Fun Facts

In the late 19th century, pizza was sold in the streets at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a simple topping of mushrooms and anchovies. As pizza became more popular, stalls were set up where the dough was shaped as customers ordered. Toppings were invented. The stalls soon developed into the pizzeria.

Pizza was introduced to Chicago by a peddler who walked up and down Taylor Street with a metal washtub of pizzas on his head, crying his wares at two cents a chew. This was the traditional way pizza used to be sold in Naples, in copper cylindrical drums with false bottoms that were packed with charcoal from the oven to keep the pizzas hot.

The word "pizza" may be a derivative of the Latin word "picea", a Roman word used to describe the blackening of bread in an oven. The word "pizza", in its current spelling, emerged some time in the Middle Ages. It was used to describe both the sweet and salty pies that were becoming popular among Italian aristocracy. Another theory is that the word evolved from the Old Italian word "a point", which became "pizziare", which means "to pinch" or "pluck." And it also means "pie". Pizza took the form that we're now familar with in pre-Renaissance Naples, and was originally a peasant dish. Street vendors, young boys walked around the city with small tin stoves on their heads, calling out their wares. The world's first pizza parlor evolved from this in 1830 and is still in business today.