Pizza consists of a dough crust, topped with sauce, cheese, and a variety of other seasonings and toppings. Variations of Pizza have existed since the early days of baked bread, up to 3000 years ago. However, the pizza modern people are most familiar with originated in Naples around 500 years ago. This was the first time baked bread was topped with tomatoes and cheese.

Pizza gained popularity in the United States after World War II when returning soldiers came back to the country creating a demand for the food they had eaten abroad. Today pizza is made as bread, rolled into pockets, served fresh baked, prepacked as a frozen food, and adapted to numerous quick fix meals using breads like pitas, tortillas or English muffins. The favorite topped bread dish is versatile and changed easily to meet the likes of the one being fed. And fed they are! Americans consume 350 slices of pizza per second, eating 100 acres of the sliced food favorite a day and celebrate National Cheese Pizza Day on September 5th each year. Total spent on the popular food item in the U.S.? $30 billion per year. That's a lot of dough.http://www.pizzaware.com/facts.htm

Most pizzas in America, Europe and around the world are based on the Neapolitan style. This pizza is traditionally made with Italian wheat flour, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and buffalo milk. The crust should be tender and crispy.

What Americans know as Cheese Pizza, is known in Naples as Marghertia Pizza and was named after Queen Marghertia who liked the pizza and thought it resembled the Italian flag with its red, green and white colors. http://www.brooklyn-pizza-works.com/pizza%27s_history.htm

Sicilian pizza has toppings mixed in with the dough and baked into the crust. Pizza Hut sells a variety of this style called "Stuffed Crust Pizza," though the appearance and taste of this product are far from authentic.

In today's pizzeria, most stores offer three crust options: a thin crust, a deep dish or pan crust, and a hand tossed crust. The amount of breading desired and the preparation method preferred dictate what customers will order. Many pizza shops now include breadsticks or pizza bread as a part of the menu, offering the pizza dough prepared in a stick fashion sometimes topped with cheese and served with a side of pizza sauce for dipping.

The rise of gourmet pizza in the United States has precipitated several creative toppings typically saved for other meals. Apart from the traditional pepperoni, sausage, anchovies and mushrooms, the second half of the 20th century saw the inclusion of pineapple, chicken, feta cheese, avocado, salmon and prawns.