It’s a mixed metaphor, but if there is a Mecca for pizza, it is Naples. Pizza in Naples is far more than food: it is culture, art, history and, yes, even law. So precious is the art of making pizza that in 2009, the European Union adopted standards and guidelines that must be followed if you are calling your pizza “Neapolitan.” Technically, even if you live in New York City, you should be following the guidelines.
Now, if you are in New York City and if you do follow the guidelines, you will get grand pizza. And I you follow this book at home, you can make wonderful pizza, too.
Wonderful but will it be Neapolitan? Not exactly. You need the water, the flour, and those enormous 1000° Neapolitan ovens to produce the Naples product. It’s that thing called terroir and is why the “same” dish will taste differently from one country, one city, even one street compared to another.
A few years ago, Suzi and I spent a few days in Naples with Charles and Michele Scicolone on a pizza tour. Famed cookbook author Michele was writing a magazine article on pizza, and we were assisting by tasting. Lunch and afternoon and dinner were all pizza all over the city. I really welcome this book to give us deep insights into those incredible pizza memories.
Eleven prominent pizza chefs from Naples have contributed to the forty recipes in Real Pizza. The simple tips and guidance here reflect the experience of those eleven plus the expertise that developed over the past centuries. Pizza may be the most cooked and the most perfected dish on the planet.
What kind of secrets and tips will you find? Here’s one: your dough needs water and you want that water to be moderately hard. Your tap water at home may work, or, you may need to use bottled water to get that perfect dough every pizza eater worships.
There’s an urban myth that a Neapolitan pizza only comes in about three versions, that it is a sin to have “the wrong” ingredients. In Real Pizza you will find “the” recipe for classic Margherita pizza. But there is variety here, great variety. The picture at the bottom of this post is pear pizza, a fall wonder. Aside from cheese and basil and mozzarella and San Marzano tomatoes, other ingredients employed in the recipes here include:
- Olives
- Capers
- Anchovy
- Rocket Arugula
- Grape Tomatoes
- Cherry Tomatoes
- Garlic
- Walnuts
- Pecorino
- Artichokes
- Red Onion
- Spreadable Pork Sausage
- Mushrooms
- Escarole
- Scallions
- Salami
- Smoked Bacon
- Canned Tuna
- Prosciutto
- Filling of pork and rapini
- Seafood Sauté of clams, mussels, and squid
Oh, goodness no, these all won’t go on top of the same pizza. You’d need about 30 pies to use all this bounty. But, this does mean that you could make pizza every day for a month and probably never duplicate the experience. And, then you just repeat and bake and enjoy month after month. During the course of the seasons, the tomatoes, the cheese, the veggies and the proteins will surely change in flavor and intensity. No two pizzas are ever the same. But if you follow the intelligence of Real Pizza, every pizza you make will be memorable.
