Most Americans probably realize that pizza (in some form) is the number one entree in our country. Last year alone we consumed 4 billion fresh-made pizzas and another billion of the frozen variety. Many, unfortunately, look to pizza as the ultimate family-friendly convenience food and have thus turned their attention to the plethora of chains that produce a product that is not always true to the origin of pizza.

Although pizza began as a peasant food in Naples, Italy (the baker credited with the first pizza was Raffaele Esposito) in 1889, it was intended to be an end product that was a result of using fresh, local, high quality, flavorful ingredients (great flour high in gluten, nature’s water, virgin olive oil, fresh mozzarella, seasonal tomatoes and fragrant garden basil and oregano). When first consumed by the Italian King Umberto and Queen Margherita, pizza quickly transitioned to a wonderful food ready…