Pizza?

It’s safe to say that Americans love pizza.

In one 2021 survey,  41% of consumers reported eating at least one slice of pizza every week. Other data indicates that around 350 slices are sold every second — and in 2021, American pizza sales topped  $48 billion. But the doughy, saucy, cheesy goodness wasn’t always an American staple. In fact, pizza was around for more than a century before making its way across the Atlantic from Italy.

Here’s a brief history of this beloved indulgence.

For millennia, flatbreads were a common food throughout the Mediterranean. Then, in the1500s, Spanish conquistadors brought tomato seeds back from the Americas. Most Europeans shied away from what they saw as a poisonous fruit, but people in southern Italy came to accept it and started growing tomatoes.

Pizza was born in Naples around 1760 when flatbread was paired with tomatoes and sometimes combined with cheese. Though poor residents  ate the most pizza, the dish has a royal link. When Italy’s Queen Margherita visited Naples in 1889, she reportedly wanted to try the local dish, so a pizzeria owner created several pizzas for her. The queen preferred the one with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, which became known as pizza Margherita. This pizza is also tied to Italy in another way, as its colors reflect the Italian flag: red tomatoes, white mozzarella, and green basil.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Italian immigrants arrived  in the United States. People from southern Italy carried their affection for pizza to their new home, and Italian Americans began opening pizzerias. Gennaro Lombardi received the first license to sell pizza in New York City in 1905, and eventually, pizzerias started to pop up in places including New Haven, Connecticut, where Pepe’s opened its doors in 1925 (and is still open today).

Early American pizza makers needed to alter some aspects of pizza preparation from how things were done in Italy, however. Italians used wood ovens, which were more expensive in America, so U.S. pizzerias began to bake their pies in coal-fired ovens. Gas-fired pizza ovens were introduced in the 1930s. These ovens made it easier to prepare pizza, which played a part in its growing availability.

After World War II, more people across the United States began to eat pizza. A contributing factor may have been wartime soldiers who’d encountered pizza in Italy and wanted to enjoy it again. Plus, an increasing number of cookbooks contained pizza recipes around this time. Frozen pizzas became big sellers in the 1950s as well, which made pizza more accessible.

As Americans grew to love pizza, fast food franchises were launched to meet the growing need. Among the early pizza chains were Pizza Hut, which first opened in 1958, and Domino’s, which got its start in 1960.

Ahhhhh, Pizza!