Scugnizzo

Neapolitan · pronounced skoo-NYEET-tsoh

Historically, the Neapolitan boy who carried pizzas through the streets in a stufa — a small tin stove balanced on the head — selling them door to door and on credit. The word matters here because it records what pizza actually was in 19th-century Naples: a food sold by poor children to poor buyers, often on deferred payment.