One Of The World's Oldest Pizzas Was Actually Vegan

Pizza is one of the most popular dishes in the world. Dean Martin sang about it, pizza was the "eat" in the movie "Eat, Pray, Love," and it's the favorite food of all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (per QSR). Debates about what belongs on a pizza — like anchovies or pineapple — can seem neverending. It's commonly ordered to be delivered to your door and is such a big part of U.S. culture that nobody can remember a time without it. Americans love their pizza — in fact, until the 1940s, pizza was basically "more American than Italian" due to immigration in the early 1900s (via Britannica).

Vegans don't eat dairy products but are no exception to this obsession with pizza. They simply order it without the cheese to keep it dairy-free. This practice caused some controversy in 2018 when celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay set Twitter into a tweetstorm after he shared a picture of a cheeseless pizza he was about to try leaving fans to wonder, "what's pizza without cheese?" The answer: the world's oldest pizza.

Pizza's origins begin with focaccia, the dimpled flatbread that is thought to have been created by pre-Roman Empire Etruscans (via Yahoo!). The first pizza is believed to have originated in Naples, Italy, in the 18th century, when it was considered peasant food. According to six-two, they called it "pizza marinara" in honor of the mariners in the seaside town on the Gulf of Naples.

A lot has changed with pizza since then, so what makes the original 200-year-old Neapolitan pizza recipe so different from the pizza of today? It had no cheese. That's right. The world's oldest pizza was vegan.

It didn't take long for someone to change pizza marinara from cheeseless to cheesy. As six-two reports, that honor goes to Raffaele Esposito, who topped the pizza with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil in 1889. He renamed it pizza Margherita for Queen Margherita after she visited Naples and was given the pizza after she asked for something different to eat. Pizza lost its reputation as peasant food and went from vegan to vegetarian. Since then, for some people, the idea of eating a pizza without cheese has been considered unorthodox and unthinkable.

If you want to sample the pizza Julia Roberts had us all drooling over in "Eat, Pray, Love," you won't have to fly to Italy. Two offshoots of Naples' L'antica Pizzeria da Michele can be found in California and one in the West Village in New York City, with marinara pizza prominently featured on the menu of all three eateries. Be careful to not ask for a marinara pizza with cheese, or you may get the same response a BBC reporter got after making that request at a pizzeria in Italy: "It doesn't exist."

Eating pizza without cheese may sound unappealing to some, but you have to admit that when it comes down to it, a good pizza is all about three things: the dough, the sauce, and the toppings. Most pizza dough is vegan (per The Hidden Veggies), the sauce is easily made without animal products, and the selection of plant-based pizza toppings is limited only by your imagination. Top that bad boy with olives, capers, or any other edible plant you can think of — yes, even pineapple! You'll never miss the cheese.

Of course, there are many brands of vegan cheeses for your pizza if you're inclined. However, if you've been underwhelmed by dairy-free cheeses, there's no need to worry. Check out Chef Matthew Kenney's recipe for an autumnal squash pizza with sage-parsley pesto, or try the avocado pizza from Kola House for a look at vegan pizza's artisanal side. You may just become a convert.