The pizza - history, curiosities and a recipe

The Italian way of saying sei una pizza! (literally: you are a pizza!) means that you're boring. With that expression we want to emphasize the habit of saying the same things and the same concepts; it probably refers to the producing process of pizza and to the long time of its preparation.

The mixture of pizza in fact is done several times, divided into pieces and allowed to stand, and then reused for other mixtures. The process is really long, always with the same ingredients and - honestly - quite boring. Perhaps the birth of that italian expression may derive from this fact. Bu eat our national pizza is anything but a boring activity!

Where does the Pizza come from?

In ancient Rome, bakers cooked a mixture called pistus, a dish with probably Etruscan origins.

In early 1700 there was the recipe of the Pizza Marinara, a new concept of pizza topped with tomato, garlic, oil and oregano. In the second half of 1700, they also added to the Pizza the mozzarella cheese.

Tradition wants that the Pizza Margherita was named in honor of Queen Margherita, who visited Naples in 1889. For the occasion, the Neapolitan pizza maker Raffaele Esposito gave the name of the queen to the Pizza, whose red tomatoes, green basil, and white cheese represent the flag of Italy. The name remain unchanged, as you probably know!

The ingredients for the homemade Pizza

• leavened bread dough (you can buy it, it's simpler);
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil;
• 1 mozzarella (cheese);
• 3 tomatoes;
• 3 anchovy fillets;
• salt;
• pepper;
• oregano.

Preparation

Mix the dough a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and mix well.

Put in the bottom of a pan some baking paper and lay the dough into the pan by pushing with the finger tips. In order to make the baking paper very relaxed, you have to wet and to squeeze it.

Pour over dough the diced mozzarella, 3 tomatoes cut into cubes, the three anchovy fillets and drizzle with a little oil, salt, pepper, oregano.

Bake it in the oven at 200 ° C for 15/20 minutes.

Your homemade pizza is ready!