Americans are real pizza lovers!

In the USA, about 350 pieces of pizza are eaten every second. Not only people love tortillas with filling. There are even mini dog pizzas with carrots, cheese and celery. Hairy pets simply adore them! The Japanese have invented a “living pizza” - on it, pieces of tuna move due to hot steam, and this spectacle is simply fascinating. Soon pizza will even be eaten in space! In America, a 3D printer is being developed that will print any dishes to order right on a spacecraft. The first thing NASA is going to produce is pizza.
You know that pizza is a tortilla with a delicious filling. And how old do you think it is: 100, 200, or maybe 300? Recently, archaeologists excavated an ancient hunter-gatherer hut in the Black Desert of Jordan and found fossilized remains of a flatbread in the ruins of a hearth. It was baked from wild cereals, and pieces of meat were placed inside, like on a plate. Does it look like pizza? But it's over 14,000 years old! The Egyptians baked flatbreads with filling six thousand years ago. And the soldiers of the Persian king Darius in 538 BC cooked them on shields to eat on a campaign. In ancient Greece, cooks greased flatbreads with olive oil, honey, sprinkled with herbs and vegetables. The pastry was called "plakuntos", now there are pizzerias with this name. The history of pizza begins in ancient Greece, where flat flatbreads "plakuntos" were baked with oil and seasonings. However, the modern homeland of pizza is considered to be Naples, Italy, where in the 18th–19th centuries. began to add tomatoes. The iconic pizza "Margherita" was created in 1889 by Raffaele Esposito in honor of the queen, repeating the colors of the Italian flag.
The main stages of the development of pizza:
Antiquity: The ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Romans ate baked flat bread with fillings.
Neapolitan stage (18th century): Pizza became the food of the poor in Naples, as it was cheap and nutritious. Then they first began to use tomatoes brought from America.
1889: The appearance of the pizza "Margherita" (mozzarella, tomatoes, basil), which brought the dish popularity among the aristocracy.
World popularity: After World War II, Italian immigrants spread pizza around the world, especially in the USA.
The word "pizza" was first mentioned in southern Italy in 997. Today, there are a huge number of variations, from classic Neapolitan to exotic pizza with pineapple.
Pizza, similar to the modern one, appeared in the 16th century in the Italian city of Naples. It was called the "poor man's cake": peasants greased the dough with lard or butter, sprinkled with garlic and cheese, baked and had a snack between work. Then merchants came up with the idea of ​​cutting pizza into equal triangles, because it was easier to sell food in pieces. In 1738, a snack bar opened in Naples, where they served pizza - Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba. So, was pizza previously the food of the poor? Of course not! After all, it is so different: thin and thick, large and small, with expensive and cheap fillings. Look at how many offers there are - your eyes run up... Some are a real delicacy that could be served on a royal table.
After the release of the cartoon "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", pizza became so popular among children that a special recipe appeared - "Kranchabungas". This name is familiar to all fans of the invincible four, who were ready for anything for the sake of a pizza triangle.
The most expensive pizza in the world was prepared by Italian chef Renato Viola. It was small - 20 cm in diameter, and cost 8300 euros! The filling included elite cognac, various caviar, crawfish, lobsters, other seafood, and exquisite cheeses.
The largest rectangular pizza was baked in America in 2005. Its length was 39 m, width - 30 m. It took 1815 kg of cheese and 320 kg of sauce to prepare.