The Historic Roots of Pizza

The Historic Roots of Pizza

Pizza is an oven-baked flat usually circular bread, covered with tomato sauce and cheese with optional toppings. All the basic ingredients of a healthy nutritional plan are used in this world-famous culinary product. From dining out to ordering in, pizza has evolved to one of the most loved food categories in the U.S. and around the globe.

The roots of modern pizza come from the ancient Greek colony of Naples in Magna Graecia, which is the part of southern Italy. As early as the 3rd century BC, Marcus Porcius Cato, the first historian of Rome, mentions that people in that area used to eat a flat round dough dressed with olive oil, herbs, cheese and honey. Even in the city of Pompeii, archaeologists have excavated shops that resemble modern pizzerias.

 Since the tomato was not yet known in Europe, the ingredients of the ancient pizza were somewhat different, but the concept remained the same. During the 16th century, when tomato was transferred from the Americas to Europe, the poor area around Naples begun adding this plant to their yeast-based flat bread covering it with mozzarella cheese.

 Soon, pizza gained tremendous popularity among the Italian people and in 1897 the first pizza was produced for the U.S. public by Antonio Totonno Pero who worked as an employee at Gennaro Lombardi's small grocery store in New York City's Little Italy.

Today, pizza has managed to become one of the main components of the growing U.S. restaurant chains. As early as 1954, Shakey's Pizza and Pizza Hut begun their pizza business and today, every U.S. city has a number of pizza restaurants to serve the ongoing needs of people for pizza.

 In fact, the American pizza business is dominated by companies that specialize in pizza delivery and well-known brands, like Domino's, Little Caesar's, Papa John's Pizza among many others serve the needs of the U.S. customers on a daily basis.

The crust of pizza is traditionally plain, but companies have introduced variations with butter, garlic, or herbs and recently crust stuffed with cheese. Topped with tomato sauce and a number of ingredients, from pepperoni to mushrooms and bacon to spinach, today's pizzas are capable of feeding a large family or a group of friends watching a game on TV.

Leftover Pizza Recipes

Leftover Pizza Recipes

Are looking for the quickest pizza recipe, the easiest pizza recipe, and the best tasting pizza recipe? Look no further then last night's leftovers.

That's right. Those containers of recently munched on Chinese food, that uneaten slab of beef those leftover stir fry veggies or the vodka sauce from last night's pasta can all help you harness the power of the pizza gods and bestow upon you a terrific tasting, one of a kind pizza.

Not sold on using leftovers to make pizza? An added bonus of making "leftovers" pizza is that it simplifies the pizza making process; allowing pizza to take its rightful place as the mid-week, after work, after grad-school, after the gym dinner that it was intended to be.

Before you go all willy-nilly-mad-scientist on your pizza, you might consider the following:

o Don't overtop your pizza

Imagine, if you will, what the bottom of your oven will look like caked with pizza toppings. Or worse, how your pants or shirt will look stained with pizza sauce. Despite my personal beliefs, pizza stained clothes never impress or so I am told. So be sure to use an appropriate amount of toppings. And that goes for calzones too, which tend to leak if overstuffed.

o Don't mix flavors that taste bad together

Braunsweiger and peanut butter or how about sweet and sour chicken and refried beans? Unless you are under attack by mid-pregnancy flavor cravings,it's better to stick with the flavor pairings that you already know and love.

o Avoid wet soggy leftovers if possible

While this may seem like a no brainer, cold items can fool you. Even a mildly moist item may leak fluid when heated.

o Experimenting with pizza toppings is always fun

It is always fun to experiment with pizza toppings to create new pizza recipes.

 Try changing your cheese combinations; who is up for an asiago/fontina blend over beef and broccoli leftovers? Maybe add a little cheddar, brie, or chabichou du poitou to your mozzarella topping to spice things up a bit.

History Of Chicago Style Pizza

History Of Chicago Style Pizza

The Chicago-style "deep-dish" pizza that many people love was invented at Pizzeria Uno, in Chicago, in 1943, reportedly by Uno's founder Ike Sewell, a former University of Texas football star. However, a 1956 article from the Chicago Daily News asserts that Uno's original pizza chef Rudy Malnati developed the famous recipe.

The pizza's foundation is simple. It uses a thick layer of dough (made with olive oil and cornmeal) that is formed to a deep round pan and pulled up the sides. The pizza crust is then parbaked before the toppings are added to give it greater spring.

Parbaking is a cooking technique in which a bread or dough product is partially baked and then rapidly frozen or cooled. The raw dough is baked as if normal, but halted at about 80% of the normal cooking time, when it is rapidly cooled and frozen. The partial cooking kills the yeast in the bread mixture, and sets the internal structure of the proteins and starches (the spongy texture of the bread), so that it is now essentially cooked inside, but not so far as to have generated "crust" or other externally desirable qualities that are difficult to preserve once fully cooked.

The crust is then covered with cheese (generally sliced mozzarella) and covered with meats and/or vegetables such as Italian sausage, onions, and bell peppers. A sauce consisting of crushed or pureed tomatoes is then added. Usually this is topped with a grated cheese blend to add additional flavor. On the usual pizza, about a pound of cheese is added. Because of the amount of ingredients in this style of pizza, it is usually eaten with a knife and fork. It's quite messy to eat with your fingers.

In addition to Uno, additional famous deep-dish restaurants include Uno's companion restaurant Due, which was opened just down the block by Sewell in 1955. However, a year before, in 1954, The Original Gino's Pizza, located on Rush Street, opened its doors, and 12 years later in 1966, Gino's East opened.

 Other deep dish restaurants include Edwardo's, Connie's, Giordano's, Carmen's, Pizano's (which is owned by Rudy Malnati's son, Rudy Jr.), and Lou Malnati's (which was begun by another of Rudy Malnati's sons and is now run by his grandsons and has 26 Chicago area locations).

Chicago deep-dish pizza is famous throughout the world. Accordingly, many Chicago deep-dish pizza restaurants will ship their pizzas, partially baked, within the continental U.S.

In the mid-1970s, two Chicago chains, Nancy's, founded by Rocco Palese, and Giordano's began experimenting with deep dish pizza and created the stuffed pizza. Palese based his creation on his mother's recipe for scarciedda, an Italian Easter pie from his hometown of Potenza. A Chicago Magazine article featuring Giordano's stuffed pizza popularized the dish. Other pizzerias that make stuffed pizzas include Bacino's, Edwardo's and Carmen's. Most also make thin crust pizzas.

Stuffed pizzas are often even taller than deep-dish pizzas, but otherwise, it can be hard to see the difference until you cut into it. A stuffed pizza generally has much higher topping density than any other type of pizza. As with deep-dish pizza, a thin layer of dough forms a bowl in a high-sided pan and the toppings and cheese are added. Then, an additional layer of dough goes on top and is pressed to the sides of the bottom crust.

At this stage of the process, the thin dough top has a rounded, domed appearance. Pizza makers often puncture a small hole in the top of the "pizza lid" to allow air and steam to escape while cooking. This allows the pizza sauce to permeate through the pie. Pizza sauce is added to the top crust layer and the pizza is then baked.

Chicago pan pizza in Chicago is similar to the traditional deep-dish style pizza served in other areas of the country, and baked in a similar deep-sided pan, but its crust is quite thick -- a cross between the buttery crisp crust and focaccia.

 Toppings and cheese frequently go on the top of a pan pizza, rather than under the sauce as is traditionally the case with deep-dish and stuffed pizza. The placement of the cheese and toppings on top make the pan pizza variety similar to a thin-crust pizza with a thicker and larger crust.

Pizza Coupons

Pizza Coupons

Pizzas may have come from Italy, but they are popular foods all over the world. Pizzas can be made with all sorts of ingredients, including tomatoes, cheese, olives, sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, peppers and even pineapple.

 Adding ingredients proportionately increases the price of pizzas. Depending on the number of toppings, pizza can get expensive at time. Since it is not possible to bargain for pizzas prices, using pizza coupons can relatively reduce costs.

Pizza coupons are discount statements that can be redeemed at particular pizza outlets. These discounts could pertain to cash discounts, more pizza for less cash, complimentary bread sticks and cola, or other special offers. Since everyone likes saving money, these coupons are a practical method to do just that. There are a number of people who even get free pizzas by using these coupons effectively.

Along with being effective tools for customers, pizza coupons are an effective and profitable marketing strategy for pizza businesses. These coupons are specially designed to increase sales volumes. Essentially discounts almost always attract consumers.

 In most cases, in order to take advantage of a discount, consumers have to purchase a pizza. The redeemable pizza coupon helps in reducing the bill. However, in this process pizza owners are guaranteed more customers.

From the owner's perspective, pizza coupon results vary from month to month. In most cases however, the amount a customer spends affects the discount rate. These coupons are mostly designed to reduce bills percentage-wise, but large bills are always the most profitable for the store. Depending on the business the store does, the kind of pizza coupons that work for a certain pizzeria may not have the same results for another establishment. This is why pizza coupons vary so much between different businesses.

Pizza coupons are often available in the Yellow Pages. Other sources could be a pizzeria itself. At times, pizza places provide coupons to customers visiting the outlet, which are redeemable on future visits.

 Newspapers and magazines are widely used by pizza businesses to distribute pizza coupons. These coupons can be found in a coupon book that can be purchased for a nominal amount, or comes for free in the mail.