Pizza's Roots: Older Than Italy, Truly?

• Toppings on bread, or "pizza," is a global tradition spanning centuries & continents.
• Neapolitan pizza is globally famous, but the concept of bread as a flavour base is much older.
• Cooks worldwide have long paired flat dough with oils, herbs, vegetables, or meat.

Across centuries and continents, people have placed toppings on bread. It is such a simple culinary idea that it appears almost inevitable. Long before the global rise of modern pizza, cooks everywhere

were already pairing flat dough with oils, herbs, vegetables or meat.

The famous Neapolitan pizza may dominate the global imagination, yet the concept behind it is older and wider than Italy itself. In essence, pizza is simply bread used as a base for flavour. That idea appears wherever grain is milled, dough is rolled and heat is applied.