Topping Surveys Prove That American’s Have a Special Bond With Pepperoni Pizza

Pizza is perhaps the most commonly eaten and most beloved fast-food option worldwide. You’re never in the mood for a pizza dinner. Are you hanging out with friends? A perfect pizza occasion. Are you watching a movie? You can’t enjoy it with a couple of cheesy slices of your favorite pizza. In the mood for some Italian dinner? The first is always pizza. 

According to numerous surveys and polls, America’s favorite topping on pizza is pepperoni. A company asked about 1200 pizza lovers, and as it turns out, 59% of the respondents chose pepperoni as their favorite pizza meat, while 28% chose sausage and 22% opted out for mushrooms. While many restaurants and brands are introducing new flavors and toppings every day, pepperoni remains the most popular pizza in the U.S. 

Brett Jordan/ Pexels | Pizza comes from the Greek word “pitta” meaning “pie”

A short history of pizza 

Pizza is now the world’s most sold fast food. Over three billion pizzas are sold each year in the United States, while an average person consumes 46 slices. Ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greek first consumed this delicious flatbread with various toppings over tomato paste topped with melted cheese. The dish was founded around 600 BC in Naples and was referred to as a “g=Galette flatbread”, a known dish for poor people. Pizza then evolves into bread and tomato dishes served with melted cheese. The dish soon gained popularity between tourists and visitors and was gradually introduced to other parts of the world. 

Why pepperoni?

Cottonbro/ Pexels | 36% of all pizza orders want their pizza topped with pepperoni

Even though the Italians brought pizza to the United States, America has made its concept a cultural artifact to this dish. In the Italian language, “Peperoni” means a large pepper, and what Americans call “Pepperoni” means a sizeable spicy salami. 

It’s not a surprise that pepperoni pizzas are the most sold pizza toppings, especially since every pizza advertisement on television, even artistic rendering and the pizza emoji, some with big pepperoni dots. The first pepperoni pizza was started in the 1970s by Darren Ezzo of the Ezzo Sausage Company.

They used dried sausage on mixed pork, beef, and spices as a meat alternative. Little did they know that their slight budget cut would become one of the most significant American sensations, but their family business didn’t gain recognition until their Roni cups, also known as cup and char pepperoni or cupping pepperoni. Roni cups soon became a hallmark of pizza in Buffalo and parts of the Midwest and have taken over New York and other big cities in America. 

Eneida nieves/ Pexels | The history of pizza begins in antiquity when various ancient cultures produced basic flatbreads with several toppings

The pepperoni hits all the right notes on meat, spices, sourness, and chewiness and gives the perfect combination of flavours and textures. Like mushrooms melt and blend in with the cheese and add earthiness to the pizza, pepperoni is an American Extrapolation of Calabrese salami tradition. As it cooks, it allows fats to render out and meld with the other flavour profiles of the pizza while the pepperoni slices crispen, giving the perfect blend of spicy, greasy, and crispy elements in every bite.