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Pizza is easily one of the most popular foods in the world. In fact, based on industry figures, every person in the U.S. eats over 23 pounds of pizza each year. There are 3 billion pizzas sold each year in the U.S. alone, for a revenue of nearly $40 billion. This is no niche cuisine. This is a huge, powerful industry, with a few major companies dominating the sales, plus thousands of small pizza makers providing variety and quality.

Perhaps the best thing about pizza is its versatility. Plain cheese pizza is a perennial favorite, and it's almost amazing how delicious such a simple dish can be. And as for toppings, pizza makers are only limited by their imaginations and by customer demand.

Pizza History

Pizza is known as an Italian food, but it likely has its rudimentary origins in Ancient Greece, where one popular dish was to put a variety of toppings-including cheese, oils, and seasonings-onto round flatbread, which is pretty close to pizza.

But the word "pizza," meaning "pie," probably wasn't coined until the early 2nd millennium A.D., somewhere on the western coast of Italy. However, there was one hitch to early pizza development: tomatoes are actually a New World fruit, and they didn't become available in Italy until the 1500s. Thus, pizza as we now know it didn't develop until relatively recently. It was probably not until the late 1700s that the residents of Naples started making recognizable pizza.

Pizza was primarily an Italian peasant food until the late 1800s, when the Italian royals tried it and loved it. It was also during this time that Italians began emigrating to the U.S. in larger numbers. And as waves of immigrants continued to arrive on U.S. shores through the early 1900s, pizza became more and more popular, but mainly just in areas where there were substantial Italian American populations. It wasn't until after World War II-with thousands of American soldiers returning from Italy demanding pizza at home-that the dish became widely popular.

Pizza Styles

While new styles of pizza are always being created, there are currently five types that you can generally find in any major city:

1. Neapolitan: Neapolitan pizza has a thin, bubbly crust covered by basil and mozzarella that doesn't spread as widely as it does on American varieties. It's often cooked in a brick oven.

2. New York: New York pizza is thin crusted, with sweet tomato sauce and a layer of cheese that covers the whole pizza. In general, New York pizza doesn't have a lot of toppings, or else it starts to become something else.

3. Chicago: Chicago pizza is very thick, usually cooked in a pan. The order of toppings is reversed-with the cheese first, toppings second, and sauce last.

4. Greek: Greek pizza often has oil instead of pizza sauce, and it's frequently topped with feta, olives, and spinach.

5. California: California style pizzas have very thin crusts, and makers frequently get very creative with their vegetable toppings, often using whatever is in season.

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Does your lunchtime consist of the same boring sandwiches day after day, week after week? They say that variety is the spice of life, but my lunches weren't spicy at all. In fact, those plain old ham sandwiches became pretty bland after a while. I spent a lot of time wondering how I could possible jazz up my sandwiches and make lunch time exciting again. Who would have thought that all I needed was a small kitchen appliance known as a panini maker.

Panino is the Italian word for sandwich, panini is the plural form of that word. Even though it is not technically correct to call a single sandwich a panini, it doesn't change the fact that they are delicious. Adding heat and pressure to a variety of ingredients including meats, cheeses, spreads and vegetables somehow creates a sandwich that's much more than the sum of its parts.

To make a Panini sandwich, you will need a panini grill. Sometimes called a panini press or panini maker, these compact appliances look like a combination between a waffle maker and a grill. Most panini grills will consist of two heating plates that are connected with a hinge. You place your sandwich in between the plates so that it heats up evenly from the top and the bottom at the same time.

Not only does the heating blend the flavors of the all the ingredients together but it also creates a nice crusty outside. Using hearty breads such as sour dough, ciabatta or whole grain are the traditional way to make panini.

Experimentation is the best part of making panini. With all the combinations of breads, meats, cheeses and spreads you could make a different panini everyday for the rest of your life. Some of my favorites include roast beef with arugala and provolone, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese and even peanut butter, banana and chocolate panini. If you can think of it, you should try it. And a panini press is also a great way to grill vegetables so be sure to try grilled vegetables in your panini as well.

Brown bagging your lunch everyday definitely becomes monotonous over time. And in today's economy who can afford to eat out everyday. Adding a panini grill to your kitchen is a great way to add a little bit of excitement to your meals and lunchtime will never be the same, thanks to panini sandwiches.

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