737 cr 365, Hondo, Texas 78861
Dirt Road Cookers 8ft. Pizza - Mobile Wood-Fired Pizza- Hondo, Texas
Dirt Road Cookers
World's Biggest Pizza
"Where the Toppings Are Endless"
Pizza History
Pizza's Colorful History
By far pizza has become America's
favorite food over the past 50 years.
Millions of pizza pies are eaten daily,
but how often do the people eating the
food stop to consider the history. The
true origins of this fine cuisine are as
colorful as any good pizza pie heaping
with toppings.
The common belief is that Italians
invented the pizza, however the origins
go back to the ancient times. Even
though we have yet to uncover
archeological evidence of a Dominos
Pizza before the last century, it is
known the Babylonians, Israelites,
Egyptians and other ancient Middle
Eastern cultures were eating flat,
un-leaven bread that had been cooked in
mud ovens. The bread was much like a
pita, which is still common in Greece
and the Middle East today. Further it is
known that ancient Mediterranean people
such as the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians
were eating the bread, topped seasoned
with olive oil and native spices.
The lower class of the Naples, Italy is
believed to have created pizza in a more
familiar fashion. In the late 1800s a
Italian baker named Raffaele Esposito,
was believed to have created a dish for
visiting royalty. According to the
story, the Italian monarch King Umberto
and his consort, Queen Margherita were
touring the area. In order to impress
them and to show his patriotic fervor
Raffaele chose to top flat bread with
food that would best represent the
colors of Italy: red tomato, white
mozzarella cheese and green basil. The
king and queen were so impressed that
word quickly reached the masses. The end
results were that the dish was well
received to the extent that others began
to copy it.
By the beginning of the 1900's pizza
made it's way to the inner cities United
States, thanks to Italian immigrants,
most notably New York and Chicago, due
to those cities having large Italian
populations. Small cafes began offering
the Italian favorite. American soldiers
further prompted the dish to become very
popular at the end of World War II,
having been exposed to it while serving
on the Italian front.
Today pizza has become just as American
as baseball and apple pie. Only because
of its most recent origins is it
considered an Italian dish. Huge U.S.
based multi-billion dollar corporations
should be thankful for the development
along with poor college students who can
appreciate the fine dining experience
pizza has given them.
