Pizza Facts

Love pizza? Ever thought of getting to know more about pizza? Here is a list of fun and interesting facts about this yummy food. See how many you knew!

 

1. The biggest pizza ever made was baked in Norwood, South Africa in 1990. The gigantic pie measured 122 feet 8 inches across, weighed 26,883 pounds, and contained 9,920 pounds of flour, 3,968 pounds of cheese, and 1,984 pounds of sauce.

2. In 2005, the record for the world's largest rectangular pizza was set in Iowa Falls, Iowa. A 129 X 98.6-foot pizza from 4,000 pounds of cheese, 700 pounds of sauce, and 9,500 sections of crust was baked. The enormous pie was enough to feed the town's 5,200 residents ten slices of pizza each.

3. In 2006, a chef from Scotland baked world's most expensive pizza covered in snails and gold and called it “Pizza Royale 007″. The pizza was auctioned on eBay for £2,150 (approx. $4,200 in US dollars).

4. The word “pizza” is derived from the Latin word “picea”, a Roman word used to describe the blackening of bread in an oven.

5. The word pizza was originally spelt as "pitsa".

6. Since 1987, October has been officially designated National Pizza Month in the United States.
7. Approximately three billion pizzas are sold in the United States every year, plus an additional one billion frozen pizzas.
8. In the U.S., there are about 61,269 pizzerias representing about 17 percent of all U.S. restaurants.

9. Women are twice as likely as men to order vegetarian toppings on their pizza.

10. The first known pizzeria, Antica Pizzeria, opened in Naples, Italy, in 1738.

11. Americans eat 100 acres of pizza per day.

12. On average, each person in the United States eats around 23 pounds or 46 slices, of pizza every year.

13. Thirty six percent of all pizza orders want their pizza topping to be pepperoni, far and away the most popular pizza topping.

14. Saturday night is traditionally the biggest night of the week for eating pizza.

15. Children aged 3 to 11 prefer pizza over all other foods for lunch and dinner, that's according to a recent Gallup Poll.

16. In Australia -- shrimp, pineapple, barbecue sauce are preferred toppings.

17. Some popular pizza toppings in Japan are squid and Mayo Jaga (mayonnaise, potato and bacon).

18. In India they like pickled ginger, minced mutton and paneer.

19. The people of Brazil prefer green peas for their topping.

20. Russians serve pizza covered in mockba (a mix of sardines, tuna, mackeral, salmon and onions.)