Celebrate Family History Month with Pizza!

October is a busy month for many reasons. Last week, we suggested ways genealogists could celebrate Family History Month. (Did you miss last week’s post? You can read it right now!) This week, we want to call your attention to the fact that October is also National Pizza Month, and even if you are not Italian, we thought you might like a bit of pizza history to brighten up your day. So when you are ready for a break from genealogy or are looking for some ideas to add to the stories of your immigrant families, read on!

First, how did we even get a National Pizza Month? Probably not on your calendar, National Pizza Month began in October 1984 when Gerry Durnell, a pizza shop owner in Indiana, first began to publish a magazine called Pizza Today and proclaimed a month-long celebration to begin with the first issue of his magazine. In 1987, the U.S. Congress made the designation of National Pizza Month official. 

Most of us know that Italian immigrants brought pizza with them to America. But pizza actually has a long, interesting history, and there are as many variations to pizza as there are groups of people who enjoy it. Depending on where you grew up, you like your crust thick, thin, or crispy; your slices in large squares, small squares, or pie-shaped; and your toppings to be traditional tomato and cheese, a variety of meats, no meats at all, or what Americans consider oddities like pickled ginger, green peas, assorted fish, or pineapple and coconut.

But, your ancestors don’t have to be from Italy to stake claim in the history of pizza. We know that ancient Egyptians and Greeks as well as Romans ate flatbreads with toppings. The Greeks “ate a version with herbs and oil, similar to today’s focaccia.” (“Who Invented Pizza?” by Gayle Turim, History.com, article updated 5 January 2021, https://www.history.com/news/a-slice-of-history-pizza-through-the-ages)

Modern pizza comes to us from Naples, Italy, which was originally founded as a Greek settlement. Naples, like all of Italy, was a city-state until the mid-1800s, and it was filled with working people who needed affordable food that could be eaten quickly out of hand. Pizza, which is essentially flatbread with toppings, was perfect for the purpose, as it could be made cheaply and topped with ingredients that were readily available: oil, cheese, tomatoes, garlic, and anchovies.

So, Neapolitans ate pizza happily at home, and, when mass migration out of southern Italy began in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, immigrants brought the recipes for this portable meal with them to America. Areas with large Italian working-class communities, like New York, Chicago, and St. Louis, all became places where pizzerias flourished in the early 1900s, and, with migration to the suburbs and to the American West, especially after World War II, pizza became an established part of American cuisine. And, like many other cuisines, each part of our country, from the East Coast to California, developed regional specialties.

(Photo of authentic Neapolitan pizza, taken by Valerio Capello, Naples, 2005; used with permission from Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Eq_it-na_pizza-margherita_sep2005_sml.jpg)

In addition, with the globalization of our world, other countries “discovered” pizza and made it their own. Check out some of these favorites:

• Costa Rica: pineapple and coconut
• Australia: kangaroo meat, crocodile, and barbecue sauce (not necessarily all together!)
• Japan: Mayo Jaga is a pizza with spicy mayonnaise and potatoes. Okonomiyaki uses egg and a sweet Worcestershire-type sauce and also may include squid, noodles, eel, and cabbage.
• Sweden: banana curry and peanuts
• Brazil: very light, unseasoned tomato sauce with cream cheese, boiled eggs, or stroganoff. They also have sweet pizza made with sweetened condensed milk, sliced bananas, and cinnamon, and one made with white cheese and guava marmalade

(“Weird and Wonderful Pizza Toppings From Around the World,” Camden House of Pizza, 30 October 2018, https://www.camdenhouseofpizza.com/weird-and-wonderful-pizza-toppings-from-around-the-world)

As the month of October brings us closer to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the rest of the holiday season, pizza will appear on more dining room or kitchen tables, thanks to those Italian immigrants who carried their food traditions across the Atlantic Ocean. If your family is enjoying a pizza lunch or dinner this month, regardless of the thickness of the crust or your selection of toppings, stop for a minute and think about how those intrepid migrating ancestors contributed so much enjoyment to all of our lives. And remember that genealogy is also about traditions, culture, migration, and adaptation. These details of our ancestors' lives are as much a part of our family history as are all those names, dates, and places!