First, man discovered fire. Then a bunch of random stupid unimportant stuff happened. Then, man discovered pizza delivery. And Serious Eats takes it from there, with a fantastic rundown of the evolution of man's greatest achievement in food transportation.
Did you know, for instance, that pizzas have been carried from one point to another since as long ago as the early 1800s? The tiny copper containers of our forbearers gave way, a century later, to rudimentary paper and twine. Adorable, sure, but not practical. In fact, it was just a brief prelude to the post-WWII Pizza Boom:
The post-WWII years exposed millions of American GI's to pizza in Italy, so interest dramatically increased upon their return home. In the 1940's, lots of pizza purveyors offered take-out pies. The pizza would sit on a stiff corrugated base, which could slide snugly into a large paper bag. The bag's thin structure would allow steam to escape but only at the price of heat loss.
Thanks, Mussolini!
The real hero of our story, though? Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, who worked with a Detroit-based company called Triad Containers to develop the first modern-era corrugated pizza coffin that's still used today to get your pie from Point A to Point Mouth.
It's a terrific read, a glimpse into our culinary history. Or at least the delicious, greasy, triangular corner. [Serious Eats]