and a Pizza Margherita have in common?

7.When and how did pizza become really popular in the United States?

11.Read Pizza Trivia and say which facts in the text you find the most interesting and why.