"Curiosity drove us to ask what pizza might have been like long ago. We went all the way back to the Roman Empire and wondered whether they even ate pizza at the time. That made me very curious about what kind of flavor this food might have had. That's where we got the idea to create a pizza that people might have eaten in the Roman Empire, using only ingredients that were in wide use at the time."
"Strictly speaking, they did not. Tomatoes arrived in Europe centuries later from the Americas, and mozzarella was as yet unknown. Some histories have it that the discovery of mozzarella led directly to the invention of pizza in Naples in the 1700s. But Romans did eat oven-baked flatbreads topped with herbs, cheeses and sauces, the direct ancestors of modern pizza, which were often sold in ancient Roman snack bars called thermopolia."
"In 2023, archaeologists uncovered a fresco in Pompeii depicting a focaccia-like flatbread topped with what appear to be pomegranate seeds, dates, spices and a pesto-like spread. The image made headlines around the world, and sparked Zara's imagination."
Neverland Pizzeria in Budapest developed a historically accurate ancient Roman pizza using only ingredients available during the Roman Empire. While Romans never ate pizza as known today—tomatoes and mozzarella arrived centuries later—they did consume oven-baked flatbreads topped with herbs, cheeses, and sauces sold in thermopolia snack bars. Inspiration came from a 2023 Pompeii fresco depicting a focaccia-like flatbread with pomegranate seeds, dates, spices, and pesto-like spread. Founder Josep Zara researched Roman culinary history, consulting historians and the ancient cookbook De re coquinaria to compile historically documented ingredients for the pizzeria's head chef.
Read at Boston Herald
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