The history of pizza and the first frozen pizza in America

The history of pizza and the first frozen pizza in America

Pizza was actually 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 been enjoying such a delicious dish for many years.

Pizza as we know it today can be traced 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, he has been traced back to the inventor of the modern day pizza. Raffaele cooked his pizzas for Queen Margherita of Savoy to welcome her to Naples in 1889. That’s when Raffaele made a pizza to look like 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 in 1905 Lambardi’s opened when New York City granted the establishment the first pizzeria license in the United States.

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 growing up. 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 can not forget about 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 shoestring budget, but achieved success fairly quickly, so quickly that Jim was able to leave his job at a bakery in 3 weeks.

Anyway, Rose and Jim’s invention of the first frozen pizza started as a simple take and bake, yes, the first Papa Murphy’s. Jim would work the crust and Rose would apply the sauce. That idea turned into Rose and Jim hiring the crust from Chicago and then they would apply 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.

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