Essay On Pizza

Thresholds of increasing complexity have heavily influenced pizza across the world. From its humble origins as a ‘peasant’ food in Naples, pizza has become one of the most renown foods, with over 5 billion being sold every year. As of such, pizza varies greatly from different countries, with hundreds of recognisable variations thanks to the food’s infinite potential for customization. Though some of these differences may seem completely random, if we take a look at the bigger picture, we can see that most variations are of little randomness, and are instead shaped by the thresholds of increasing complexity.

Life is a threshold that dictates the primary flavours of a pizza. Perhaps the most obvious difference between pizzas around the world

Since mid-19th century when the modern pizza was first crowned, tradition and demand have driven the crafting of pizza to become very different around the world. While most early pizzas from Naples were made in woodfired ovens, locals have adopted their own ways of preparing the pizza. The demand for fast food in America has driven many pizzerias to adopt ovens which can cook faster and hold more pizzas at once, like the brick or deck oven. This demand has reached a point where many are even opting for a continuous conveyer oven, that has vastly increased productivity, but lacks ‘authenticity’. However, in places around the world where speed is not valued, traditions that have been past on through generations live on. Things like pizza tossing as opposed to using rollers to expand the pizza, or combinations of wood to burn, like oak and maple, such variations occur through the collective learning of humans. With pizza migrating into other cultures, it is of no surprise that sometimes ideas are spread, and new creations are formed. In the 1940s, Neapolitan immigrants created a high demand for thin crusted pizza in Chicago, however, two American entrepreneurs had the idea of giving the pizza an American twist. They extruded the crust of the pizza, and filled the inside with layers of meat, tomato sauce and cheese, creating a pie-like pizza, today known as the Chicago variety.