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Pizza has become an American fast food icon; you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't love this item (Well, maybe my brother Mike). What is it about pizza?

The common belief is that pizza is an Italian food, but ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Israelites, and other Middle Eastern cultures were already eating a variation of this product.

The word "pizza" may be a derivative of the Latin word "picea", a Roman word used to describe the blackening of bread in an oven. The word "pizza", in its current spelling, emerged some time in the Middle Ages. It was used to describe both the sweet and salty pies that was becoming popular among Italian aristocracy. Another theory is that the word evolved from the Old Italian word "a point", which became "pizziare", which means "to pinch" or "pluck." And it also means "pie".

Pizza took the form that we're now familar with in pre-Renaissance Naples, and was originally a peasant dish. Street vendors (usually young boys) walked around the city with small tin stoves on their heads, calling out their wares. The world's first pizza parlor evolved from this in 1830 and is still in business today.

Naples gradually assumed its reputation as having the finest pizza in Italy throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century, pizza became a popular fast food. The man who is credited with making pizza an international hit is Raffaele Esposito, a baker, who in 1889, created three kinds of pizzas especially for King Umberto and Queen Margherita. The third one the queen particularly liked; a pizza consisting of mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes (to honor the Italian flag). Word spread, and others began to copy it.

Pizza migrated to America in the latter half of the 19th century-early 1900s, particularly New York and Chicago. Gennaro Lombari opened the first U.S. pizzeria in New York City in either 1895 or 1905 (Exact dates vary). In 1943 Chicago-style deep-dish pizza was created by Ike Sewell at his Pizzeria Uno (Bless you, Ike!). American GIs stationed in Italy during World War II fell in love with pizza, and upon their return, further popularized the dish.

But it wasn't until the 1950s that pizza really took off. Many Italian-Americans celebrities ate it, and the Dean Martin hit "That's Amore" mentioned it. But teenagers and college students made pizza into a cultural icon! In the late 1950s,frozen pizza was introduced. Pizza became the most popular of all frozen food. Pizza's now consumed worldwide, and there are many

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