Pizza is made by baking a flat bread dough usually topped with cheese, tomato sauce, and herbs. Most pizzas are topped with other ingredients as well. Popular toppings include Italian sausage, mushrooms, onions, pepperoni, and peppers.
Pizza is made in many different forms. Neapolitan pizza is thin and round. Sicilian pizza is rectangular and thick. In a Chicago style pizza, layers of toppings fill a high-edged crust in a deep pan. A New York style pizza has a thin crust with a thick, puffy outer edge. A calzone is folded pizza dough baked with the toppings inside.
People of ancient Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures made an early form of pizza. They baked bread, with simple toppings, on stones in a wood-fired oven. But pizza as we know it today originated in Naples, Italy. In 1889, Raffaele Esposito, a baker, created a special dish to honor the visiting king and queen of Italy. Esposito topped Neapolitan flat bread with green basil, white mozzarella cheese, and red tomato sauce to reflect the colors of the Italian flag. Many bakers soon copied the dish.
