The modern version of a pizza is sometimes said to have been invented in the late 1800s, since that is when the first “proper” recipe is from. But there are a few key points that might inform your question and other answers:
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Flat bread baked with toppings already on it has been a thing for several thousand years across the world.
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Among which was a type of street food referred to as pizza in Italy before the Tomato arrived in europe
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Tomato is from the Americas, it wasn’t known and didn’t exist in europe until the mid 1500s.
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On its own a fresh tomato is not very nurishing compared with other common fruits and vegetables, and since toxic versions exisited, it was mostly used as table decoration in places like Italy for a while.
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The first mention of tomatoes as an ingredient in an Italian cookbook is from 1692. And it wasn’t widely adopted as a staple food until the 1700s.
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There are descriptions from the mid 1800s talking about the wide variety of pizza toppings, as it was already an established food by that point.
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Have you seen the painting possibly of a pizza unearthed of Pompei claimed to be 2000 years old? https://www.indy100.com/news/pizza-painting-pompeii-excavation-italy
But tomatoes didn’t exist anywhere outside of two isolated continents until the turn of the 16th century
If you break pizza down to its simplest form - flatbread and toppings - it’s been around for a very long time.
Tomatoes had to be brought from South America to Europe. After that it was quick.
Sir Reginald d’Pizza was a genius that’s why
Lactose tolerance is not very widespread globally and there’s less of it the further you get from north-western Europe, so adding cheese to anything is a surprisingly recent and surprisingly niche culinary choice.
Many cheeses don’t contain much lactose at all, though.
True, which is why dairy farming actually predates widespread lactose tolerance! Nevertheless, you’re more likely to get a widespread culture of dairy-eating if you also have a lot of adults who can tolerate a variety of dairy products.
Tomatoes are from the Americas, so it wasn’t around in European ancient times. I guess it could have been invented in the Americas, but cheese wasn’t really a thing there.
Even crazier, noodles come from China/Asia. So what the fuck did Italians eat before Columbus?!
Bread. And circuses.
Well if you remember Marco Polo, the Venetian explorer from the 13th century, famously established a trade route to China. That was about 250 years before Columbus. Of course there was already trade back and forth between Europe and Asia, but let’s just not forget the future Italian who is just famous for connecting with China!
Well, the tomatoes were in the new world, and all the domesticated cows, sheep and goats were on the other side of the atlantic, so that’s a minor problem.
I guess you could use like a llama cheese? That might work. Then I’m sure the indigenous people of the Peruvian region had a flatbread of some sort, just about everyone does. Then they just need to harvest up some tomatoes.
So, yeah, they could’ve. You need to be looking in the Andes in South America though.
I think tomatoes came to Europe after Columbus brought them back from the Americas. But white pizza, no damn excuse there. With ya on this one.
Just read this article
