it always have sauce? Is the legend of Margherita real? These are the most shocking lies about

pizza since you were told it was a vegetable.

Everyone knows that pizza is Italian, but here's the thing: that isn't precisely true.

Pizza is essentially a flatbread crust with toppings, and that idea goes back to the Persian

army in the 6th century B.C. Soldiers fighting for King Darius I came up with a pretty ingenious

method of making their meals more interesting: they would cook a flat piece of bread on their

shields, then add toppings.

That idea was then picked up by the Greeks. They went head-to-head with the Persians quite

a lot, and while there were plenty of things in which the two cultures didn't see eye-to-eye,

the Greeks at least knew a good meal when they saw it. Prior to this, they tended to

bake seasonings and olive oils into their bread, but before long they were making round

flatbreads and adding ingredients on top. This particular dish even gets a shout-out

in The Aeneid.

Of course, pizza has come a long way since those days, and now it's most closely associated

with the Italian city of Naples. But what you don't often hear is that Naples was actually

founded as a Greek colony. And even until the 19th century, it wasn't technically Italian;

before that, Italy had existed more as a conglomeration of independent states rather than a unified

country. So you could argue that pizza is Persian, you could argue that it's Greek,

or you could argue that it's Neapolitan. But Italian? Not so much.

Pizza is almost shockingly popular: According to The Washington Post, America consumes the

equivalent of 100 acres of pizza each and every day. It wasn't always this way, though,

and originally, pizza was anything but universally beloved.

By the middle of the 18th century, pizza had taken on the shape that we recognize today.

It was sold on the streets of Naples and was most often fed to a class of people called

the lazzaroni. These were the tens of thousands of Naples residents who struggled to put food

on the table — which is where pizza came in. Vendors would cut a slice as big or as

little as a person could afford, and that person could eat on the run.

And that's exactly why pizza wasn't a hit. Because it was the food that the poor ate

when they couldn't afford anything else, pizza became known as the kind of dish that "respectable"

people ought not to acknowledge. Even when they did, they didn't have much nice to say;

in 1831, the inventor Samuel Morse wrote:

"[It's a] species of the most nauseating cake [...] covered over with slices of pomodoro

or tomatoes, and sprinkled with [a] little fish and black pepper and I know not what

other ingredients. It altogether looks like a piece of bread that has been taken reeking

out of the sewer."

[gagging]

Today, it goes without saying that a good tomato sauce is a must on basically any pizza.

That definitely wasn't always the case, however. Most of the earliest pizzas were topped with

ingredients such as herbs and mushrooms. Even by the time the lazzaroni of Naples were eating

it, they leaned heavily on widely available and cheap toppings. A pizza with salt, lard,

and garlic was traditionally the cheapest version, but there were also pizzas made with

horse's cheese and fish. It wasn't until the 1800s that tomatoes were included in most

recipes.

At that time, tomatoes were still fairly new in Europe, and many people refused to eat

them out of fear that they were deadly. There was actually something to that: The problem

happened when tomatoes were eaten off pewter plates, which was common enough among the

upper classes. The acidic tomatoes would draw lead from the plates and poison those who

ate them, though it wasn't the lead that was blamed, but the tomatoes. This tricky reputation

made tomatoes incredibly cheap, so they became an affordable topping for the pizza of the

poor — who didn't have fancy pewter plates, and could therefore safely eat them.

When it comes to popular pizza toppings, pepperoni is right at the top of the list. In fact,

according to The New York Times, in the short time leading up to the Super Bowl, Hormel

alone sells around 40 million feet of the stuff. For comparison, that's about the distance

from the North Pole to the South if you went straight through the Earth's core. And since

pepperoni is so inexorably linked with pizza, you've got to assume it's Italian, right?

But it's not. Pepperoni was an Italian-American creation that was only mentioned in print

for the first time in 1919. That's about the same time pizzerias started popping up in

the U.S., too, and that's not a coincidence. According to author and meat-curing expert

Michael Ruhlman:

"America has a way of taking a good idea, mass-producing it to the point of profound

mediocrity, then losing our sense of where the idea comes from."

In fact, Pepperoni isn't even closely related to Italian sausage. It's smoked rather than

cured, which makes it closer to the sausages found in countries like Germany.

One of the most popular tales about the history of pizza is the origin of the pizza Margherita.

This, of course, is the story of how chef Raffaele Esposito made a few pizzas for Queen

Margherita, and how she loved the one with mozzarella and basil so much that it was named

after her — and soon became wildly popular.

Sadly, this story appears to be a myth. Research undertaken by Italy's Umbra Institute looked

at the tale in a historical context and found that it's closer to something known as fakelore:

that is, folklore with a touch of truth. The king and queen were, indeed, in Naples in

1889. Confirming the part of the story that suggests she was sick of French food and wanted

to try pizza for the first time is difficult, however. And other elements of the story are

flawed, too. Historians have condemned the idea that the queen would summon a commoner

to not only cook her food, but to make her the food of the poor — especially at a time

when cholera outbreaks were a frequent occurrence among the lower classes.

Esposito also changed the name of his pizzeria to "Pizzeria of the Queen of Italy" six years

before he reportedly served the queen, and there are no contemporary mentions of such

a momentous event taking place. Today, the pizzeria claims to still have the thank-you

note handed to them by Queen Margherita's handlers, but the seal isn't official, and

it has been debated whether or not the person who signed it was even real.

"Mamma mia, that's a spicy meatball!"

We've all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so grabbing a piece

of leftover pizza as you run out the door usually comes with a little bit of a guilt

trip. After all, that kind of thing is more for college kids and people with killer hangovers,

right? And while most sensible adults might scoff at the idea of a pizza breakfast, here's

the thing — they'd be wrong to do so.

Nutritionist Chelsey Amer told The Daily Meal that it all has to do with the quality of

most typical breakfast foods. A cup of the deceptive Raisin Bran still has a whopping

18 grams of sugar in it — and that's one of the better cereals out there. A slice of

cheese pizza, on the other hand, has more of the good stuff — like the protein that's

going to help keep you feeling full until lunch.

And sure, pizza is hardly the best or healthiest option out there when it comes to breakfast,

but it's nothing to scoff at, either. The bottom line is, while you probably shouldn't

do it every day, there are much worse breakfast choices you could make. And of course, if

you whip up your own pizza with your own ingredients, you can keep things even healthier. What's

not to love?

Here's another bit of pizza folklore: the dish became popular in the U.S. after it was

brought back by soldiers who had fought in Italy during World War II. But like so many

other stories about the history of pizza, this one is a total dud.

Pizza had been in the U.S. long before World War II kicked off. It first came over with

Italian immigrants in the late-19th century, and pizza places quickly became common sights

in cities like New York. By 1905, people were perfectly aware of the fact that they could

buy a piece of pizza for a nickel — and that's when it became really popular. Just

like it had in Naples, American pizza became the food of the poor. When times got tough

during the Great Depression, pizza recipes became a staple thanks to their versatility

and need for few ingredients.

All in all, World War II was unlikely to have played much of a role in popularizing pizza.

For one, supplies were scarce enough under Italy's fascist regime, and the war wouldn't

have made things much easier. Not only that, but the American soldiers who could get ahold

of pizza would have found a style entirely unlike that known in the United States.

Love it or hate it, it's impossible to deny that Hawaiian pizza is a thing. It might seem

logical that this is a regional delicacy that spread across the globe, fueled almost entirely

by hate and controversy. Funnily enough, however, Hawaiian pizza is more or less the opposite

of Hawaiian.

In 2017, Iceland's president made headlines when he said that he hated Hawaiian pizza

so much that he wanted to ban it outright — so CBC went straight to the source to

find out what was what. To do so, they spoke with the then 82-year-old Sam Panopoulos,

the inventor of the Hawaiian pizza. Panopoulos made it clear what he thought of the president

of Iceland, too. He said:

"When I was working on the pineapple pizza — he wasn't even born. [...] I don't care

what he does. He can say whatever he wants. He sells the fish over there, you know, that's

all he does. So he has to put the fish on the pizza."

A Greek immigrant in London, Ontario, Panopoulos was living in Canada when pizza was just becoming

popular. At the time, he made pizzas at his Satellite Restaurant, experimenting with all

kinds of toppings. During the early 1960s, he introduced Canada to his latest invention:

the Hawaiian pizza. Panopoulos himself passed away in 2017, but it's probably fair to say

that his impact on the world of pizza will still be felt for years to come … whether

you like it or not.

Pineapple on pizza is the make-or-break choice that people around the world use to judge

a person's taste in food. And it's fair to say that the recipe is pretty contentious,

too; hence why people got upset when Gordon Ramsay tweeted:

"Pineapples are for fruit salads not Pizza!"

So, surely it stands to reason that Hawaiian pizza is about as weird as it gets, right?

Well, no. Not by a long shot — just ask the Swedes.

When bananas first made it to Sweden in 1944, the Swedes went absolutely mad for them — and

even today bananas remain one of the country's staple pizza toppings.

"Bananas on pizza."

"It's a new thing."

"That shouldn't be a thing."

"It's not great."

"It's disgusting."

In fact, the people of Sweden use bananas like Americans use pepperoni — you'll even

find them on Hawaiian pizzas. The country's banana curry pizza is more or less a national

treasure.

They're not the only ones whose taste in pizza might look strange to you. Take Russia's Mockba

pizza, for example, which comes with sardines, salmon, tuna, mackerel, and onions. And the

Japanese love seafood toppings, too: eel and squid are particular favorites in their homeland.

Kinda makes plain old pineapple look boring, don't you think?

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