Unit4-Part1-Reading

Who invented pizza?

Pizza was an invention of the Italians, but the history of pizza begins in ancient times in the Middle East.

The Babylonians and ancient Egyptians ate flat bread.

They made it with just flour and water.

They baked it in mud ovens.

The ancient Greeks and Romans also made the same kind of bread with olive oil and spices.

They covered their flat bread with cheese.

In later years, peasants in Greece and Italy continued to eat flat bread.

Flat bread was a simple and inexpensive food for them.

In the 1700s, people in Naples made delicious flat bread with wheat flour, olive oil, tomatoes and cheese.

They used herbs and other toppings too.

So, we can say that pizza originated in Naples.

In the 1800s, pizza was a common food for the poor people of Italy.

Young boys and vendors sold pizzas in the streets.

Italians say that the inventor of the modern pizza is Raphael Esposito.

He was the most famous pizza baker in Naples.

He had a pizzeria there.

When King Umberto I and Queen Margarita were visiting Naples in 1889,

they called upon Esposito to make a pizza for them in the palace kitchen.

Esposito made three different pizzas.

One with cheese, one with fish, and a new coin with mozzarella, tomatoes, and some leaves of fresh basil on it.

The queen preferred the last one because it had the colors of the Italian flag.

Red, tomato, green, basil, and white, mozzarella.

The queen liked Esposito's new pizza very much.

The next day, she sent him a thank you note for it.

So, Esposito named his new pizza after the queen.

He called it pizza margarita.

That is how today's pizza margarita came about.