Now is the time to wrap yourself in the warm, sticky embrace of cheese, drift into a heavenly array of toppings, and chew on some comforting crust. It’s National Pizza Day in America.
Now, that is not to be confused with National Cheese Pizza Day (September 5), National Pepperoni Pizza Day (September 20), National Pizza Month (October), and National Pizza Day. Sausage Pizza (Oct 11), but boy, does this nation love pizza?
Here are some absurd pizza facts to fuel your day:
Pizza can be addictive
Pizza was ranked as the food most associated with addictive-type eating behaviors, according to one study. Its delicious combination of fats and carbohydrates, along with its complementary texture, color and flavor profile make it very attractive.
Pizza prepared by artificial intelligence
Nothing is sacred? The scope of artificial intelligence has expanded to the art of pizza. Researchers have discovered a way to teach an artificial intelligence system how to build a pizza by looking at an image.
However, pizza is just the beginning. If a computer can figure out how to correctly layer pizza toppings, it may be able to better understand how we prepare other foods, or eventually be able to layer clothing into an outfit, the project leader told Citizen Free Press Business, Dimitrios Papadopoulos.
Pizza has been a military intelligence tool
In the late 1960s, the US Army’s Military Intelligence Unit 113 used the tastiest trick in his book, fake pizza deliveries, to spy on journalists and politicians, according to The New Yorker.
People love to set pizza records
Guinness World Records has recorded a seemingly endless list of pizza records. These are just a few:
Longer pizza delivery: In 2006, Paul Fenech traveled nearly 20,000 kilometers from Madrid to Wellington, New Zealand, to personally deliver a pizza to Niko Apostolakis. Citizen Free Press could not find any record of whether the pizza was ice cold when it got there or whether Apostolakis actually ate it.
The most expensive pizza available on the market: Topped with white Stilton cheese, French foie gras and truffles, two types of caviar, and 24-karat gold leaf, all on a bed of black squid ink dough, this pizza will set you back $ 2,700. If you’re looking for a ton of money in the form of pizza, this delicacy can be found at Industry Kitchen in New York.
Pizza delivery at higher altitudes on land: Good news! If you can make it to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, you may be able to persuade Pizza Hut to deliver you a victory meal. They have done it before, after all.
In 2016, Pizza Hut Africa CEO Randall Blackford and a group of employees, led by experienced guides, climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro with a pepperoni pizza in tow.
The feat was carried out to mark the opening of the first Pizza Hut in Tanzania and the 100th country in which the company had opened a restaurant.