• Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Sos Italian – Learn Italian online

Online Italian lessons, Italian culture, Italian translation

  • About
    • Awards
  • Choose me
    • Online Italian Lessons
    • English > Italian Translations
    • Proofreading of Italian Texts
  • Resources
    • Teaching aids
    • Teaching and Learning
    • Translation
  • About
    • Awards
  • Choose me
    • Online Italian Lessons
    • English > Italian Translations
    • Proofreading of Italian Texts
  • Resources
    • Teaching aids
    • Teaching and Learning
    • Translation
  • Home
  • My Blog
  • Learn Italian
    • Test your Italian
    • Exercises
  • Italian books
    • Grammar books
  • Online Italian courses
  • Contacts
  • Subscribe
  • Home
  • My Blog
  • Learn Italian
    • Test your Italian
    • Exercises
  • Italian books
    • Grammar books
  • Online Italian courses
  • Contacts
  • Subscribe

Authentic Italian pizza – history, curiosities, and recipes

Last Modified: September 22, 2015

Pizza is the most famous Italian dish in the world. But what are the origins of this deliciousness?

The first documented usage of the word pizza dates back to 997 AD. At that time, pizza was slightly different from the Italian pizzaone everybody knows. In fact, it was a simple flatbread either with no topping, or usually topped with spices, cheese or meat.

Then, after 1700, when tomatoes were finally considered eatable, Italians started to use them as a topping for flatbread. However, it was not until 11 June 1889 that the most known Italian pizza, pizza Margherita, was baked.
Indeed, according to the legend, in 1889, the Neapolitan cook Raffaele Esposito decided to garnish pizza with tomatoes, cheese, and basil – the colors of the Italian flag – to honor the queen Margherita of Savoy.

Authentic Italian pizza – Curiosities

The largest – gluten-free – pizza

The largest Italian pizza was prepared by Dovilio Nardi, Andrea Mannocchi, Marco Nardi, Matteo Nardi and Matteo Giannotte in Rome in 2012. It measured 1,261.65 m² and was named Ottavia, as a homage to the first Roman emperor Octavian Augustus.

The longest pizza

The longest pizza was cooked by La Pizza+1, NIPfood, and Tomato World Week in Milan in 2015. It measured 1,595.45 m and was cooked in 18 hours.

The most expensive pizza

The most expensive pizza is an idea of the Italian pizza maker Renato Viola. It is called Luigi XII, and it is seasoned with specially selected expensive ingredients such as three types of caviar, lobsters, prawns, Cognac, Champagne, etc. You can have it for 8.300 €. 

Authentic Italian Pizza – Some recipes

One of the most known Italian pizzas is Neapolitan pizza. Since 2010, Neapolitan pizza is a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed Product – to know all the other EU food labels available, read how to recognize fake Italian food (Part 1). This means that it is produced using traditional methods and/or that it has a traditional composition.                  

Those of you who love cooking, Neapolitan pizza, and have a wood-fired oven, may attempt to prepare Neapolitan pizza following the traditional recipe. You can find it in the Eu regulation N.97/2010. This regulation states all the requirements authentic Neapolitan pizza must have and explains the whole production method. Let me know how it goes!

Instead, those of you who prefer a much simpler but still delicious home-made pizza, can follow Gennaro’s recipe, explained in the video below. You can cook the pizza in a wood-fire oven, or you can bake it for 15-20 minutes at 250° C. 

What about you? Have you ever tried authentic Italian pizza? What do you think about it?
Do you have a personal Italian pizza recipe that you want to share? Write me, and I’m going to publish it.


Credits

Original image by TesaPhotography

Related Posts:

  • Sicilian food
    Sicilian food
  • Traditional recipes from the Marches, Italy
    Traditional recipes from the Marches, Italy
  • Six words that change meaning in informal Italian
    Six words that change meaning in informal Italian

Category: Italian food and drinksTag: italian food, Italian recipes, Italy, Pizza

Previous Post: «Learn Italian animal idioms Learn Italian animal idioms
Next Post: The main Italian prepositions – con, su, per, tra, fra Italian prepositions - con, su, per, tra, fra»

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

three × three =

Primary Sidebar

Italian grammar: beginner to advanced

Newsletter

Join my newsletter and get a piece of Italy delivered right into your inbox!

Learn Italian with my online courses

Sos Italian - Online Italian classes

Categories

  • Culture
  • English-Italian texts
  • Grammar
  • Italian food and drinks
  • Italian Language Certifications
  • Learn Italian
  • Learning
  • Teaching
  • Translation
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized

Advertising

Archives

  • Popular

Footer

Terms and Conditions

© Copyright En

Privacy Policy

Termini e Condizioni

© Copyright It

P. Iva: 02736390028

Copyright © 2022

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookies should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

3rd Party Cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

This website uses Pixel Facebook to better measure, optimize, and retarget our marketing campaigns.

This website uses AdSense to enable an analysis of the use of the website and to allow third party vendors, including Google, to use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to this website or other websites.

Keeping these cookies enabled helps us improve our website.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Cookie Policy

More information about our Privacy and Cookie Policy

Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance