This week is National Pizza Week, which is just another excuse to enjoy this great meal. Pizza can be traced all the way back to the 1700s in Naples. Being that Naples was a working town, workers wanted a quick and easy meal during the day. Pizza was very different in that time. It was just flatbread with some cheese and sauce on it, which is seen as the foundation of modern pizza.
Italy unified in 1861, and King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples in 1889. They wanted something different to eat and asked for some pizzas. The queen particularly enjoyed the pie with soft white cheese, red tomatoes, and green basil, which soon came to be known as “Pizza Margherita.” It is rumored that the main reason she enjoyed it was because it has the colors of the Italian flag: red, green, and white. The pizza craze spread throughout Italy very quickly, and it soon made its way state side with immigration booming in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This is when pizza began to look the way it does now, with it’s round or rectangular shape. The first documented American Pizzeria was “Lombardi’s” on Spring Street in Manhattan in 1905. After this, shops popped up everywhere when immigrants realized that they can cook instead of having to find another job. Because of all these people and all these shops, pizza can be enjoyed all over the country.
Pizza can only be as good as the ingredients and the toppings that are used; these toppings can be found right here at Quaker Valley Foods! Please peruse this brochure full of tasty ingredients to make your restaurant’s pizza the best in town!
