A name in Emilia-Romagna for a peperoncino, a small red hot chilli from the south of Italy and used much in its cuisine. It is grown in huge quantities in Basilicata, the Marche and Calabria.
Pizza has existed in one form or another since prehistory, when bread was cooked on flat stones. Later on the Neapolitans cooked focaccia. Flatbreads such as this could be cooked easily around a fire, carried by workers in the fields and were cheap to produce. There were many precursors to pizza, which really came into being when the tomato was brought from the New World to Europe in the late 1600s. The addition of mozzarella and basil occurred as a patriotic gesture when Don Raffaele Esposito decorated a pizza in this way to represent the colours of the Italian flag (red, white and green) in honour of the visit of Queen Margherita, Queen of Savoy, in 1889. Neapolitan emigrants took pizza to the United States with them and set up shops for selling them. Pizza Hut was founded in the 1950s and there are now said to be 62,000 pizzerias in the US.
Pissaladeira. A soft flatbread from Liguria topped with anchovies and black olives, slices of tomato and cheese, similar to the French pissaladière.
Pizza with no tomatoes, often with no topping. Flatbread, such as focaccia, with salt, a sprinkling of olive oil and perhaps rosemary.
"White pizza in the style of Rome". A pizza or flatbread with no tomato sauce, but with anchovy fillets and mozzarella with basil, or with onions.
