Nobody is more deserving of praise than the genius, or geniuses, that invented pizza.

I’d cut someone for a slice in the wee hours of the morning, unless the pizza had pineapple on, but that’s a story for another day.

Certain great invention stories have a simpler tale – Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone, or Thomas Edison and the light bulb, for example – but the question of who invented pizza is a little more complicated.

I’m sure you’ve been reading about the election results all day, so let’s take a break from that and figure out this pizza quandary.

To help, here’s Science Trends going way back in the day for the long history story:

While not pizza as we conceive of it today, people have been eating pizza-like foods for thousands of years. Italian and French archaeologists operating in Sardinia found evidence of bread baked around 7000 years ago, and the evidence suggests that the bread was leavened. Around the sixth century BCE, the soldiers of Persian King Darius the First would create flatbreads topped with dates and cheese.

It is also suggested that modern pizza could have been influenced by a food called pizzarelle, a type of kosher Passover cookie enjoyed by Roman Jews. It has also been suggested that other Italian paschal breads were the basis for pizza.

Ancient China also had a type of flatbread that resembled pizza, India also had a flatbread called parath, and South Asian and Central Asian cultures had both unleavened and leavened bread, called roti and naan respectively.

In short, they all resembled pizza as we know it in some way, but then we skip along to Naples, Italy, and the birth of the legend.

This is the short history story:

One of the most common explanations for the origin of pizza is that in 1889, the King and Queen of Italy, Umberto I and Margherita di Savoia, visited the city and had a restaurant owner by the name of Raffaele Esposito produce some of the dishes for them. Esposito’s restaurant was named the Pizzeria di Pietro.

It is often reported that Esposito created three different versions of the dish. One of these dishes was covered in mozzarelle cheese, tomato, and basil, which was intended to symbolize the three colors found on the Italian flag. Queen Margherita allegedly favored this dish, and Esposito named it the Pizza Margherita after her.

The Pizzeria di Pietro can still be found in Naples, although it isn’t entirely clear that the story happened as it is reported, with some food historians having doubts about the creation of the Margherita pizza.

Like many tales of old, I guess it depends on who is telling it.

Just make sure you don’t bugger up making a pizza in Naples (especially a Margherita pizza), like Carlo Cracco, who had his Michelin Star taken away for messing with the old classic.

So maybe it was Raffaele, cooking up a storm for the queen, or maybe pizza was invented long before that in some far-flung corner of the globe. Either way, we know who in Cape Town has perfected the art.

Butler’s Pizza has been doing it right for almost 30 years (look out for a big party towards the end of the year), and they’ve never strayed too far from what Capetonians know and love.

I’m team Funky Fabb (although I can go Big Cheese Blue if need be), whereas Seth was such a regular that Butler’s eventually named the Rotherham in his honour.

You do you, but make sure you know what specials are on offer:

Those deals (other than the Monday deal) run from Sunday through to Thursday, so if you want to take advantage, tonight’s the night.

Oh, and thanks, Raffaele Esposito, or whoever is behind one of the greatest culinary creations of all time.

[source:sciencetrends]