What is pizza?

Pizza was made with simple, all natural and healthy ingredients. Pizza was the perfect meal, providing a reasonable serving form all four food groups in one hand.

The earliest forms of pizza evolved from flat, unleavened bread cooked in mud ovens and topped with olive oil and native spices. An ancient food traces have been found during archeological digs in brick oven in Pompeii and Egypt-civilizations from over 279 years ago.

Traditional pizzas of Italy rely on the wonderful Mediterranean ingredients that are so plentiful – sun-ripened, tomatoes, golden olive oil, fresh herbs and cheeses are the most well known.

Pizza now has risen to become a sophisticated way to eat a wealth of delicious ingredients with exotic shellfish, oriental vegetables and spices. New York City is the home to the first pizzeria in America. The founding fathers of pizza were Italian immigrants but the ingredients they found in their new country differed from those they know in Naples.

In the past century pizza accompanied Italian migrants and now travels with professional pizza chefs. Pizza that used to be consumed by a migrant poor at home or during lunch breaks at work is now the food of everyone and consumed in a proper pizzeria.
What is pizza?

Pizza

Pizza essentially is bread dough with other ingredients added. If the pizza is to be thin a dough is needed that spreads rather than lifts. If the pizza is to be thick then the dough needs to be nearer to British or American bread dough.

A pizza crust achieves its prominent characteristics – texture, tenderness and pliability – in large part from the type of the flour used. Quite simply, the higher the protein level in a flour, the greater the formation of gluten.

To make pizza base the ingredients are including flour, water, yeast, salt, olive oil and sugar are mixed together.

In order to produce high quality pizza products, the dough should be elastic and sheetable, rises on proving and holds the gas produced by the yeast as well as having good crust and textural properties.

In addition to the viscoelastic property of pizza dough, it should be firm enough to hold toppings without fallen apart.

Pizzas from different regions are often defined by the style or texture of the crust which is a direct result of the type of flour used in that region.

When making our own pizza, the topping can be tailored to suit our tastes. With lean meat or seafood, low fat cheese, and plentiful vegetables, it becomes a healthy one dish meal.

Pizza