Pizza - a bit of trivia

Pizza, it's hard to believe, was, for centuries up to the end of the 19 th century, nothing more than white bread flavoured with tomato paste, eaten only by the “poor people” in Southern Italy.

Then, in 1889, the incumbent monarchs, King Umberto and Queen Margherita were on a visit to Naples and, to honour the Queen, a local chef decided to treat her with a “gourmet” pizza comprising red tomato paste, white mozzarella cheese and basil leaves, green, of course, representing the colours of the Italian flag.

The pizza was given the name pizza Margherita and became popular all over Italy and eventually discovered by the American servicemen serving in Italy during the second world war and consequently spread all over the world.

Obviously oregano slipped in there at some point of time….together with picked olives, mushrooms, salami, peppers, anchovies, pineapple pieces, bacon pieces…… yummm...