Friday, August 10, 2012

Three Things That You Probably Didn’t Know About Pizza

Pizza

Pizza

 

3 Facts About Pizza

 

Pizza has become one of the staple diets of the country. It’s become not only a favorite dish, but pizza has also evolved through the years. From pizzas with simple tomato sauce and spices to pizzas with unique toppings such as anchovies, different kinds of cheese, scallions, shrimps, and a whole lot more, you can now easily create your own pizza using your favorite ingredients.

Listed below are some fun facts that you probably didn’t know about pizza.

Naples is the birth place of pizza.

People have long been cooking flat bread over hot stones and putting different toppings on them. However, the pizza that we know of today came from Naples, Italy. It was created in the 16th century, at the time when tomatoes were first used in the kitchen.

Pizza was considered as a working man’s bread, owing to the fact that it was the workers and their families who commonly make this meal. It was not only a cheap dish to make, but it was also very convenient. After all, the flat bread also doubles as a plate, and there’s also the fact that utensils are not required to eat this dish.

When tomatoes were added to the flat bread, pizza gained the attention of even the rich people. It also piqued the interest of the royal families that, pretty soon, pizza became a popular food in the city. In time, its popularity spread across the country, and due to migration, the popularity of pizza spread even further.

Cheese, as an ingredient, was not included in the original toppings.

Contrary to what many people think about pizza, cheese is actually not included in the original toppings. In fact, cheese was only added to pizza during the 1880s.

Cheese on pizza became all the more popular when Queen Margherita of Italy visited Naples and asked Chef Raffaele Esposito to make her a pizza. Thinking to impress the queen, the chef and his wife made the queen three types of pizza, one of which was a flat bread with tomato sauce and topped with mozzarella cheese as well basil. The colors of the pizza so impressed the queen; they accurately represented the colors of the national flag. If the colors impressed her though, so did the exquisite taste of the pizza. She liked it so much that this type of pizza was named after her, the Pizza Margherita.

Pizza is a billion dollar industry.

From a humble poor man or working man’s meal to a billion dollar industry, pizza has really come a long way. It has made millions of people full and happy, and it has also made millions of people rich.

It was in the late 1730s that the first pizzeria was opened in Naples, and it was named Antica Pizzeria. The pizzeria became a huge success that many pizzerias soon opened, and from Naples, the pizzeria industry boomed.

The first pizzeria in the United States was opened in New York City by Gennaro Lombardi, an immigrant from Italy. From there, the popularity of pizza grew. Today, it is a 30-billion dollar industry in the United States and has become one of the most ordered and consumed dish especially during holidays and special events like the Super Bowl.

Jennifer Dahling is a self-proclaimed pizza addict. She regularly contributes articles about this famous dish to a Wakefield Pizza provider, a pizzeria where you can satisfy your pizza cravings.

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Pizza Delivery Stories

 

Pizza Delivery

Funny - or not so funny - Pizza Delivery Stories

Pizza Delivery

If popular culture if anything to go, the life of a pizza delivery person can be a rather eventful one. Whether you’re being seduced by a lonely housewife or cryogenically frozen (and then waking up some time in the next millennium), something amusing always seems to happen. While the latter example is admittedly a little far-fetched, do such crazy things actually happen to our brave delivery boys and girls? Here’s a selection of the top five most commonly encountered scenarios in funny pizza delivery stories; I’ll leave it to you to decide whether there’s a crust of truth in them.

 

 

The one with an unbelievable tip
In the service industry, tipping can be something of a touchy subject. Generally speaking, the larger and more complicated the order, the bigger the tip should be in order to compensate. However, in a lot of pizza delivery tales the customers don’t seem to know this unwritten rule. In one story a $200 dollar order to an office building netted the driver a mere 33 cent tip (which he then declined on principle), a similar amount given to one poor guy after he was attacked by the customer’s pitbull (although they did drive him to hospital afterwards.)

 

 

The one with university students
University students are well known for their crazy hijinks, especially when it comes to ordering takeaway (indeed, I have one story about the aftermath of a certain  Chinese Takeaway   order I bore witness to that I’d really rather not relay). Some of the most baffling student-related pizza delivery stories involve them answering the door naked (and seemingly unaware of this fact) or a group of drunken frat boys attempting to climb into and onto a female driver’s car while screaming promises not to assault her; real classy, guys.

 

 

The one with a lucky escape
Sometimes pizza delivery people can unwittingly get themselves into some genuinely dangerous situations. Whether it’s delivering to drug dealers hiding out in motels in the heart of the ghetto or facing up to creepers who are a little too eager to get you to wait inside their house while they go get you your tip money, it can be a bit scary.

 

 

The one with a celebrity
Celebrities have got to eat too, and a fair number of them favor pizza. While delivery people often don’t get to see the actual celebrities themselves (for example one delivery guy got to deliver pizza to Tina Turner’s post concert party; while he didn’t get a tip, he did get to attend the VIP party), there are apparently a lucky few who get to deliver a Hawaiian straight into the hands of one of the rich and famous. Sometimes it can even be the other way around; in 2010 LaToya Jackson was seen out on the streets of New York trying to sell pizza to passers by as part of a reality TV show.

 

 

The one with a plot like a bad porno
These kinds of stories are usually the most hilarious (but also sometimes rather disturbing). Whether it entails delivering pizza to a dominatrix and her theatrically unenthused client or stumbling across a couple or couples in flagrante, you know that it’s going to be one of those nights. Better or in reality usually worse; yet, the unsuspecting delivery person is invited to join in with the festivities. The mind boggles…

 

 

Raphael O’Neil is both a pizza fan and a delivery boy himself (although admittedly once he became the latter he ended up being somewhat less the former). His favorite topping is chicken and mushroom.