Which Came First, The Chicken Or The Pizza?
How an apple changed humanity
The evolution of humanity goes hand in hand with food provisioning. When daily bread was abundant, men didn’t need to evolve, but when they faced scarcity, they could find ways to survive by farming, invoking gods, and raiding nearby villages.
Doing so, they encountered foods unknown to them. But, since the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, many cultures made other people’s recipes theirs.
I am Italian, and I can’t tolerate that spaghetti originated in China, and pizza comes from the Arabs. No arguments here!
So let’s delve deeper into issues that don’t make us sleep at night with a glimpse at some fascinating facts about food, starting with spaghetti.
Spaghetti were soldiers
The legend affirms that Marco Polo, the Venetian explorer, brought them from China in the 13th century, but it’s not true.
A few centuries before, the son of Bahawalpur’s Sultan, in today’s Pakistan, entered the royal palace kitchen and saw these sticks of dried dough, so he exclaimed: “they look like my father’s soldiers”, which were named “Sipahee”.
In that part of the world, the tradition of drying pasta relates to the 6th century BC. Instead, Marco Polo tried it with prawns from a Turkish merchant who called them “spahi”, and he fell in love with it, bringing the recipe to La Serenissima. (*1)
The fruit of the wolf
But there was no tomato sauce in that macaroni. In fact, tomatoes developed in America, and the Mayans denominated them “xitomatl”.
Hernàn Cortés took some seeds to Europe, but the yellowish berry-sized fruits grew with a significant amount of solanine, a natural poison to defend from insects. So Europeans didn’t like it at all, comparing its effects to Belladonna’s (Deadly Nightshade).
They called the plant “Solanum Lycopersicum”, which stands for “fruit of the wolf”, that’s how hideous tomatoes were. An Italian botanist baptized them “pomodoro” from the French “pomme d’or” (golden apple), comparing them metaphorically to the biblical forbidden fruit. (*2)
Apple’s gravity
Nowhere in the bible it’s written it was an apple, but in fact, the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But the Latin term for evil is “malum”, and the term for apple is “malus”.
It is easy to understand why we think Eve gave Adam an apple, although I’m sure it was something else. That’s probably why we are obsessed with apples, and we called unfamiliar fruits using the apple suffix.
Pomegranate, melon, pineapple, cashew apple, black apple, sugar-apple, pond apple, custard apple, wood-apple, elephant-apple, velvet apple, sweet apple-berry, mayapple, kei apple, apple berry, wax apple, watery rose apple, red bush apple.
It’s easy to recognize that the odds are in favor of apples rather than any other fruit to hit people in the head, although it didn’t seem a situation of such gravity when an apple hit Sir Isaac Newton.
There are 7.500 varieties of apples in the world, but the mentioned above are NOT apples, and the French pomme frites, are not fried apples either.
Portugal is a fruit?
Pommes frites are french fries… well, in French. They call the potato “pomme de terre”, which means apple from the soil, don’t ask me why. Then peach comes from “persicum malus” (apple from Persia).
Again, the word orange develops from the Sanskrit “narangah”, and after centuries and commerce, the Italians called it “melarancia” (orange apple), and the French cut it to orange, but the Portuguese spread it around, so in Greece, they call them “portokali” (Portugal).
359 words begin with “indi”
It’s curious how these names came from, but why they called them prickly pears if they don’t even look like pears? In Italy, we call them “Indian figs”, and they don’t look like figs either… and guess what?
They don’t come from India but Mexico (finally, something doesn’t come from India!). In fact, their botanical name is “Opuntia Ficus-Indica” and stems from failing to locate India by sailing west.
Many American plants have “India” in their name, and that’s why they called the native Americans “Indians” and we also have the West Indies, and when something originates from a particular territory, it’s called indigenous.
An affair of size
On the other hand, there are hundreds of English words that come from the Indian language, including atoll, avatar, bandana, catamaran, mandarin, mantra, nirvana, pyjamas, shampoo, tank, veranda, yoga. (*3)
But there’s a word that has puzzled researchers all over the world: banana! Its origin is unclear yet.
Some claim it comes from Arabic and it means finger. Others suggest it comes from the West African Wolof language, and it means five-toed.
Finally, some declare it comes from the Manding language, which evokes one of the most notable misunderstandings in colonization history.
When the English asked what the name of that long-legged marsupial was, the Australian Aborigines answered Kangaroo, which supposedly means “I don’t know” (not true *4).
Probably in Western Africa happened the same? When the white men asked the name of that long and thick fruit, the Mandingos answered “banana”!
Eat bananas now
Especially if you think that the most traded bananas until the 1950s were the “Gros Michel” type, which literally means “Big/Fat Mike” until they were decimated by a fungus and then replaced by the Cavendish, smaller but sweeter.
Note: bananas are on the verge of extinction because of the same reinforced fungus that affected the Gros Michel.
Cultivating only the Cavendish to the detriment of the other types caused an insufficient genetic diversity to resist the fungus, and bananas can become extinct before the conclusion of this century. (this is true*5)
Give me syphilis, and I’ll give you smallpox and cholera
Originally from Asia, bananas were introduced in Africa first, and then in America with the Columbian Exchange. It’s the exchange of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the New World.
Original Americans were corn, potatoes, tobacco, tomatoes, peanuts, pumpkins, sunflowers, cacao, to mention a few. Meanwhile, from Europe, they brought rice, wheat, barley, onions, lettuce, horses, pigs, sheep, chicken, and the infamous sugarcane.
To sweeten European palates and to dress them with cotton fabrics, the slave trade began.
The slaves ate what they could, and most of the time, they had garden plots and some livestock, too, including pigs and chicken. However, the latter was considered poor peoples food, and it was quite unpopular. Why?
A cocky matter
The “Gallus Domesticus” was introduced in Europe from India (again). It was smaller than now and tasted somehow bitter, but it was quite aggressive, mainly used in fights.
The Romans bred two types, for laying eggs and for meat consumption which was given only to soldiers. A Celtic tribe use to wear helmets with chicken wings attached, emulating the ruthlessness of those birds, and they were fierce indeed.
The Romans called them Gauls because of the chicken wings. That’s why the French national symbol is a rooster, but they didn’t maintain its Latin name, and they now call it “coq”.
In fact, they were later conquered by a Germanic tribe called Franks, and their word for chicken was “kook”, from the sound they made when killed in ceremonies.
Anyway, nobody appreciated chicken meat until the 19–20th century. Queen Victoria loved them for their feathers, but the African slaves managed to select the first broiler breeds, the actual chicks.
They usually had Sundays off, and they sold veggies, fruits, and chicken in markets triggering the “Hen Fever” period, spreading the success of the fowl and modern music too. (*6)
Hot Dachshund sausages
Some young Chinese generations now assume that Kentucky Fried Chicken is their traditional food (*7), as this fast-food chain is present all over their country.
Talking about rapid-cuisine, some will claim that Hamburgers as we know them today (with a bun, cheese, and sauces) comes from Hamburg, the German city.
Quite off the Deutsche Mark!
Although Hamburg was renowned for its minced beef, nobody put it inside two slices of bread until the beginning of the 20th century.
It happened in the United States where German immigrants were cooking Hamburg Steaks, and somewhere, someone sold it with bread, onions, and ketchup. (*8) (*9)
It’s getting saucy
Ketchup is the most glorious bottled sauce in the world. Who invented it? The Chinese have centuries-old ke-tsiap fish-based relish, but tomatoes became common in the 18th century, although recipes of that era didn’t include it.
The name ketchup (originally catsup) seemed to generally mean sauces or savory condiments, so the first recipe, including tomatoes, appeared in 1812 in a book written by James Mease, an American scientist. (*10)
He wrote that the choicest ketchup came from “love apples,” as tomatoes were then called. In Italy, ketchup is called salsa Rubra, but no Italians know it by this name… just ask them!
Being a bad apple
There’s a fruit Italians call “melanzana” (from apple again). The British call it aubergine. So, did you ever wondered where the eggplant receives its name? (By the way, it is a fruit. Not a veggie).
They grew in India, and they were the size of an egg, of an orangish color. When first introduced in Italy, they called them “the mad apples” because they thought you could go insane eating them (they still contain a high quantity of solanine, some histamine and nicotine too). (*11)
Don’t carbonize me
And if you go mad for pasta carbonara (which is not made with cream), you should know that it may have an American origin on the boot-shaped peninsula.
Before WWII, this dish never appeared in Italian recipes. There was the roman “cacio e pepe” (cheese and pepper) and central Italy’s “cacio e uova” (cheese and eggs).
In 1944 appeared the first carbonara recipe, which makes us think American soldiers asked for some bacon to be included in those pastas to feel more “at home”. But Italians won’t tell us. (*12)
Pepperoni is a vegetable
Being Italian, I couldn’t conclude without mentioning the pizza, but unfortunately, we will never know who really invented it.
The first preparations of yeast dough date back to 3000 BC. Almost every civilization made bread discs and added toppings, and Italian recipe books dated back to the 15th century mention the term pizza.
Tradition suggests that pizza Margherita was created in June 1889 during a visit by the Italian queen, Margherita di Savoia, to Naples.
That’s when Raffaele Esposito supposedly made this pizza resembling the flag of the newly unified Italian kingdom, but everyone knows it was nothing new.
Flower power
The use of tomatoes was scarce at that time, and there’s a chance that a previous Margherita pizza was prepared with an egg in the center, slices of cheese arranged in a circle like flower petals, and some basil to resemble the stem of a Margherita blossom, daisy in English. (*13)
The verdict
Pizza was the food of the poor, and for centuries it did not cross the threshold of the Neapolitan walls until WWII, where American soldiers and the massive Italian immigration lead to the most silent conquest of the world: that of our palate.
Buon Appetito.
References
- https://blog.fabianelli.it/la-vera-storia-degli-spaghetti/
- https://amailtuoverde.it/storia-del-pomodoro-lorigine-del-re-degli-ortaggi/
- https://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-70-english-words-you-didn-t-know-were-of-indian-origin-2688375
- https://www.thefreedictionary.com/kangaroo
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4652896/
- https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/diet-and-food-production-enslaved-africans
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-chicken-conquered-the-world-87583657/
- https://parade.com/61481/toriavey/where-did-hamburgers-originate/
- https://www.ecfair.org/p/info/about-the-fair/birth-of-the-hamburger
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mease
- https://cals.arizona.edu/maricopa/garden/html/pubs/0203/eggplant.html
- https://www.ilgiornaledelcibo.it/carbonara-storia-origine/
- https://storienapoli.it/2020/09/27/la-vera-storia-pizza-margherita/
