Pizza
Pizza is an Italian meal made up of a round, flat foundation of leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomatoes, cheese, and a variety of other ingredients (such as anchovies, mushrooms, onions, olives, pineapple, meat, and so on), and cooked at a high temperature, generally in a wood-fired oven. Pizzetta is a term used to describe a tiny pizza. A pizzaiolo is a person who creates pizza.
Pizza served in a formal environment, such as a restaurant, is served unsliced and is eaten with a knife and fork in Italy. It is, however, chopped into wedges and eaten while held in the hand in casual circumstances.
The name pizza was first mentioned in a Latin text from the southern Italian town of Gaeta, on the border with Campania, in the 10th century. Modern pizza was created in Naples, and the meal and its variations have subsequently gained popularity in a number of nations. It has become one of the world’s most popular dishes and a popular fast food item in Europe, North America, and Australasia, where it may be found in pizzerias (pizza restaurants), restaurants serving Mediterranean cuisine, pizza delivery, and as street food. Various food companies provide ready-baked pizzas in grocery shops that may be frozen and reheated in a home oven.
In 2017, the global pizza market was worth $128 billion, with $44 billion distributed over 76,000 pizzerias in the United States.
On any given day, 13% of the population of the United States aged 2 and up consumed pizza.
The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (lit. True Neapolitan Pizza Association) is a non-profit organization based in Naples that promotes classic Neapolitan pizza. It was created in 1984. Neapolitan pizza was registered with the European Union as a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed dish in 2009, at Italy’s request, and the art of preparing it was added to UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage in 2017.
Preparation
Fresh or frozen pizza is available whole or in portion-size slices. To tackle issues such as keeping the sauce from mixing with the dough and making a crust that can be frozen and reheated without becoming stiff, methods have been developed. Frozen pizzas with raw ingredients and self-rising crusts are available.
Take-and-bake pizzerias provide a different type of pizza. This pizza is made at the store and then sold unbaked to consumers to bake at home. Some supermarkets sell fresh dough, sauce, and other basic ingredients that may be assembled at home before baking in the oven.