Aeneas and his chiefs,
with fair Iulus, under spreading boughs
of one great tree made resting-place, and set
the banquet on. Thin loaves of altar-bread
along the sward to bear their meats were laid
(such was the will of Jove), and wilding fruits
rose heaping high, with Ceres' gift below.
Soon, all things else devoured, their hunger turned
to taste the scanty bread, which they attacked
with tooth and nail audacious, and consumed
both round and square of that predestined leaven.
“Look, how we eat our tables even!” cried
Iulus, in a jest.
This is from a translation of the Aeneid, published in 19 BCE.
and this is from Pompeii, buried in 79 CE.
Pizza is at the very least Roman, if not older. (Potentially Greek.)
And before someone mentions tomatoes, pizza bianca is a thing.
That’s why I mentioned pizza bianca / white pizza - it doesn’t include passata or tomato sauce, but it’s still pizza.
Cheese being added to the pizza is a bit trickier, but I’m tempted to say that the Romans already did this; they were big fans of cheese, and the white stuff in the afresco looks a lot like sheep cheese for me. And, well, cheese melting over hot bread is kind of obvious. Plus there are claims that mozzarella itself backtracks to those times, although it was originally made with sheep milk.
I could also picture them spreading some moretum (crushed cheese with herbs and olive oil, it’s rather tasty) over the dough. The white thing in the afresco is certainly not moretum as the later is green, but frankly that doesn’t sound too far from what I’ve seen people adding to pizza bianca.
Pizza is American. They perfected it and deserves the full credit. Italians can cry with their hands.
Describing American pizza and Italian pizza as being the same thing is imperialism
This is from a translation of the Aeneid, published in 19 BCE.
and this is from Pompeii, buried in 79 CE.
Pizza is at the very least Roman, if not older. (Potentially Greek.)
And before someone mentions tomatoes, pizza bianca is a thing.
Admittedly it doesn’t take much creative thinking to come up with the idea of “bread with stuff on it”.
It’d be pretty different from what we think of as pizza today though with no tomatoes or mozzarella.
That’s why I mentioned pizza bianca / white pizza - it doesn’t include passata or tomato sauce, but it’s still pizza.
Cheese being added to the pizza is a bit trickier, but I’m tempted to say that the Romans already did this; they were big fans of cheese, and the white stuff in the afresco looks a lot like sheep cheese for me. And, well, cheese melting over hot bread is kind of obvious. Plus there are claims that mozzarella itself backtracks to those times, although it was originally made with sheep milk.
Likely not used on pizza though, I’d imagine. But a cheese like feta, which would have been more common, would probably still taste great.
I could also picture them spreading some moretum (crushed cheese with herbs and olive oil, it’s rather tasty) over the dough. The white thing in the afresco is certainly not moretum as the later is green, but frankly that doesn’t sound too far from what I’ve seen people adding to pizza bianca.