Pizza, Pizza!

When we first moved to Rome a colleague of mine who was leaving said you know they cannot even make decent pizza here. I was very surprised by this blanket statement. Did the Italian not invent the pizza? Did they loose the recipe somewhere? How could this be, how could Italians not make something that is quintessentially associated with Italy. But this was not the end of it, I quickly discovered other colleagues who did not like the Italian food served in Italy.

Now that was quite the surprised, one colleague upon arriving a few months after me with her 2 kids, well let's say adult teenagers declared that Italy had the worst Lasagna in the world. Now in this case she had ordered lasagna in a well known restaurant where I had been myself several times.  So I asked in a state of bewilderment what did she mean, what happened I said to her. She proceeded to explain that in Canada they had a tradition of having dinner at 5pm promptly. Oh, I said, knowing that in Italy at that hour of the day most people are at work or having an aperitivo usually a glass of Prosecco, dinner is later usually around 8pm or 9pm.

She then went on to described her lasagna experience. She explained that the dish had veal instead of beef and not much of it, it was more like a creamy cheese tomato sauce not at all like hers which even if you shake the plate would stand tall and firm like a tower that you cut with a knife. I see I said, there was nothing else on the menu she recognized so foreign these Italian dishes were from what we have in Canada. She was convinced that in Italy all they had on the menu was pasta dishes and nothing else.  She was taken aback by the offer of beef, veal and lamb and then the various fish and seafood dishes. Italian cuisine is varied to say the least and depends a lot on the region for specialities.

So my colleague who so disliked Pizza in Italy did so because it was not loaded with ingredients and meat like in Canada. Pizza was historically speaking a food for the poor, invented in Campania to feed those who could not afford anything else, essentially a flat hot piece of bread with one topping, usually a bit of tomato sauce or a bit of green and mushrooms. Just enough to satisfy the appetite and sold on street corners for pennies.

Pizza with truffles and figs with ricotta cheese.

Pizza in Italy is sold in many different ways from small family owned shops. It may come in a big square pan with different toppings known as Pizza al Taglio meaning it is cut in square pieces and you buy a square the size of your hand or more with the toppings you want. It is also made in a pan a meter long and sold by weight Pizza alla pala. You may also find it in circular dishes and sold in triangle wedge Pizza Americana, but this is more rare. Or again in a Pizzeria your pizza is the size of a round dinner plate Pizza Tonda, always cooked in a wood burning oven this is a point of dogma and is followed carefully by Italians.

Pizza wedge with prosciutto 

Small Pizzette, one bite pizza

Other style of Pizza are Calzone, pizza Genovese, pizza foggiana,(Foggia, Puglia) pizza siciliana, pizza marchigiana (Marche region) and panzerotto (stuffed similar to a calzone). There is also the pizzette and pizzelle, (small dollar size pizza).

But there is more, in Rome a Pizza Napoletana is topped with tomato, mozzarella and fresh anchovies.
Order it in Naples and it comes without the mozzarella and is seasoned with oregano and garlic, it is also called Marinara even though it has nothing to do with the Mare (sea).
Not to forget that your pizza comes either Alta (high) typical of Naples or Bassa (thin or low crust) typical of Rome.

You cannot find any of this in Canada, so this is why my colleagues were so confused.