Pizza ( listen, in Italian: 1) is a popular dish made with an oven-baked, flat, generally round bread that is covered with tomatoes or a tomato-based sauce and mozzarella cheese. Other toppings are added according to region, culture or personal preference.

Originating as a part of Italian cuisine, the dish has become popular in many different parts of the world. A shop or restaurant where pizzas are made and sold is called a “pizzeria”. The phrase “pizza parlor” is also used in the United States. The term pizza pie is dialectal, and pie is used for simplicity in some contexts, such as among pizzeria staff.

History

main: History of pizza

Bases and baking methods

The bread base of the pizza (called the “crust” in the United States and Canada) may vary widely according to style: thin as in hand-tossed pizza or Roman pizza, thick as in pan pizza, or very thick, as in Chicago-style pizza. It is traditionally plain, but may also be seasoned with butter, garlic, or herbs, or stuffed with cheese.

In restaurants, pizza can be baked in a gas oven with stone bricks above the heat source, an electric deck oven, a conveyor belt oven or, in the case of more expensive restaurants, a wood- or coal-fired brick oven. On deck ovens, the pizza can be slid into the oven on a long paddle called a peel and baked directly on the hot bricks or baked on a screen (a round metal grate, typically aluminum). When making pizza at home, it can be baked on a pizza stone in a regular oven to imitate the effect of a brick oven. Another option is grilled pizza, in which the crust is baked directly on a barbecue grill. Greek pizza, like Chicago-style pizza, is baked in a pan rather than directly on the bricks of the pizza oven.

Pizza styles

Other types of Lazio-style pizza include:

• Pizza romana (in Naples): tomato, mozzarella, anchovies, oregano, oil;
• Pizza viennese: tomato, mozzarella, German sausage, oregano, oil;
• Pizza capricciosa (“capricious pizza”): mozzarella, tomato, mushrooms, artichokes, cooked ham, olives, oil (in Rome, prosciutto raw ham is used and half a hard-boiled egg is added);
• Pizza quattro stagioni (“four seasons pizza”): same ingredients for the capricciosa, but ingredients not mixed;
• Pizza quattro formaggi (“four cheese pizza”): tomatoes, mozzarella, stracchino, fontina, gorgonzola (sometimes ricotta can be swapped for one of the last three);