I thought it is Europe, because I don't ever remember pizzas from American chains such as Pizza Hut had any sauces like mayonnaise, thousand sauce etc on the toppings, in the very old days. Neither did American chains-inspired Asian pizza chains.

So I'm taking that the original pizzas in Italy didn't have sauces on top on toppings. And neither did the American variations, and not even the multinational chain pizzas. This leaves Europe or Australia as a possibility. And I think Europe is more likely.


6 comments

  1. I remember seeing bottles for specific pizza sauces in Norwegian grocery stores.

  2. Only thing you could call a sauce I’ve ever seen on top of a finished pizza is some chili oil.

  3. It’s a big thing in Norway, not sure if we “invented” it 😀

  4. I know that Scandinavia (seemingly) have their own pizza ecosystem, distinct from Italy and the US.

    But I can only think of three common topping sauces here in Sweden:

    * Kebab sauce – Fermented dairy (e.g. yoghurt, sour cream, etc) with herbs and spices.
    * Garlic sauce – Like above, but with lot of garlic. 
    * Béarnaise sauce – Usually only on beef tenderloin pizzas.

  6. [apparently garlic sauce as a dip for pizza is as old as Papa Johns is (from the 80s),](https://www.eater.com/2017/7/27/16021832/pizza-dipping-sauce-papa-johns-garlic-dominos-sauce) i can only imagine sauce on top of toppings is just an evolution of that – especially considering you’d get the dipping sauce in squeeze bottles from the supermarket, and it’d only be natural for people at home to start putting it directly on pizza rather than as a dip

    but yeah mayo and thousand island sauce on pizza would probably be sacrilege to traditional pizzolos

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