Pizza doesn’t need any introduction, right?

One of the most popular street food all over the world, millions of pizza shops in every country (there’s an “Italy Pizza” in Pyongyang, in case you were wondering) and more and more…

Going back in history, as far as we know there is no certainty about the origin of pizza. Maybe it comes from a popular Persian recipe; maybe it was born in Ancient Greek; maybe it comes from the Ancient Roman “Focaccia”…

But where the word Pizza comes from?

Well, the most ancient document mentioning it is dated back in the Middle Ages.

AD 997: in Castelforte (a small village in between Rome and Naples) it was signed a lease. A couple of young peasants, Merco and Fasana, were granted by the Archibishop of Gaeta, the use of a watermill, propery of the bishopric. What the bishop asked was: “every year on the Lord’s Christmas day, you and your heirs will have to pay both us (the “royal we”, ed.) and our successors, as a rent and without any recrimination, twelve pizzas, a pork shoulder and a kidney; and likewise twelve pizzas and a couple of chickens on the day of the Holy Easter of Resurrection”.

So, yes. Back at the time you could rent a watermill with a bunch of pizzas and a few more pieces of raw meat….

RETARDER PROOFER

How to cut a pizza. Easy task, you’d say.

Considering the time and efforts scientists have been spending on it, I’d dare to say it’s far from being so easy…

The first scientists to formulate a theory were, in 2009, two American mathematicians: Rick Mabry and Paul Deiermann.

Their scientific paper “Of Cheese and Crust: A Proof of the Pizza Conjecture and Other Tasty Results“, published in the “American Mathematical Monthly” showed how fair division was impossible for odd numbers.

A demonstration costing very complicated trigonometric calculations.

Seriously!

A few years later, luckily, two British colleagues made the world coming out from the impasse: Joel Hadley and Stephen Worsley.

They demonstrated (“Infinite Families of Monohedral Disk Tiling“, 2015) how it is possible to cut a pizza following curved lines for an almost infinite number (the tiniest pieces you can imagine), although, they admitted themselves, they could not guarantee everyone the same amount of crust or topping (depending on taste!).

In short, I recommend ordering one pizza per person. And, if you’re preparing the dough yourself, let it rise with the Inox Bim Retarder Proofer!

PIZZA COUNTERS

Saying Pizza is a kind of food is an underestimation.

Well, ok, considering where I come from, I might be biased, right.

But let me tell you this:

For almost 40 years, since 1960 till the end of the Century, in New York City you could predict the raising of the subway ticket just looking at the price of a regular pizza slice.

This phenomenon was called “Pizza link“.

The average price of a tomato and mozzarella slice and a subway ride had been being in correlation for 40 years, despite there’s no immediate logic link between them.

Better said, despite there’s no logic link whatsoever.

By a funny coincidence (which has been taking place for 4 decades), the increase of one price will be followed by the increase of the other.

So, pizza isn’t just food.

But also a reliable measure for inflation.

Anyway, Inox Bim Pizza counters won’t make you predict inflation for sure. But making pizza, that one for sure!