Pizza-loving expats in Costa Rica

On my monthly relocation tours my clients inevitably ask me questions about local foods. I explain to them that in additional tico staples like gallo pinto (rice and beans and spices), there is a whole gamut of international cuisine available here of which pizza is the most popular with both Costa Ricans and foreigners.

Few people know that February 9th is World Pizza Day and that today more pizza is sold in the world than hamburgers.

Of course, chains like Papa Johns, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars and Domino’s abound. However, there are hundreds of privately owned pizzerias all over the country where home-made versions of this popular dish are prepared and sold. For example, (Red Door), located in San Jose’s Los Yoses neighborhood, makes some of the best pizzas I have ever tasted. My son ordered a couple of them for our half-time Super Bowl feast. Absolutely delicious!

Here are some interesting facts about this universally popular product.

Naples Italy is where this popular dish was born and is considered the pizza capital off the world. This Italian city is not only famous for pizza but Mount Vesuvius that erupted in 79 AD and destroyed the city ancient city of Pompeii and surrounding towns in the area. Vesuvius has erupted many times since then. It is the only volcano on Europe’s mainland to have erupted in the last hundred years. It is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.

Modern pizza evolved from similar flatbread dishes in Naples, Italy, in the 18th or early 19th century. At first, Italians ate a simple pizza with a dough base and without tomato sauce. The toppings were olive oil, herbs, garlic, onions and olives.

Tomatoes were a new world crop and eventually found their way to Italy which lead to the birth of pizza sauce. When Columbus first landed in the Caribbean, he stumbled upon unfamiliar foods. It’s hard to imagine, but Christopher Columbus—an Italian—had never seen tomatoes. Why? because they’re indigenous to the Americas. And to think that at first, most Italians believed that tomatoes were poisonous.

In 2017 Unesco named Neopolitan pizza as a part of the World Heritage.

Bottom Line: Expats who relocate here will not have to do without pizza.