Tomatoes had to be brought from South America to Europe. After that it was quick.
Tomatoes are from the Americas, so it wasn’t around in European ancient times. I guess it could have been invented in the Americas, but cheese wasn’t really a thing there.
Even crazier, noodles come from China/Asia. So what the fuck did Italians eat before Columbus?!
Well if you remember Marco Polo, the Venetian explorer from the 13th century, famously established a trade route to China. That was about 250 years before Columbus. Of course there was already trade back and forth between Europe and Asia, but let’s just not forget the future Italian who is just famous for connecting with China!
The modern version of a pizza is sometimes said to have been invented in the late 1800s, since that is when the first “proper” recipe is from. But there are a few key points that might inform your question and other answers:
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Flat bread baked with toppings already on it has been a thing for several thousand years across the world.
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Among which was a type of street food referred to as pizza in Italy before the Tomato arrived in europe
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Tomato is from the Americas, it wasn’t known and didn’t exist in europe until the mid 1500s.
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On its own a fresh tomato is not very nurishing compared with other common fruits and vegetables, and since toxic versions exisited, it was mostly used as table decoration in places like Italy for a while.
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The first mention of tomatoes as an ingredient in an Italian cookbook is from 1692. And it wasn’t widely adopted as a staple food until the 1700s.
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There are descriptions from the mid 1800s talking about the wide variety of pizza toppings, as it was already an established food by that point.
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If you break pizza down to its simplest form - flatbread and toppings - it’s been around for a very long time.
Well, the tomatoes were in the new world, and all the domesticated cows, sheep and goats were on the other side of the atlantic, so that’s a minor problem.
I guess you could use like a llama cheese? That might work. Then I’m sure the indigenous people of the Peruvian region had a flatbread of some sort, just about everyone does. Then they just need to harvest up some tomatoes.
So, yeah, they could’ve. You need to be looking in the Andes in South America though.
But tomatoes didn’t exist anywhere outside of two isolated continents until the turn of the 16th century
Have you seen the painting possibly of a pizza unearthed of Pompei claimed to be 2000 years old? https://www.indy100.com/news/pizza-painting-pompeii-excavation-italy
What really blows my mind is that the wheel has been around since ancient times, but bicycles weren’t invented until the 1800s.
Bicycles require presice metal chains, right?
The first ones didn’t have chains, the pedals were just connected to one of the wheels. Like those old ones with the big front wheel.
You can’t rush perfection
Sir Reginald d’Pizza was a genius that’s why
This thread inspired me for a short story. ;-) https://sh.itjust.works/post/988447
According to WIkipedia:
The term pizza was first recorded in the 10th century in a Latin manuscript from the Southern Italian town of Gaeta in Lazio, on the border with Campania. Raffaele Esposito is often considered to be the father of modern pizza.
Just read this article
I think tomatoes came to Europe after Columbus brought them back from the Americas. But white pizza, no damn excuse there. With ya on this one.
