In reality, pizza was considered a peasant food in Italy for centuries. And since we can’t really determine who made the first pizza, many food historians would agree that dishes that were similar to pizza date back to the Greeks and Egyptians. That said, people have enjoyed such a delicious dish for many years.
Pizza, as we know it today, dates back to an individual named Raffaele Esposito from Naples, Italy. Raffaele was an Italian tavern owner by the name of Pizzeria fi Pietro e Basta Cosi in the 19th century. And as suggested above, it dates back to the inventor of modern pizza. Raffaele has cooked his pizzas for Queen Margherita of Savoy to welcome her to Naples in 1889. It was then that Raffaele made a pizza to resemble the Italian flag that was a combination of tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil, The Famouse Pizza Margherita.
The first pizzeria in the United States came from an Italian immigrant named Gennaro Lombardi. And Lambardi’s was opened in 1905 when New York City granted the establishment the first license for a pizzeria in the US.
With the growing popularity of pizza in the United States, many chains began to appear. The first pizza chains were Shakey’s Pizza, founded in 1954 in Sacramento, California. And by the way, Shakey’s was one of my favorite pizzerias as a kid. Also some other earlier pizza chains were Pizza Hut, founded in 1958 in Kansas, Josey’s Pizza founded in Georgia in 1943.
Of course we cannot forget the frozen pizzas. In fact, the first frozen pizza was invented by an individual named Rose Totino. Rose went to high school not far from my high school in Minnesota, Edison High in northeast Minneapolis was her school. Rose and her husband Jim opened their restaurant in Minneapolis in 1951 on a tight budget, but they achieved success fairly quickly, so quickly that Jim was able to quit his bakery job in 3 weeks.
Anyway, Rose and Jim’s invention of the first frozen pizza started out as a little something to eat and bake, yes, the first Papa Murphy’s. Jim would work the crust and Rose would apply the sauce. The idea evolved until Rose and Jim contracted the Chicago crust and then applied their sauce. That separate frozen pizza business started in 1962 and grew so large that the couple sold the rights to Pillsbury in 1972 for $ 20 million – not bad for an idea and a dream.
