Pizza, Originated From China?

Pizza is one of the popular fast foods in Taiwan. There are three popular pizza chains, which are Pizza Hot, Napoli Pizza, and Domino's Pizza. Personally, my favorite is Napoli Pizza, although the taste of their foods are not pretty much similar to the ones I've enjoyed in Italy, not to mention the pure pizza napoletana. The bread of pizza in Taiwan is different from the way in Italy, or Europe. The bread of Taiwanese style pizza is typically softer, fluffier and less scorching. It is okay for me, although I prefer the pure Italian style pizza sometimes.

General speaking, there are two types of pizza. Let's say, neapolitan-style pizza and roman-style pizza. Neapolitan-style pizza is thicker, and the surface is covered by a softer crust. Roman-style pizza is much finer, with a crispy crust.

Neapolitan Style

Roman Style

About the history and origin of pizza, there is a rumor going around among Chinese people. Someone said, Marco Polo's cook learned the partial skill of making a Chinese flatbread, and missed the most important part of stuffing insertion. So, after he came back to Italy, he finally put the fillings on the top of flatbread and pizza was invited. This rumor is definitely from a boring joke. In the history of human beings, there were a lot of different kinds of flatbread, with or without fillings. Making a flatbread in different style is the easiest innovation, after human learned the way of making flours. Personally, I prefer to believe the linkage between pizza and pita.

Compare to pizza, there are various style of flatbread. One can find dozen of different flatbread in the menu of a traditional Chinese food restaurant. Search the keyword, "chinese flatbread" in Google Image, you will understand what I mean. The most common filling in a Chinese flatbread is green onion. In Taiwan, there the most famous green onion is Sun-shin. Sun-shin is a small town locating in north east Taiwan. It is a beautiful place in Yi-Lan County. The taste and smell of Sun-shin green onion is stronger the other. And it makes the fillings of flatbread more tasty (at least, to Chinese people).

Ask a guy in a night market for "Strong-Yogurt-Bean" (don't pronounce S-, and -gurt) somewhere in Taiwan, the guy will bring you a green onion flatbread. The three Chinese characters of "Strong-Yogurt-Bean (蔥油餅) " means green onion oily flatbread, or a scallion flatbread.

Scallion Flatbread in Taiwan

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