Ries said:
The Romans would disagree with you there.
They claim they invented pizza, and the neopolitans just put tomatoes on it a few hundred years later.
Cato the elder wrote about pizza, in Rome, in 300 BC or so.
SaraSara said:
Ahh, but what good is pizza without tomato sauce?
Tomato-less pizza may be even older than that:
"It is said that soldiers of the Persian King, Darius the Great (521-486 B.C.) baked a flat bread on their shields and then covered it with cheese and dates."
(From Wikipedia, of course
)
Never thought I'd look into the origin of pizza, or learn what Darius' soldiers ate. That's the best thing about forums - the many different people and opinions in them.
1) I'm pretty sure that
Tomatoes, like
Potatoes didn't make it to Europe until
after the New World was discovered by Columbus in 1492. So that would mean that the chicos in Napoli put tomatoes on their pizza much later than around the time of Christ. More than "no earlier than nearly 1,800 years later than Cato. (1,500 years after the Big JC.)
2) The Pizza Margherita was created in Napoli for the visiting Queen Margherita. The red (tomato), white (mozzarella cheese), and green (basil) represent the colors of the Italian flag.
3) Also from Wiki: "The
Ancient Greeks covered their bread with oils, herbs, and cheese. The
Romans developed
placenta, a sheet of flour topped with cheese and honey and flavored with bay leaves. Modern pizza originated in Italy as the Neapolitan pie with tomato. In 1889 cheese was added."
4) I watched a PBS documentary on the origins of pizza and according to them, even BEFORE the "Ancient Greeks", the EGYPTIANS baked a flat bread with olive oil and herbs (NO cheese) and this was considered the predecessor to what the Ancient Greeks created.
5) "What good is pizza without tomato sauce?"-
The
Pizza Fugazzetta, which is basically the signature pizza of Buenos Aires, is a "pizza without tomato sauce" and it is fucking rrrrrrico! I prefer enjoying it at EL CUARTITO on Talcahuano between Marcel T. Alvear & Paraguay.
6) GOOD ITALIAN FOOD
And originally I was planning on coming on this forum to discuss my dinner last night at
"Guido" (formerly "Lucky Luciano"). Highlights:
A) On the table they offered
salt,
black pepper mill,
red pepper flakes mill,
Tabasco-type sauce.
B) My Ravioli stuff with cordero in a truffle cream sauce was on par with the cream sauces that the
dueña de la casa made in the apartment that I first lived in when I got here in '07.
C) Nice decor.
LOWLIGHT:
A) Cheap wine = AR$60, but most wines were ~AR$120-AR$180 range.