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La Pizza in It aliaLa Pizza in It alia

To talk about pizza let’s start with the melting pot of the Internet. A Google search shows that the word pizza comes out on top (approximately 234,000,000 results), with “Hamburger” at 163,000,000 and “Spaghetti” 172,000,000), testimony to the popularity – virtual in this instance – of this much-loved food whose origins are still unclear. Antonio Pace, President of Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana – AVPN (Real Neapolitan Pizza Association), is convinced that not everyone knows the history of the pizza: “It’s only right to remember how in the 1980s Americans believed that [pizza] was a typical U.S. foodstuff and the Japanese wanted to know what pizza was called in Italy.”

What we know for certain is that the name “pizza” goes way back in time. It appears in tenth-century medieval documents, but also has roots outside the Italian Peninsula, having been influenced by Goth and Longobard words such as bissa and bizza (meaning “bite”; bissen in modern German), which invaders of the peninsula gave to the focaccia bread (without a topping) that the Italians were accustomed to eating, the impoverished food of a people who had not been wealthy for centuries.

Modern pizza has an ancient past, as demonstrated by myriad literary references. For instance, the Roman poet Virgil, in his famous Latin epic poem “Aeneid”, describes how Aeneas was obliged to eat his mensa so as not to die of hunger: mensa was a type of oven-baked bread made from wheat and was used as a base for the topping, anticipating the modern gourmet pizza trend. The great encyclopaedist Pliny the Elder, in his work Naturalis Historia, lists the recipes of two types of focaccia: pastillus (bran and must) and offa (water and barley). In Petronius’ Satyricon, on the other hand, we read repeated mentions of an unusual focaccia called placenta (from Ancient Greek plax, meaning flattened surface).

Another forbear might be the Testarolo, typical of the Ancient Roman city area of Luni, in the

L A PIZZA I N ITALIA

History and Cult of Pizza

Japanese wanted to know what pizza was called in Italy


Massa e Carrara province, regarded by some as the oldest dried pasta in the world, given that it was documented at the time of the Roman Empire. Testaroli are made from wheat flour (farro, or spelt, most likely, in Ancient Roman times), salt and water, and look like very thin rounds. The name originates from the container/oven in which they are cooked: the “testo”. Modern testaroli are traditionally served with a very famous Italian sauce, pesto alla genovese, which is used as a pizza topping in its own right.

In addition to these ancestors of the pizza, we could add one more theory. Relatively recently a grinding stone, pestle and hot stone were unearthed in an archaeological dig near Bilancino, in Tuscany. Further analysis under a digital microscope and radiocarbon dating revealed traces of starch that went back to 28,000 BCE.

The oldest flour in the world therefore dates to 30,000 years ago. Archaeologists, not content with the scientific evidence (the first “grinding stone” to make the earliest “flour”), reproduced a primitive focaccia, a distant relative of bread and therefore also today’s pizza. They dried typha roots, a common wetland species, grinding them to make a “flour” used to make crackers that were cooked on a hot stone like the one found at the Bilancino archaeological site.

Closer to our time, it is worth remarking that the Campana bread-making tradition – Naples is the capital of the Campania region – has millennium-old roots. Ovens were unearthed at the Pompeii archaeological site, which date back to the fifth century BCE and share the same design as today’s traditional pizza ovens in Naples, deemed essential by pizza makers whose art has been recognized by UNESCO as “intangible cultural heritage of humanity” (2017).

From archaeology we move to literature to seek out other testimonies. French writer Alexandre



Ovens were unearthed at the Pompeii archaeological site, which date back to the fifth century BCE


Dumas visited Naples in 1835 and was enchanted by pizza and by the fact that Neapolitans lived, almost exclusively it seemed to him, on pizza and watermelon alone.

Far older Italian literary references exist, however. The novella “Le doie pizzelle” (Lo cunto de li cunti, 1634-36) is a tale of magic and deception with pizzella as the lead character. (Pizzella is fried pizza, not the more widespread wood-fired pizza.)

The word “pizza” appeared formally in Naples in the first half of the sixteenth century. At the wedding breakfast between Bona Sforza, daughter of Gian Galeazzo, and Sigismondo I, King of Poland, white pizzas and “pagonazze” pizzas were served (it is supposed they were so richly topped that the guests became “blue in the face” – “paonazzi” in Italian), as well as “fiorentine” pizzas (namely, sweet pies).

It should be noted that Pellegrino Artusi’s pivotal publication on the history of Italian gastronomy La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene – the first edition dates to 1891 – catalogues 790 recipes but only one of them is dedicated to pizza, Recipe 609 to be precise. The “pizza alla napoletana” narrated by the supreme gourmet from Romagna will leave you puzzled as it is a recipe that resembles the dessert pastiera napoletana rather than a beloved pizza margherita (or marinara!).

Another conflicting note is the schiacciata alla pizzaiuola mentioned by Enrico Alliata, Duke of Salaparuta (1879-1946), a leading winemaker and food enthusiast, in his book Cucina Vegetariana e Naturismo Crudo, in which he sets down more than 1,000 “recipes chosen from every village”. The only trace, a very distant relative of our much-loved pizza, is the nineteenth-century schiacciata alla pizzaiuola, which proves surprising with its pastry base no. 546 (a sweet shortcrust pastry!)



An art recognized by UNESCO too


topped with provolone, scamorza and mozzarella cheeses, tomato, garlic and oregano, baked in the oven for half an hour.

The Duke’s schiacciata alla pizzaiola, with its sweet shortcrust base, brings to mind the pizza napoletana described by Bartolomeo Scappi, Pope Pius V’s personal chef, in his 1570 work, whose recipe instructs us to pound in a mortar almonds, pine nuts, dates, fresh figs and sultanas, adding rose water to obtain a paste that could be mixed with egg yolks, sugar, cinnamon and grape must. It was spread on a 3cm thick sheet and baked, without forgetting that “all sorts of toppings can be used on this pizza”.

Naples is certainly the widely documented cradle of the modern pizza. It is home to the earliest eateries dedicated to the making and eating of pizza, the first “pizzerie”, or “pizzarie” as the famous Neapolitan poet, playwright and essayist Salvatore Di Giacomo liked to call them. The oldest official document dates to 1792, which cites one Giuseppe Sorrentino who had rented a space in Naples’ Loreto neighbourhood and had requested from the Ministry of the General Police the issuance of a permit to conduct a “pizzaria” business.

Some old pizzerias are still operational today and, in order to safeguard this Neapolitan culinary heritage, on 13 December 2016 the Unione Pizzerie Storiche Napoletane “Le Centenarie” was formed by 10 historic pizza restaurants that have been baking the city’s best pizzas for more than 100 years.

When we talk about pizza in Naples it’s obvious that we are referring to a centuries-old tradition and that it is something taken seriously. Aided by waves of Italian migration, including many Neapolitans, in the late nineteenth century, the first pizza ovens to win over the USA began burning in the bigger cities, where Italian communities were widely represented. In San Francisco,



Naples is certainly the widely documented cradle of

the modern pizza


Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, pizza was sold in the streets of “Little Italy” with respect for tradition given its nature as cheap and fast street food. The traditional stufa, a copper cylinder with handles and a lid, which was used to transport the pizzas, keeping them hot, made its first appearance in the streets of Chicago. Later, pizza also started to make its way into coffee shops and drugstores.

The first authorized pizzeria in the USA was founded in New York in 1905 and is still open today: Lombardi. Chicago played a key role in the history of pizza in the USA: deep-dish pizza dates to 1943 and was invented by Pizzeria Uno, still thriving.

It would therefore seem clear that pizza also boasts a centuries-old tradition in the USA and that it is taken equally seriously there. The paternity of pizza has even appeared before the Court of Historical Review and Appeals, in San Francisco. This is not a real tribunal whose verdicts bear legal weight; the judges are called upon for opinions about historic matters, having listened to the counterparties gathered out of respect like in an actual trial. In May 1991, the dispute among certain scholars ended up before the court to establish who invented the pizza as we know it today.

The president George T. Choppelas, a composed San Francisco municipal court judge, gave equal consideration to the opposing theories, asking witnesses and speakers to pose their arguments. Annie Soo, a representative of the Chinese Historical Society, supported the theory that pizza was a direct descendent of the Chinese ping tse, which was made for the son of the Chinese Empress back in the thirteenth century: “prepared of sweet rice flour and topped with a variety of delicacies and spices”. The recipe for Chinese ping tse is a very distant relative of the food we are used to calling pizza, although it is reminiscent of the pizza described by Bartolomeo Scappi in his 1570 text.



The first authorized pizzeria in the USA was founded in New York in 1905


Counteracting the Chinese hypothesis was Maurice Saint Yves, a supporter of “Mediterraneity” and, specifically, the Italian ownership of the pizza. He affirmed that pizza was known and eaten regularly in Italy 3,000 years ago, that its modern name derives from the Latin picea, meaning “of tar”, hence something flat and hot, and indicated that it was cooked on a boiling-hot plate.

The president of this distinguished “court”, Judge Choppelas, put forward his own hypothesis that there might have been an Etruscan co-responsibility in the creation of the recipe. The verdict was delivered on 28 May 1991, whereby the Court of Historical Review and Appeals found in favour of Maurice Saint Yves’ theory that pizza is Italian.

On the strength of this influential ruling we can affirm, reasonably safely, that pizza has old local origins in Naples but that it has become a glocal phenomenon and those who born and bred in other places around the world will have their own idea of what pizza is. New Yorkers and Chicagoans have their own concepts of what constitutes a good pizza, eaten among friends.

But when we talk about Neapolitan pizza, are we sure that we are talking a dish that is absolutely the same anywhere in the city of Naples? The journalist and writer Luciano Pignataro recently defined seven subtypes (or “schools”) of pizza Napoletana, all of which share a common characteristic: pizza must not be “bread-like” (if it is, then it’s a focaccia), it must successfully balance tomato, mozzarella, oil and the flour in the dough in an even blend of all the ingredients.

Here are the categories proposed by Pignataro: • The classic cartwheel pizza (slightly bigger than the plate)

The classic pizza for “gentlemen” (elegant, more mozzarella)• Neighbourhood pizzas (every quarter has its own style)



7 subtype of Neapolitan Pizza

have been identified


• The new “pizza napoletana” (focus on high-quality ingredients)• High-hydration pizzas (focus on elasticity of dough)• Rossopomodoro style (named for the pizza restaurant chain that began in Naples and now

vaunts a hundred or so locations worldwide) “a pizza e bancarella” or “a portafoglio” (folded and eaten)

Returning to more recent times another generous Neapolitan tradition warrants a mention: pizza a ogge a otto or pizza sospesa, meaning the possibility, for the hungry or the needy to eat pizza – we should call it pizzella, for the sake of precision, since it was a fried pizza filled with ricotta – and pay for it eight days later.

A famous film scene is dedicated to this gesture of social solidarity in which Sofia Loren plays the part of a comely pizza maker. The “pizza for credit” scene in the 1954 movie The Gold of Naples is a story of love and betrayal set at a Naples takeaway pizzeria in the Materdei neighbourhood. The pizzeria is as famous for its pizzas on credit as it is for Sofia Loren’s beauty.

This tradition was revived recently by a young Neapolitan pizza maker in the city’s Sanità area, who accepted payment for a “suspended” pizza from his diners. The custom has even gone transatlantic. At Philadelphia’s Rosa’s Fresh Pizza customers can pay for a “suspended” pizza and the poor can avail of it, leaving a coloured post-it note as a thank-you. In just one year about 10,000 notes have been left.

As further testimony to the humble origins of pizza, in Naples, the words of Salvatore di Giacomo tell us that there was a family who were regular customers at a Neapolitan “pizzaria” who had an arrangement with the pizza maker. For them he would set aside all the leftover crusts



Pizza must notbe “bread-like”


that other diners had not eaten as a means of sustenance for this family in dire straits. There is also the 1835 story of how the King of Naples, Ferdinand II, went to eat incognito at a “pizzaria” and then ordered an oven so that pizzas could be cooked at the royal palace.

They might seem to be over the top, but these stories and current affairs help to reconstruct the past. However, what could pizza and lobster possibly have in common? Strangely, there are overlaps because pizza was once delivered to the inmates of Alcatraz.

Vincenzo Esposito had a store at the San Francisco harbour serving prisoners’ families who took free pizza to the jail. The great American writer David Foster Wallace, in his accomplished essay “Consider the Lobster”, explains how lobster was a poor man’s food up until the nineteenth century in the USA. A specific prison bylaw forbade lobster to be served to jailbirds more than once a week as it was regarded as cruel as it would be to force them to eat rat. It is interesting to note how lobster is now comparatively rare and undoubtedly expensive and how pizza, a cheap, popular food, can sometimes become extremely luxurious: the most expensive pizza in the world (squid ink dough base topped with stilton, foie gras, caviar and gold leaves) is a mainstay on the menu at New York’s Industry Kitchen for the modest sum of $2,700 (Guinness World Records 2017).

Last but not least, there is another interesting story to describe the dynamics of how pizza moved from Campania to Northern Italy in the 1950s and ‘60s. Many people left the small town of Tramonti in the Salerno province to consolidate the pizza business in the north, copying their fellow countrymen including Luigi Giordano, later dubbed Gigino ‘o milionario because of the financial success of his Pizzeria A Marechiaro, in Loreto (Novara), convincing many (estimates say in the range of 650) of his kith and kin to leave Tramonti to invade Northern Italy, thereby



What could pizza and lobster possibly

have in common?


helping to spread the tradition of pizza alla tramontana.

On 26 April 2010, pizza alla tramontana became safeguarded by a De.Co (a municipal denomination), listed in a specific policy document that favours the use of selected local tomatoes, DOP Colline Salernitane oil and Tramonti fior di latte mozzarella.

It seems clear that pizza is ingrained in the history of the Campania region, and Naples in particular, and that it is nevertheless a glocal food. After all, tomatoes, a key ingredient, came to Italy from America. In recent years, we have been seeing a revolution in quality in the world of pizza, the positive outcome of which is that there is more pizza – better pizza – for everyone.



In recent years, we have been seeing a revolution in quality in the worldof pizza

La Pizza oggiLa Pizza oggi

Pizza is now a transnational food, eaten almost every day and everywhere in the world, an inexpensive moment among friends and one of the few specialities whose name remains the same, in Italian, wherever you may be.

Pizza has become international, contrary to the prophecy made by a famous Neapolitan author, Matilde Serao, who in 1884 declared that pizza would and should remain a phenomenon rooted to the place where it was invented, namely the city of Naples: “pizza, removed from its Neapolitan environment, seemed to clash and symbolized indigestion”. Her prediction did not come true: the unquestionable tastiness and the versatility of pizza have contributed towards extending the favourite food to the four corners of the earth.

If you need proof about the popularity of pizza, evidence came from the global commercial that went live in 2014 at the Oscars, held at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre. In the middle of the solemn ceremony a Domino’s delivery man started handing out pizzas to the likes of silver screen icons Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep, who enjoyed a slice in worldwide broadcast.

The official photographer to the White House, and therefore also to the President of the United States, Pete Souza has definitely contributed to pizza’s international fame. During the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, Souza took two million photographs and he has since published some of the best ones. There’s one of President Obama in a restaurant, sharing a pizza with some of his colleagues. Kudos to POTUS, who stuck to tradition, eating pizza with his hands and not with a knife and fork!

As further testimony to the celebrity of pizza and the entrenching of its tradition, we just need to mention the 2014 Pizzagate that went vital on the Internet. The Mayor of New York, Bill De

L A PIZZA OGG I

What’s the pizza today, worlwide

Kudos to POTUS, who stuck to tradition, eating

pizza with his hands!


Blasio, dared to eat pizza (at Staten Island’s Goodfellas) with a knife and fork, provoking purists who say that pizza should only be eaten with the hands. This blasphemy sparked an aftermath of controversy. A famous Neapolitan pizza maker seized the opportunity to invite the mayor to inaugurate his New York pizzeria, culminating in a photo of De Blasio eating pizza, this time, as tradition dictates, with his hands.

Let’s look at the figures to understand the pizza phenomenon worldwide.

The global pizza market is estimated to make a turnover of approximately 62 billion euro from an estimated total of 5 billion pizzas a year.

There are approximately 72,000 pizzerias and Italian restaurants worldwide.

But which country eats the most pizzas?

Americans come out on top, eating more pizza than any other country in the world, namely 13kg of pizza/year per inhabitant. Every day about 13% of Americans eat pizza, which means that 350 slices of pizza are eaten every second, totalling approximately 35 billion euro. Norwegians weigh in in second place (some sources claim that Norwegians eat even more pizza than the U.S.), with Italians far behind (7.6kg) followed by Canadians (7.5kg).

The world’s biggest pizza retailer is an American multinational: Pizza Hut, operating in 90 countries (but not in Italy!).

Domino's Pizza is the world leader in home delivery: 5,500 stores in 46 countries and a turnover of approximately $2.8 billion in 2017.

L A PIZZA OGG I


There are approximately 72,000 pizzerias and Italian restaurants worldwide.


Frozen pizza also requires a mention, whose global market is currently worth $11.1 billion (2016) and is expected to expand to $17.2 billion by 2023; in the U.S. alone 2 billion slices of frozen pizza are eaten every year.

Back to pizza gossip, and the hard stance taken by the Icelandic President Guoni Johannesson on the thorny question of Hawaiian pizza (topped with pineapple) and the subsequent fallout on social media. To this end, it should be recalled how the famous Italian gourmand Rosario Buonassisi was invited, in 1975, to test a pizzeria that we can firmly pigeonhole in the “gourmet” category (when pizza was still simply popular in nature). He was served a gorgonzola and pineapple pizza paired with a specific wine (Orvieto Classico). Astonished, probably embarrassed and already imagining that he wasn’t going to enjoy the topping (“If you don’t like it, we’ll bring you one that you like! ” the owner reassured him), Buonassisi ate it and, to his surprise, he enjoyed it! The pizzeria’s proprietor explained to him that he had sought inspiration from the food and wine traditions of the Oltrepò Pavese area, where it was normal to pair gorgonzola with the sweet, sparkling Moscato produced locally.

So, that’s how a trailblazing gourmet pizza chef invented a sort of Hawaiian pizza, whose origins lie in the culinary traditions of northwest Italy with a fusion twist given that pineapple is atypical for the area. While we are on the subject of typicity, or rather pineapple on pizza, did you know that the Hawaiian, topped with ham and pineapple, is very popular in western U.S. as well as in Australia, Canada and Sweden, but curiously not in Hawaii?

Regarding innovations in the field of pizza, we should also mention the recent Netf lix documentary on pizza starring the famous chef David Chang. In the first episode of Ugly Delicious (February 2018), devoted to pizza, Chang eats a Japanese pizza topped with tuna and mayonnaise

L A PIZZA OGG I


In the U.S. alone 2 billion slices of frozen

pizza are eaten every year

La Pizza oggi

invented by the chef Ryu Yoshimura, and surprisingly he really liked it!

In the pizza horror category, how could we forget the creative approach taken by Bill English, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand who on Facebook posted a photo of his pizza topped with tinned spaghetti, which provoked a furious chain reaction on the web. In reference to this creation, there’s a Neapolitan pizzeria, active for more than fifty years, that serves pizzas topped with fusilli pasta, beans and pasta, and the Pulcinella, topped with mezzanelli pasta served in a meat sauce, hard-boiled eggs, sautéed mushrooms, ricotta and fiordilatte cheeses). It would appear that Mr. English unknowingly tapped into a Neapolitan tradition dating back decades!

Like all products exported worldwide, the risk is that pizza could lose its identity, distorting its essence. In 2010, Neapolitan pizza received EU recognition as Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (STG), according to the production guidelines certified by Brussels.

Another important result, safeguarding the historical and territorial identity of the pizza, is the recognition of the "art of Neapolitan pizzaiuoli" as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO obtained in 2017.

While practices aimed at protecting the identity of the pizza are welcome, it is interesting to note that the international fame of our beloved pizza inspired the great Catalan chocolatier Enric Rovira to craft a divertissement. Upon learning the history of the famous pizza margherita, he made a white chocolate bar, shaped like a pizza, featuring basil and tomato.

On the dessert front, I feel compelled to mention the most surprisingly tasty dessert pizza I’ve ever eaten: the crisommola by Franco Pepe, cited by countless guidebooks as the world’s best

L A PIZZA OGG I

What’s the pizza today, worlwideThere’s a Neapolitan pizzeria,

active for more than fifty years, that serves pizzas topped

with fusilli pasta

La Pizza oggi

La Pizza oggi

pizza maker. To try this delicious and well-balanced fried pizza topped with Vesuvius apricot jam, you’ll need to go to his pizzeria Pepe in Grani, in Caiazzo, in the Caserta province, or to his other outpost, nestled in the Franciacorta wine region.

Finally, a jump back in time. When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie – that’s amore are the opening lyrics of the song That’s amore (1953) proved a worldwide advertisement for the symbolic Italian food. The entertaining song was performed, seemingly innocently, by Dean Martin in the 1953 film The Caddy.

L A PIZZA OGG I


When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza piethat's amore!

La Pizza oggi

Homemade PizzaHomemade Pizza

Everyone loves pizza

Everyone loves pizza. It’s a love so universal and transversal that this dish, invented as an inexpensive and filling street food, even works its magic on the more powerful figures in society. As the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton once mentioned, Prince George and Princess Charlotte like to play by mixing water and flour to make pasta dough.

What do we need to make good pizza at home?

Let’s start with the main ingredient:

F LO U RTo make pizza (in a pan), a wheat flour of medium-high strength is recommended, known as

“W” (the index of a flour’s strength), from 250 upwards.

Given that we talk a lot about stone-ground flour and so-called “ancient” grains, it’s worth reiterating how a recent scientific study – not definitive but interesting all the same – by a group of Crea (Council for Research into Agriculture and Agrarian Economics) researchers published in the influential journal Scientific Reports - Nature – reached the conclusion that bread made from “ancient” grains is flavourless or smells better than bread made using flour from “modern” grains. The ancient or modern grain genotype proves important instead in determining the look and texture of the crust and crumb. The cell structure and aromas are mainly influenced by the leavening agent (brewer’s yeast or preferment).

The cooking method (wood-fired or gas oven) plays a marginal role in characterizing the product. What lends flavour and fragrance to the bread therefore mainly comes from how the dough is worked.

H O M E MAD E PIZZA

The ingredients


What do we need to make good pizza at home?

Y E A S TBrewer’s yeast (saccharomyces cerevisiae) is the traditional, easy-to-use leavening agent. In

recent times, preferment or natural yeast has become popular again (a flour and water dough that undergoes spontaneous fermentation drawing on “accelerants” like fruit and honey); these methods are older in origin but prove even harder to manage.

TO M ATOOriginating from the Americas, the tomato first appeared in Europe in the sixteenth century,

initially as an ornamental plant and only later as a component, now considered fundamental, of the Mediterranean diet and, obviously, pizza.

The preferred varieties are Pomodoro S. Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP, Pomodorini di Corbara and Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP.

“Peeled” tomatoes should be drained, then crushed and made uniform by hand.

M OZ Z A R E L L AMozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP, Mozzarella STG Fior di Latte dell’Appennino Meridionale

DOP or other certified fior di latte. Mozzarella, diced or cut into strips, should be drained for at least three hours before placing

it on top of the pizza. You can even squeeze it by hand, if needed.

O I LExtra-virgin olive oil obviously, although one of the most famous and oldest pizzerias in Naples

continues to use seed oil, according to past tradition. The use of butter (see the recipe below) or lard (as is the norm in a long-standing pizzeria on the Sorrento Peninsula) instead of oil is rare.

H O M E MAD E PIZZA

The ingredients

Homemade Pizza

I N G R E D I E N T Sfor 4 people

• 380 g farina “00” or “0” • 266 g acqua• 9 g sale• 9 g olio extravergine di

oliva• 3 g lievito di birra

H OW TO MAKE TH E DOUG H


pizza with his hands!Homemade Pizza

The choice of flour depends on personal taste: a basic flour (“tipo 00” or “0”), which contains at least 12% of protein (the protein content is stated in the nutrition facts label), can yield good results.

Place the yeast in a large bowl and dissolve it in the water. Mix in two-thirds of the flour and knead the dough. Add the remaining flour, salt and extra-virgin olive oil. Knead the dough until it becomes smooth and elastic. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or with a clean, dry cloth and let rest for 15 minutes. Turn the dough onto a work

surface or wooden board and start kneading, folding repeatedly, for 4-5 minutes with 1 or 2 15-minute stops: the end result is a compact and non-sticky dough.

Shape into a ball and place in a container lightly greased with extra-virgin olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap or with a sealed lid and let rest in the coldest part of the fridge overnight. In the morning, the dough should have risen, be compact and loose.

Take the dough and reshape it with a simple 3-point fold to give it a rectangular shape and arrange in the container greased with extra-virgin olive oil with the bottom, the smooth side, facing upwards.

Let rest for another 3 hours. Turn out the dough onto a work surface dusted with reground semolina flour or “00” flour and spread it out gently using your fingertips, starting from the edges and working inwards.

Stretching out the dough slowly and carefully to keep the leavening gases from forming inside, the dough should be spread out without flattening and breaking the bubbles, which are essential for developing the best cell structure when the pizza is cooked.

If the dough is too elastic and hard to spread out, wait 5 minutes to relax the gluten and then begin again.

Preheat the oven to the maximum temperature for at least 30 minutes and grease the pan with extra-virgin olive oil.

Take the dough, leaning it on the back of your hand, shaking off the excess flour.

Lay the dough in the pan, trying gently and carefully to make it meet the edges using your fingertips.

Homemade Pizza


• 9 g extra-virgin olive oil• 300 g peeled tomatoes• 250 g mozzarella

also see the dough section

PIZZA MARG H E R ITA


pizza with his hands!Homemade Pizza

Pizza Margherita was invented in Naples in 1889 by the pizza chef Raffaele Esposito, who during King of Italy Umberto I’s visit to Naples was tasked to present a pizza to Queen Margherita of Savoy in the Royal Palace of Capodimonte. He invented this recipe, which was inspired by the Italian flag, by that time famous around the world. That’s the best-known story of how this pizza came into being, but in actual fact Francesco de Bourcard in his 1858 book “Usi e costumi di Napoli e contorni descritti e dipinti” writes how pizzas were “covered in grated cheese and topped with lard, and a few basil leaves were placed on top. Thin slices of mozzarella are added” and tomatoes are “used sometimes”.

Place the pan on the bottom of the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes at a constant temperature. To check if the pizza is ready, lift up one of the edges with a spatula: if it is damp and too often, it needs to be cooked more; if it is crispy, the pizza is ready.

At this point, when the pizza base is cooked, add the diced mozzarella, which has been drained for at least three hours; squeezed by hand, if needed.

Move the pan as high up as possible in the oven (three-quarters of the way up) and finish cooking at maximum temperature for 3-4 minutes (until the mozzarella has melted).

Homemade Pizza


• 300 g peeled tomatoes• 20 g extra-virgin olive

oil• 3-4 cloves of garlic • 3-4 pinches of oregano• salt, to taste


Homemade Pizza

PIZZA MAR I NARA



Spread out the dough to cover the pan and top evenly with the tomato seasoned with salt and extra-virgin olive oil up to the edges.


Homemade Pizza


• 350 g pumpkin puree • 200 g mozzarella• 10 s l ices g uancia le

(pork cheek), thinly sliced


Homemade Pizza

PU M PKI N AN D GUAN CIALE PIZZA



Spread out the dough to cover the pan and top evenly with the pumpkin puree up to the edges.


At this point, when the pizza base is cooked, add the diced mozzarella and the guanciale. Return to the oven, moving the pan as high up as possible (three-quarters of the way up) and finish cooking at maximum temperature for 3-4 minutes.

Homemade Pizza

I N G R E D I E N T Sfor one pizza

• 50 g sheep’s milk ricotta• 30 g smoked provola• Basil• Fr ied pork r ind (or

cooked ham) • Pepper

To fry2 litres sunflower oil


Homemade Pizza

FR I E D PIZZA



The dough is split into approximately 100 g balls, which are leave to leaven for 4 hours. Use your hands to spread out each ball on a well-floured surface to make 15 cm diameter circles, 0.5 cm thick.

Top the circles putting the ricotta in the centre, a few fried pork rinds, the smoked provola, two basil leaves and a grinding of pepper.

Cover with the remaining dough circles, seal the edges well and use your fingertips to flatten and extend the edges slightly.

Fry the pizzas in plenty of sunflower oil at 180°C for a couple of minutes until golden, making sure they cook completely.

Drain on a double layer of kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil. Eat while very hot!

Homemade Pizza


• 400 g mozzarella fior di latte

• 150 g prosciutto crudo (cut into pieces)

• 75 g butter


Homemade Pizza

WH ITE PIZZA WITH PROSCI UT TO



An unusual recipe that calls for a rare ingredient in the world of pizza: it’s on the menu at an historic pizzeria in Pontecagnano (Pizzeria Negri, established in 1928). Before adding buffalo mozzarella and pieces of prosciutto crudo, dabs of butter are placed on top of the dough to make a gluttonous pizza that pleases the taste buds with its aftertaste of good fat.

Preheat the oven and the pan (or the drip tray) to the maximum temperature for at least 40 minutes.

Move the pan to three-quarters of the height of the oven and bake the pizza for 10-15 minutes.

Top with the butter, add the prosciutto and, lastly, the mozzarella to cover the dough up to the edges. Bake for a few more minutes until the mozzarella has melted evenly.


W h i c h p a n s h o u l d I u s e? Invest in blue iron or aluminium pizza pans and only use them to cook pizza. Alternatively,

use a drip tray.

H ow m u c h d o u g h d o I n e e d fo r m y p a n? For a 40 x 30 cm pizza pan, the rule regarding the ratio between the amount of dough and the

size of the pan is “divide the pan area and add 10% if needed”. Therefore, we would use 600 g of dough for a baking pan of this size.

I s i t p o s s i b l e t o re p l i ca t e N e a p o l i t a n - s t y l e p i z z a a t h o m e?There are small electric ovens (Ø max 35 cm) equipped with pizza stones that reach

temperatures of 400 °C that guarantee results similar – in just 5 minutes – to the “real Neapolitan pizza”, so soft, elastic, easily foldable, with that distinctive flavour that derives from the crust boasting the typical taste of well-risen and nicely baked bread, well balanced with the acidulous flavour of tomatoes that stays thick, in addition to basil and mozzarella for pizza margherita.

TH E SECR E TS O F TH E PIZZA CH E F

Giovanni Santarpia, Maestro di Pizza

La Storia di Ruffino

In 1877 Pontassieve was an area that had just a few stone and brick houses near a bridge and a ring of hills where vines gave way to Olive trees and one or two Cipress trees broke the chain along with numerous small churches with long bell towers that rang out the hours of the day and night.

At that time it took a day of walking steadly to reach the city of Florence. People ate at long noisy wooden tables filled with ceramic and straw bowls together with white napkins with red and white squares around Tuscan bread, made without using salt and big straw flasks for wine. Glasses were short and stout and dark, impossible to see through and Chianti was served in them. Welcome at any meal from the morning breakfasts before people went out to work the fields to rushed lunches hidden from the heat of the sun with large straw hats and red skin peeling and sweaty from the heat and fatigue of the day. It was also welcome at night during the long dinners that were filled with stories and anecdotes. During those days, the history of Italy was written by families and Chianti served to quench their thirst.

During that year in Pontassieve, Ruffino was born between the train line that went from Florence to Rome, the road that led to Arezzo called the “Aretina” and quite close to the river Sieve that joins the Arno nearby Ruffino, was the name of two gentleman from Tuscany, Ilario and Leopoldo Ruffino who liked wine from the beginning.

The French in Bordeaux in 1895 gave Ruffino a gold medal which was import also because it was given abroad. Great artists were also fans, Maestro Giuseppe Verdi complained in a letter that his preferred wine was not delivered within the time frame expected. Common folk the world over sought out Chianti as well – the flavors that reminded them of their home or Italy.

1913 was an important year for the area near Florence when the railroad line between

L A STO R IA D I RU FFI N O


La Storia di RuffinoLa Storia di Ruffino


Historical and cultural importance of pizza

Pontassieve and Borgo San Lorenzo opened, one of the first in Italy. It opened with a celebration and 30 bottles of wine from the special vintage of 1878. The year was complex for Ruffino because it was the first time one felt the winds of war. Ilario and Leopoldo both were in poor health without heir so they decided to sell the company to another family - the Folonari family from Brescia.

With the Folonari family, Ruffino gets even stronger. Within a few years, Ruffino is the Italian wine abroad, especially in America during the years of the “Great Gatsby”, when Art Deco and Liberty styles prevailed in Architecture and libertarian views were promoted. One episode that makes clear what the times were like is that during Prohibition, Ruffino was sold in pharmacies as an “anti-stress medicine.”

In 1924, in Radda in Chianti, Siena, the black rooster Consortium (Gallo Nero) was created in order to promote and protect the wines from Chianti Classico. In 1932, the Consorzio Vino Chianti was created with a different logo, of a putto but that logo has long disappeared.

Chianti and Chianti Classico are the wines that were created and around which Ruffino has built its identity, wines from its home, its hills: the creation of the Riserva Ducale in 1927 came from this idea to celebrate their terroir.

The symbol of this desire is the birth of the celebrated Riserva Ducale, the wine most closely associated with and representative of Ruffino.

In reality, the story of the Riserva Ducale began a few years earlier and was we should spend just a few minutes on that. Even in the days when wine was created as primarily another element in the food chain, when white and red grapes were mixed together and it was used as a way to fortify a tired body rather than as a special beverage, Ruffino, even then, would hold back some



bottles and forget about them in the cellar in order to see how the wine aged.

These older wines caught the eye the Duca d’Aosta, a nobleman who was in love with wine. His passion for this “stravecchio” led his to name Ruffino the official provider for his court. In 1927 Ruffino, on the 50th anniversary of its founding, decided to call its most exclusive wine after the Duca who has do admired it and that is why it is called Riserva Ducale. Some 20 years later, n 1947, another wine was added called Riserva Oro which initially had a gold label..

The story of Ruffino is a long and beautiful one that is interlaced, like a woven flask with people and places, images and suggestive views, wine and countries, private tales and public events.

During World War II, Ruffino was heavily bombed because it was near the train lines, hard times for all, as we learn from letters from the Russian front.: one such soldier tells of how he had prepared a special meal to combat the loneliness and cold that included a flask of Ruffino. Sadly the cold made the wine explode, he noted in a letter from the soldier who was lucky enough to make it home.

After the war, Italy has a period of rebirth which then led to what is known as the “economic boom”, large industries promised work and money. Peasants left the farmers where they worked in the Mezzadria system and share croppers and went to work in industries, leaving behind farms with mold and weeds. In the cities, they hoped to have a better life more as ‘gentlemen” and to leave “ a little better” when they arrived in the foggy industrial districts.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Ruffino was famous just like the stars who sought it out . At the winery, there are black and white photos of Sophia Loren, Vittorio De Sica and Marcello Mastroianni visiting the winery (in those days, around 1953, a famous film called la Bella Mugnaia was made

La Storia di RuffinoLa Storia di Ruffino



in Pontassieve and a trip to Ruffino was a part of everyone’s stay in the area. Smiling with flasks in their hands, one could find both farmers and the stars that were usually seen on the via Veneto in Roma, in the haunts of Dolce Vita, where Ruffino was already famous and requested as an expression of Italian good taste. A famous advertisement on carosello from the 1950s recalled the beauty of life in the Tuscan countryside thanks to a “sip” of Chianti Ruffino.

Buongusto italiano was identified with the expensive products such as the Riserva Ducale and Riserva Ducale Oro but also with the Chianti in a 1.5 liter flask that had made Ruffino so famous.

The flask with its thick waist and straw covering was created thanks to the style of glass. It is the story of that flask that is imbedded in the long tradition that stretches back centuries.

It had its origins in the Renaissance when the flask was used as a container throughout Italy. Boccaccio mentions the flask in the Decameron while Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio also painted it in scenes of daily life.

In the period after the war until the 1960s, the importance of the flask in the history of Florence and its surroundings and in Ruffino’s history is fundamental. Around Ruffino, a community was created. In Pontassieve there was a famous glassworks that produced the bottles and many women from the town and from nearby towns in the 50 km range worked to interlace the straw on a daily basis. Their quick and careful work was necessary in order to protect the bottles from exploding in the sun.

On November 4, 1966, another historic event hit Florence and Ruffino: after many days of continuous and violent rain, the Arno and the Sieve overran their banks, flooding the city. People rushed in from all over the world in order to help save the works of art, monuments and



paintings. They were known as the “angels of the mud”. Ruffino was also heavily damaged with many of its bottles found floating in the river. One of these bottles was recently found and is today left as a testament to those terrible days.

In 1975, Ruffino decided to give its flask a new look and it changed the bottle of its Chianti. Thus the “Florentine bottle” was born, created in order to follow the tradition of the famed flask.

In 1984, one of the worst harvests of the century and the coldest winter on record, Chianti was given DOCG status and the first pink numbered labels were born. Number AAA00000001 was given to Chianti della Ruffino. A coincidence but it does honor the nature of Chianti della Ruffino’s importance in the history of Chianti. Still today many people when they say Chianti Ruffino pronounce it as if it were one world.

In years that were hard for Italian wine, Ruffino continued to grow, thanks in part to the happy story of Riserva Ducale, listed in all the important restaurants on the one hand and also thanks to its Chianti in the new bottle that paid even more attention to oenological considerations and that increased the visibility and reach of Ruffino.

During those years, Ruffino buys properties as a way of changing its production methods. The first acquisition, at the end of the 1940s, was the Renaissance villa at Poggio Casciano – home of the Supertuscan Modus, one of Ruffino’s most modern and appreciated wines and more recently, Alauda and the castle at Montemasso, a 10th century property from the north of the Chianti Classico area. In the 1980s, Ruffino extended its holdings inl Chianti Classico, with Santedame and Gretole, two marvelous farms in Castellina in Chianti, whose vineyards are used to create Riserva Ducale Oro, a property in Montalcino, a Montalcino Greppone Mazzi, in the historic area of greppi, in Montepulciano, home to Vino Nobile, in the hills around Siena with Solatia,




not far from the suggestive town with turrets mentioned by Dante - Monteriggioni.

Today, almost everyone has come back to the countryside. Pontassieve is somewhat larger than just a few stone houses near a bridge over the Sieve, and Florence seems ever closer. From straw flasks ammassed on carts bulled by cows, all we have left are the yellow, faded and peeling black and white photographs. One thing hasn’t changed through, Ruffino continues to produce quality bottles that are sold in faraway lands, no longer transported by the river but also in trains, ships and planes.

History is moving very quickly and 150 years have already gone by. Much has changed in the Ruffino’s Tuscany since 1877 but what hasn’t changed is the desire to sit together and talk after a day of hard work, and celebrate for a moment, with friends, with family, at mom’s house with a good glass of wine.

PISTOIA

LUCCA

PISA

LIVORNO

BOLGHERI

LIGURIA

EMILIA - ROMAGNA

UMBRIA

LAZIO

MAR TIRRENO

FIRENZE

PONTASSIEVE

CASTELLINA IN CHIANTIMONTERIGGIONI

GROSSETO

ISOLA D’ELBA

MONTEPULCIANO

MONTALCINO

AREZZO

SIENA

GREVEIN CHIANTI


Ruffino s.r.l.Piazzale I.L. Ruffino, 1 - 50065 Pontassieve (FI)

tel. +39 055 83 [email protected] - www.ruffino.it

ENG

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