“Gourmet pizza” is a relatively new term. Gourmet comes from 19th century French, meaning “a connoisseur of good food; a person with a discerning palate.” That’s relatively young compared to the first known use of the word pizza, which is recorded in Italy just before the turn of the 10th century. The actual origin of pizza as a good has an even more extensive history than that, too, dating back to nearly 10,000 B.C.E.
Pizza has come a long way since then, and since the late 19th century when it was considered a food for poor people. Passersby bought pizza on the streets or from local markets. They were simple products of dough, tomato sauce, cheese, and whichever toppings are thrown on it, usually not much more than pepperoni.
Gourmet pizza includes a wider variety of toppings and a more intricate preparation process. For example, if a customer walked into a corner pizza store and asked for a Morrocan Lamb pizza, they might receive some raised eyebrows and a cautious redirection to a glass heating oven for selecting.
This is where gourmet pizza differs. It’s a carefully prepared specialty pizzas made with ingredients not normally found on pizza. That Morrocan Lamb pizza contains some of the same ingredients as typical pizza — dough, cheese, and pizza sauce — but it adds spinach, mozzarella, roasted potatoes, and Spanish onions.
A lot of time is spent selecting vegetables, foods, and spices that naturally complement each other. Each pizza might even have its own specialty sauce. One might be made from Roma tomatoes grown in Italy and mixed with a sprinkle of cayenne to produce a sweet and spicy sauce, while another might use large tomatoes grown in the hot soils of Central America and mixed with basil to create a sharper sauce.
Those sauces are placed on specialty doughs rolled in flour. Every dough is made of a unique blend of flour, yeasts, sugar, and oil to give it a refined taste that matches the sauce and ingredients placed on top of it. Some gourmet pizzas include layers of spices on top of the dough before chefs spread over the top of it. Others include another layer of spices mixed on the sauce, or in the cheese and ingredients. Each pizza is crafted to include different flavors and tastes through each bite.
These tastes and sensations are only further accentuated by baking them. Brick-oven stoves and wood fires add a smoky taste to pizzas with more zest or spice. Doughs are given more time to bake evenly, sauces heat to an even point, and the spices and ingredients come together for a unique taste on every bite.
