Here in America, we celebrate an array of both serious and ridiculous holidays. October, in particular, is observed as Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Domestic Violence Awareness Month. While these are both extremely important issues that deserve to be recognized, October is also less popularly known for something that deserves some serious attention: National Pizza Month.
Yes, you read that right. This isn't a drill people; this is the real thing. October is nationally observed as pizza month in the United States.
A brilliant man named Gerry Durnell, the founder of Pizza Today magazine first observed pizza month in 1984. The idea of the magazine was mostly to drum up business for his small-town pizzeria in Santa Claus, Indiana. By releasing the magazine and creating a national holiday, Durnell was able to successfully build a name for himself and his delicious creations.
In honor of this glorious month, here are some random pizza facts that will most likely never prove useful in any conversation.
- The top 5 pizza sales days are: Super Bowl Sunday, New Year's Eve, Halloween, the night before Thanksgiving and New Year's Day
- Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza a day, or about 350 slices per second
- Each person in America eats about 46 pizza slices per year
- The largest pizza ever made was 122 ft. 8 in. in diameter. The pizza needed 9,920 lbs of flour, 198 lbs of salt, 3,968 lbs of cheese, and 1,984 lbs of tomato puree
- The world's fastest pizza maker can make 14 pizzas in 2 minutes and 35 seconds
- Eating pizza once a week can reduce the risk of esophageal cancer
- The most expensive pizza created was made by the restaurateur Domenico Crolla, who created a $2,745 Valentine pizza, including toppings such as sun-dried tomato sauce, Scottish smoked salmon, venison medallions, edible gold, lobster marinated in fine cognac, and champagne-soaked caviar.
Now go get some pizza and celebrate, because we all know you want to. Later, skater.
Facts source: http://pizza.com/fun-facts
