In Virgil’s Aeneid, it was prophesied that Aeneas and his crew would know that they had finally reached the site of their new home when they would “eat the tables upon which their food lay” (sorry, not an exact quote by any means).
The weary band of men found themselves in Italy after a long series of adventures, and there they attempted to gather some food to sate their hunger. This is where my recollection becomes hazy. I know that they gathered as much food as they could, and for lack of any other appetizing commestibles, they placed their gatherings on large pieces of dough flattened out on the ground to hold the food. I am not sure how the dough was prepared.
When they found themselves so hungry that they even ate the dough, it was obvious that Aeneas had reached the right land.
Whenever I read that passage it always brings pizza to my mind. In the early '90s I discussed this with the Dean of Arts of a neighbour university, and he was in full agreement on the matter as well.
Could that be indeed an ancient mention of pizza (or at least a pizza precursor)? The Aeneid was written around 19 BCE. Any experts in ancient Roman cuisine?
Not inconsistent at all. If you’re going to define “pizza” as anything eaten on bread, then obviously the origin is way way back in the mists of time. The Bible reports eating flat (unleavened) bread (matzah) with herbs, and that pre-dates Virgil by at least 700 years, probably longer.
That’s why I deliberately chose, in the Staff Report, to define “pizza” as the conjunction of crust, tomato sauce, and cheese. Any other attempts to trace an origin get way too fuzzy in definition. Virgil did NOT report that Aeneas had tomatoes.
I agree, and I seriously doubt that Virgil had ever seen a tomato (pizza bianca anyone?). In spite of the fuzzy evidence, I consider this matter interesting because A) Pizza is an icon of Italian food, and B) a “pizza precursor” played an important part in Aeneas’s prophecy.
We could stretch it a bit and say that, according to legend, what would become the Roman empire was heralded by the discovery of pseudo-pizza in Italy. This looks like a curious coincidence between ancient literature and more recent culinary indentity!
I remember hearing on a cooking show a number of years ago that pizza was basically made of the leftover dough from the bread that was made in the communal ovens that were around in medieval times. That dough didn’t rise, and the chef on this show basically said that on that basis, matza (unleavened bread from the Jewish exodus from Egypt) was the first recorded pizza. He said that there were many kinds of pizza besides our customary tomato and cheese, and for some reason the one that I can still remember is “goat cheese, leeks and almonds”.
Phar – in the very first post on this topic, there is a link to the Staff Report (“Who invented pizza?”). If you click on that link, and read the Staff Report, you will find the answer to your question, down to the exact year (well, OK, the first year with written record of the tomato being eaten in Italy.)