National Pepperoni Pizza Day

September 20th is National Pepperoni Pizza Day in the United States.

Pizza itself is an Italian dish that consists of a base, usually round, flattened and made from wheat-based dough, that can be topped with a range of toppings. Most pizzas use cheese and tomato as the basic toppings, called the cheese pizza or margherita, but others can be added.

The pepperoni pizza is more of a U.S. creation than an Italian one, and in the U.S., it is often called a sausage pizza. Outside the U.S., this is less typical, for "sausage" is not a term used to describe pepperoni. Pepperoni is an American salami that is made from cured pork and beef and seasoned with paprika or other chilli pepper. For a pepperoni pizza, the salami is sliced thinly.

Image: Pink Sherbet Photography from USA / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

National Sausage Pizza Day

October 11th is National Sausage Pizza Day in the United States.

Pizza is always a popular dish and there are a whole range of toppings that can be put on them if you desire. Practically anything, in fact, although some are more popular than others - and there are always some toppings that people will think are a horrible idea.

Today the topping is sausage (usually with the other standards, such as cheese and tomato), which is apparently a topping strongly linked with the Chicago pizza.

The sausage topping is not what people in some other countries, such as the UK, would consider to be a sausage, even though they technically are. Rather than the traditional British sausage, a sausage pizza tends to use those of other countries. Consequently, this type of pizza in the UK would be more commonly known by such names as pepperoni and salami, rather than sausage, so anyone expecting to get an old fashioned banger on this pizza is probably going to be disappointed. Not that you couldn't use such as a topping if you wanted to.