[Sca-cooks] 16th Century Pizza

[Raphaella DiContini]

There were variations of "pizza" pre-1600, but none that I know of mention anything about tomato. If you're just talking about flat disks of some sort of dough with toppings, most of the recipes that I've seen tend to be much more often fruit, sugar and sweet spices. 

Just a quick run through Scappi yeilds a menu entry for the 8th of October, first dish, first service from side board: 
Layered pizza made with fine wheat flour, egg yolks, sugar and butter                  

Translation from Helewyse de Birkestad
http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/octobermenus.html
She also posted an interesting paper on the nature of 16th century Italian pizza, and there's not a tomato in site. :) 
http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/pizza.html

In joyous service, 
Raffaella 

--- On Thu, 8/6/09, Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com> wrote:

> From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
> Subject: [Sca-cooks] 16th Century Pizza
> To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Date: Thursday, August 6, 2009, 4:11 PM
> Here's something akin to 'they spiced
> rotten meat and ate it'...
> 
> Pizza dates to 1522 according to whatscookingamerica.net.
> This date is now being cited all over the web as the
> authentic date
> for pizza with tomatoes.
> 
> * 16th Century*
> 
> *1522* - Tomatoes were brought back to Europe from the New
> World (Peru). Originally they were thought to be poisonous,
> but later the poorer people of Naples added the new tomatoes
> to their yeast dough and created the first simple pizza, as
> we know it. They usually had only flour, olive oil, lard,
> cheese, and herbs with which to feed their families. All of
> Italy proclaimed the Neapolitan pies to be the best. At that
> time, the Tavern of the Cerrigloi was a hangout for the
> Spanish soldiers of the Viceroy. It is said that they
> flocked there to feast on the specialty of the house -
> pizza.
> 
> 
> * 17th Century*
> 
> By the 17th Century, pizza had achieved a local popularity
> among visitors to Naples who would venture into the poorer
> sections to taste this peasant dish made by men called
> "pizzaioli."
> 
> http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Pizza/PizzaHistory.htm
> 
> Johnna
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