Course:HIST104/History of hawaiian pizza

Cultures in Contact: Delissio Hawaiian Rising Crust Pizza

The History of Pizza

The earliest form of pizza was made by ancient Middle Eastern and Mediterranan cultures which baked bread on stone in a wood-fired oven after putting on simple toppings. Italian cities were baking flatbreads, or pittas, and would sometimes put toppings on the bread. By the twelfth century, places like Abruzzi, Calabria, Apulia, Sicily, Tuscany, and Romagna all had their own version of the pitta flatbreads.

The modern pizza as we know it has its origins in Naples. The pizza Magherita was made in the honour of Italy’s queen and resembles the colours of the Italian flag with toppings such as tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil. The most basic pizza, the pizza alliolio e pomodoro or marinara was commonly used by sailors who wanted to make pizza away from home. They would combine oil, tomato, garlic, and oregano as toppings. Different areas throughout Italy now have their own variations; Roman pizza does not use tomatoes, but instead has onions and olives, the Ligurian pizza uses olives, onions, and artichokes.

When immigrants from southern Italy came to the United States in the late nineteenth century, they built commercial bakeries and backyard ovens to make pizza in their new country. Initially, pizza was made for the Italian community, but after the Great Depression, non-Italian Americans were visiting Italian restaurants and pizzerias on the East and West coasts where they frequently consumed pizza . By the end of the Second World War (1939-1945), pizza became very popular and soon thereafter it was difficult to find even a small town that did not have a pizzeria.

Uniquely American pizzas such as the “Chicago style” pizza began to appear. In 1943, a pizzeria in Chicago in 1943 created a deep-dished, double-crusted, stuffed pizza. In California, a “gourmet pizza” was created in 1980 which featured a very thin crust with very simple combinations of fresh ingredients and non-Italian cheeses. It would not be uncommon for the gourmet pizzas to have not tomato sauce or tomatoes.

Americans can now make pizza at home, whether it is homemade and baked on a ceramic pizza stone or purchased assembled ready to bake from local pizzerias that make pizzas fresh or grocery stores which feature unbaked, frozen pizzas.

History of the Modern Frozen Pizza: from Kraft's DiGiorno to Nestle's Delissio

Originally as part of the Kraft Foods Inc., Delissio Pizza (also known as DiGiorno) was released in 1996. With a catchy slogan: "It's not delivery, it's Delissio", the extension of the Kraft Foods Inc. became one of North America's top frozen pizza brands. A history of the Delissio brand is incomplete, however without some background information on the history of Kraft.

Kraft Food Inc. was founded by Ontario born James Lewis Kraft. In 1903, he moved to Chicago with 65 dollars and started up a wholesale cheese business. As business got better, Kraft entered the business of cheese manufacturing as well. In 1916, Kraft patented and invented a product known as "processed cheese" which has changed the food industry permanently across the world. This processed cheese has now become a staple in many Kraft products. Their most famous product is obviously Kraft Dinner macaroni and cheese, which has fed starving college students for decades. They are also known for their Christie cookies and the Delissio brand on top of countless other high selling products.

The Kraft company was involved in the Second World War efforts wherein they delivered a staggering 4 million pounds of cheese to Great Britain weekly. Their history also involves a series of large business mergers and acquisitions. in 2007, they became officially known as the Kraft Food Inc. and their products gross a yearly average of 42 billion dollars in profit.

When Delissio was released, it was known for its rising crust and its aforementioned slogan. Currently, the company boasts a large variety of different types of pizza ranging from 4 Cheese and Hawaiian to the Flatbread brand which entails several flavours like Chicken Bacon Ranch and Steak with Fire Roasted Tomatoes. The fill list of flavours is available at http://www.nestle.ca/en/products/brands/delissio/index. They are also known for their popular commercials which have involved famous athletes like Luc Robitaille and Martin Brodeur. Their commercials are also the subject of several online video parodies on sites such as Youtube and the "It's not delivery, it's Delissio" slogan is recognizable everywhere.

In recent news, the Kraft Food Inc. sold their frozen pizza department rights to the Nestle company. This frozen pizza section includes other famous brands like Digiorno, Tombstone and Jack's/ Nestle purchased all of these for around 3.7 billion dollars on January 2010.

Ingredients

The original Hawaiian pizza, as invented by Sam Panopouolos in 1962, was named the “Hawaiian” due to the fruity component of the pineapple. While the original also included ham, other varieties also include bacon bits. However, the invention itself originates in Chatham, Ontario.

Our product was originally sold under the Kraft’s line “DiGiorno.” The rising crust line of frozen pizzas was invented in the 1990’s; later on the product was sold to Nestle, which sold the frozen pizzas under the brand “Delissio.”

Delissio’s version of the Hawaiian contains pineapple, smoked ham, and cooked bacon as toppings on top of a pizza sauce, covered with part skim mozzarella cheese. Ingredients for the pizza crust includes: wheat flour, water, sugar, wheat gluten, corn meal, soybean oil, salt, yeast, and corn oil.

Due to the frozen nature of the pizza, special changes have been adapted from the process of cooking a regular pizza. The ingredients of the pizza crust are subdivided, allowing the elements to react when baked, causing the rising effect of the crust. A layer of corn starch is also added to frozen pizzas, in order to separate and prevent the pizza sauce from combining with the pizza crust. During the preparation process, the pizza dough is also partially baked, then covered with toppings that are also pre-cooked.

Delissio Rising-Crust Hawaiian Pizza in Our Modern, Globalized World

Every year, companies such as Kraft or Nestle, invest significant resources to understand consumer attitudes and behaviours which relate directly to their products they offer, like frozen pizza. They determine what the consumers want, such as healthier alternatives or quick and easy meal ideas. The downturn of the world economy in 2008 undoubtedly encouraged a growth in the frozen food business; people find it hard and are left with less and less time to prepare food at home for themselves and their families. Instead, people turn to quick and convenient meal solutions. Even though consumers seem to want ‘easy to make’ prepared foods, they do not want to lose its nutritional benefits. To meet this demand, Nestle has placed a ‘Health Check’ symbol on their products when it meets the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s prerequisites. In recent years, it has been discovered that frozen foods are, in fact, healthier than food preserved through different methods. With the economy in a downturn, people eat in restaurants less and look for foods that offer quick and easy preparation; frozen food companies are the benefactor of this, as sales in all products have been growing for the past 10 years.

The operating structure of Nestle closely mirrors the current system used by Kraft, the former company who owned the Delissio brand. They have divided up their operating units into a geographical system. Nestle employs approximately 95,000 people worldwide. This system of organization indicates that the business of prepared food production is essential a world-wide market system, there is no place on earth that you would not be able find such labels as Kraft or Nestle.

Freezing food items can induce some negative side effects, like the formation of ice crystals which impacts the appearance and texture of the food item. In addition, a product such as pizza sauce may face even worse conditions, as a gel can form atop it, causing the traditional smooth texture to become grainy and watery. For this reason, new ingredients have been added to normalize the frozen food products.

Companies such as Kraft Foods and Nestle are world leaders in major purchases of dairy, coffee, cocoa, wheat, corn products, soybean and vegetable oils, nuts, meat products, and sugar. These companies also use considerable amounts of plastic, glass and cardboard to package the food products, frozen or not.

"Boxing" It All Up: Delissio Rising-Crust Hawaiian Pizza as a Point of Contact for Time, Space, and Culture

The Hawaiian frozen, rising-crust pizza is much like Domingos Alvares in James Sweet’s article: it contains layers of identities and is ever-changing according to societal contexts.

Its ancestors, the original and traditional pizzas, were made by Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures. In 1962, it adopted the new and singular identity of the “Hawaiian pizza” thanks to Canadian Sam Panopoulos. In 1996, Canadian-owned Kraft released an even more refined and narrow identity for the Hawaiian pizza: the new and modern frozen rising crust Hawaiian pizza. After centuries of evolution and transformation, Delissio rising crust Hawaiian pizza carries with it a hybrid identity that contains a mixture of eastern and western cultures, of traditional and modern technologies, and of geographically dispersed places.

In spatial terms, the Hawaiian rising-crust pizza collapses expansive space into its product: it combines elements of Italy (the traditional pizza) and Ontario (the modern invention of the Hawaiian pizza) into one. Its ingredients are from all over the world: dairy, coffee, meat products, plastic, glass, cardboard, and other packaging materials from different places around all come together in the Delissio rising-crust Hawaiian pizza. Furthermore, it is also a point of contact and crossroad of time: tradition meets modern technology. Whereas it was simply toppings on flatbreads in its crudest form, when adopted by Italy it carried a sense of nationalism with it by having its ingredients resemble the Italian flag. Finally, in modern times, it can be homemade and baked on a ceramic pizza stone, purchased assembled and ready to bake from local pizzerias, or comes in the form of unbaked, frozen pizzas like the Delissio rising crust pizza.

Lastly, and most importantly, the Delissio Hawaiian rising crust pizza therefore a point of cultural contact when it intermixes Eastern and Western cultures: originating from Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures, it then is developed in Italy, then finally being transferred to America. It further intermixes cultures when it brings the “Old World” into contact with the “New World”: Canadian-owned Kraft developed this traditional pizza into a modern, frozen product with a singular corporate identity known as “Delissio Pizza.”

Because its hybrid identity contains elements from such a variety of cultures, times, and space, the Hawaiian frozen rising-crust pizza ceases to be just a product that is mass produced but becomes a point of contact: a crossroad where exchanges – and changes – happen.

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