When is a pizza not a pizza? Well if the World Pizza Council (yes they really do exist) has their way a certain pizza company in Thailand will no longer be able to serve “pizzas”.
The council, based in Naples, have complained about the way in which the company have changed from the original idea of a pizza to new concept ideas as being an insult to the memory of their ancestors.
So upset are they that they have filed a complaint in a European court to get them to stop using the word pizza and described what the company are making as being “deformed culinary abuses” Quite a statement but nowhere near as bad as their final comment describing the newest seafood creation including artificial crab stick as being “a crime against humanity”
Given the atrocities occurring around the world calling a culinary dish a crime against humanity has got to be taking things a little too far.
Having read all this it got me thinking just when the first pizzas came into being.
The exact date of the first pizza is not know exactly as these were developed from peasant food where olive oil, herbs and cheese were spread over unleavened bread by the Greeks and the Romans enjoyed honey, cheese and basil on a base.
The first official record of a pizza being served as a meal was in 1889 when Queen Margherita of Savoy whilst visiting Naples was served a dish with Mozzarella cheese, tomato and basil on a baked bread base. As a result of this dinner the dish we all know as a Margherita pizza was born.
American claims that pizza is an American dish are therefore dashed as the earliest record of a pizza being served in the USA is 75 years later..... They are however one of the largest consumer of pizza in the world including gastronomy tour who visit and stay in apartment in Italy. So contentious is the issue of what is a genuine pizza that in 2009 the European Court passed legislation describing what constituted a “traditional Italian pizza” and included what ingredients could be used.
Where ever you travel in the world you will find local variations and ingredients unique to individual countries and this really makes the complaint from the World Pizza Council a little spurious as every country is experimenting with this traditional dish especially when you look at the pizzas made in Chicago.
The acknowledged pizza capital of the world is Sao Paulo in Brazil where there are an estimated 6,000 pizza dining establishments with over 1.5 million pizzas consumed every day. Some of these are dessert pizzas with toppings such as chocolate or banana, something that is seldom found elsewhere.
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