All about pizza in Italy

While everyone thinks of pizza as being traditionally Italian, and flat bread certainly existed back in Roman times, the addition of tomatoes (sauce) is due to the "discovery of America." So pizza, as we know it, really only dates back to 18th-century Naples.

In Italy there are several different meanings of the word pizza -- not to mention all the regional variations of how the crust is made (thin vs. thick) and which toppings are added.

Che pizza! 

OK, so I'm just throwing this in for fun, but it is a common expression which means, "what a mess" (in the chaotic sense, not the sloppy sense).

In terms of food, there are basically three categories of pizza.

1.  Una pizza served in a pizzeria 

Typically round (or oval) and served on a plate (or two!), in a restaurant, as a meal.

A lot of pizza restaurants also serve other items (pasta), and some of them only serve pizza at night once they get their wood ovens up and running. Our favorite pizza place in Viterbo? Il Monastero (see Rick's post). The pizza is a huge oval served over two plates. Best part? You get to split the toppings, so on one side you may have eggplant and olives while one the other you might have pesto.

Max makes "a smile" with pizza

2. Pizza a taglio (sliced pizza) has all the same ingredients, but it's laid out on a "bar" in long rectangles, with a dozen flavors to choose from, and largely served to go. You tell the owner which one(s) you want and how much, they usually cut it with huge scissors, weigh it for price, heat it up in the oven and serve it to you wrapped in a waxy napkin. This is a typical "snack" to hold people over between meals. For us, it's a fun way to try a bunch of different flavors. Some of our favorites? Fiore di zucca (zucchini flowers), mushroom and sausage, gorgonzola and pear, potato and rosemary, we even saw fig pizza listed the other day -- but they had run out by mid morning!

Max buying pizza a taglio

3. Pizza bianca --  the last kind of pizza you need to know about is by far the most commonly purchased snack for students on their way to school: pizza bianca. All it is is a thin pizza crust with olive oil, salt and perhaps rosemary. You buy it like pizza a taglio -- cut into a rectangle and wrapped in waxed paper. It is in such demand in the morning that many bars, cafes and bread stores have mountains of it already cut and wrapped for the hungry kids (and tired parents). Usually it's in four different stacks: with mortadella, with tomato sauce, crunchy plain, and soft plain. You scoop it up, stand in line to pay your 50 centimes, and you're off to school. Max gets one each morning to have at snack time.