The word is older than the dish you’re picturing
“Pizza” turns up in a Latin document from Gaeta, in southern Italy, dated 997 AD — nearly eight centuries before tomatoes appeared on one. It referred to a flatbread.
Pizza trivia
Things that are
Things that are
true about pizza
And three things everyone repeats that aren’t. We checked before printing them, which is more than the internet usually manages.
Verified
Actually true
Naples got UNESCO status for it
In 2017 UNESCO added the art of the Neapolitan “pizzaiuolo” to its list of intangible cultural heritage — protecting the craft of making it, not the recipe.
Tomatoes were considered dangerous
Europeans grew tomatoes as ornamental plants for two centuries before eating them, partly because the acid leached lead out of pewter plates and poisoned wealthy diners. The poor ate off wood, and ate tomatoes.
Pepperoni is an American invention
Order pepperoni in Italy and you may get peppers — “peperoni” is the Italian for bell peppers. The spicy cured sausage is Italian-American, and it is comfortably the most ordered topping in the United States.
Hold on
Three myths worth retiring
Queen Margherita inspired the Margherita
The story — that Raffaele Esposito built a red, white and green pizza for Queen Margherita of Savoy in 1889 — is repeated everywhere, including by us until we looked into it. The supporting document has been challenged by historians as a likely forgery, and pizzas with those toppings were already being sold in Naples. Lovely story. Probably not history.
Pineapple is an Italian outrage
Hawaiian pizza was invented in Ontario, Canada, in 1962, by a Greek-born restaurateur. Italy was never consulted and has nothing to do with it either way.
Authentic pizza must be thin and crispy
A true Neapolitan base is soft and foldable in the middle with a puffed, blistered rim — not cracker-crisp. The crisp-throughout style is a later, largely American development.
Settle it over a pizza.
Bingo and trivia nights run at most of our locations — and yes, pizza questions come up.