Argentine pizza

Argentine pizza
Traditional pizzas de molde being prepared at a pizzeria in Buenos Aires
TypePizza
Place of originArgentina
Region or stateBuenos Aires
Inventedc. 1890–1930
Main ingredients
Ingredients generally usedTypical toppings:
Variations
  • Pizza de molde
  • pizza a la piedra
  • fugazza (and the derivative fugazzeta)
  • pizza de cancha or canchera
Other informationCommonly eaten algonside fainá, a pancake made from chickpea flour

Argentine pizza is a mainstay of the country's cuisine,[1] especially of its capital Buenos Aires, where it is regarded as a cultural heritage and icon of the city.[2][3][4] Argentina is the country with the most pizzerias per inhabitant in the world and, although they are consumed throughout the country, the highest concentration of pizzerias and customers is Buenos Aires, the city with the highest consumption of pizzas in the world (estimated in 2015 to be 14 million per year).[5] As such, the city has been considered as one of the world capitals of pizza.[3][5]

Pizza was introduced to Buenos Aires in the late 19th century with the massive Italian immigration, as part of a broader great European immigration wave to the country.[3] Thus, around the same time that the iconic Pizza Margherita was being invented in Italy, pizza were already being cooked in the Argentine capital.[6] The impoverished Italian immigrants that arrived to the city transformed the originally modest dish into a much more hefty meal, motivated by the abundance of food in Argentina.[5][7] In the 1930s, pizza was cemented as a cultural icon in Buenos Aires, with the new pizzerias becoming a central space for sociability for the working-class people who flocked to the city.[7][6]

A typical custom is to accompany pizza with fainá, a pancake made from chickpea flour.[8]

  1. ^ Aeberhard, Danny; Benson, Andrew; Phillips, Lucy (2000). The Rough Guide to Argentina. Rough Guides. p. 40. ISBN 978-185-828-569-6. Retrieved 10 December 2022 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ Pizzerías de valor patrimonial de Buenos Aires (2008), p. 11
  3. ^ a b c Lazar, Allie (25 April 2016). "Buenos Aires Makes Some of the World's Best (and Weirdest) Pizza". Saveur. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  4. ^ Sorba, Pietro (15 October 2021). "La reivindicación de la pizza de molde argentina". Clarín (in Spanish). Buenos Aires. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  5. ^ a b c Gómez, Leire (17 July 2015). "Buenos Aires: la ciudad de la pizza". Tapas (in Spanish). Madrid: SpainMedia [es]. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference napoles was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference lanacion was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference faina was invoked but never defined (see the help page).