I think I got quattro stagioni every time I bought pizza when I was in Italy in the 80s. Yum.
They also sold a proto-pizza dish that was basically a flat bread with some oil and garlic on it. Not pizza, but tasty.
I’ve traveled all over Italy in the years I’ve been here in Europe. Pizza traditions vary from region to region; the pizza you get in Rome is very different from the pizza you get in Naples. In general, though, this comment is right on:
The best pizza I’ve had in Italy was in Lucca, a medium-sized city a ways out from Florence. It had a gentle brush of pesto oil and was topped with shrimp, capers, and a light dusting of very mild cheese.
But the crust. Good Lord, the crust. Crispy edges, chewy interior, sweet yeasty aroma.
American pizza is about a vaguely neutral, semi-flavorless crust as a delivery system for mountains of toppings. From the Italian perspective, that’s exactly backwards.
A similar comment can be made about pasta. In America, it’s a basic starch, a carrier for the sauce. But in Italy, the pasta itself is the star, with the sauce/toppings a supporting note.
There are exceptions, of course. But overall, that’s the rule.
Not true, Italians have been sprinkling their pizzas with various ingredients for centuries. It’s just an open sandwich after all.
This pizza place is a little known, run of the mill restaurant in a small southern italian town (my namesake), off the tourist track and away from the fashionable big cities, which gives a pretty good idea of what the average Italian might expect to see. Scroll through to the end of the menu to see the long list of pizzas. Whilst Italy loves its regionality, many of these I would expect to find up and down the land, for eg.
Diavola ( Tomato, mozzarella cheese, spicy salami & chilli peppers)
Capricciosa (Tomato, mozzarella cheese, ham, sausage, olives, mushrooms & salami)
Napoli (Tomato, mozzarella cheese, capers & anchovies)
Frutti di mare (seafood, varies where you are)
4 Stagioni (divides the pizza into 4 quarters, Tomato, mozzarella cheese, ham, salami, mushrooms & artichokes)
To name but a few.
Not sure if this is a quip, but anchovies are a very popular topping in Italy. Is it not the case in the US?
In North America, anchovies on pizza are available, but seem to be an acquired or cultured taste; they are not the most popular pizza ingredient.
They’re available, but not every pizzeria has them - most of the big chains don’t, and ISTM that they must be more prevalent on the east coast than in the west where I live. I’ve never ordered them on a pizza, and in pop culture they tend to get grouped in with things like Brussels sprouts, liver & onions, and broccoli as “foods that are inherently funny because they taste awful and no sensible person would eat them, but your parents forced you to”.
Interesting. Very common in the UK, where I think our better pizza places are more influenced by italian pizzas.
This board is very illuminating. It would never occur to me that anchovies are an oddity, although now I think about it, I have an American friend who was horrified when I told her the (very lovely) pasta dish I served her (which she wolfed down) contained anchovies.
LOL.
I’ve had them and would eat them again. Not straight from the can, but when chopped up they’re a good ingredient. BTW, one of the ingredients of Caesar salad (or of its dressing) is often anchovies.
related question: Do Italians always eat pizza with a knife and fork in restaurants?
I was in Rome for 2 days back in the 1970’s. ( doing the backpack-youth hostel thing on $20 a day).
Sat down in an indoor cafe and ordered a pizza.Got a whole pizza, unsliced.
Being a crude American, I used the knife and fork to cut it into triangular slices and then picked up the slices in my hand-- to eat pizza the way god intended.
I suddenly realized that people at other tables were staring at me.
So. feeling embarrassed, I looked around, and figured that “when in Rome…etc”. So I started using the knife and fork to cut bite-size pieces of pizza. .
But dammit. that destroys the fun of eating a pizza.
It’s like drinking water by taking a soup spoon to the glass, and swallowing one spoonful at a time.
Eating pizza with utensils is very common in Europe.
We will also eat hamburgers with knife and fork, though this is marginally less common. Fast-food burgers are eaten out of hand, but higher-end burgers at sit-down restaurants, especially when served on softer brioche buns, are eaten with utensils.
It took a bit for me to get used to it after moving here, but it’s not a big deal.
A proper Caesar shouldn’t have visible anchovies in it. Caesar Cardini’s original recipe used Worcestershire sauce, which is made from fermented anchovies, to provide the umami flavor, and Julia Child agreed.
Indeed, and salad nicoise. They are everywhere in Italian cuisine - right there alongside chilli, lemon and garlic as standard flavour enhancers, frequently together.
(if anyone’s interested my anchovy-laden pasta dish was - orrechietti ai broccoli - yes, broccoli! It’s truly delicious. My American friend attempted to recreate it without anchovies and couldn’t understand why it didn’t taste the same).
Yes, unless you buy a square of pizza from a street vendor. If you’re in a sit down restaurant, you eat with a knife and fork.
My great-grandfather, a baker, immigrated from Rome. His description of pizza was “Bread with oil and little fishies”. So that’s what it was, oh, a century or so ago.
It’s italian law that seafood and cheese should not mix. I’ve also heard the same said about onions and garlic.
They’ll have my shrimp alfredo when they pry it from my cold dead hands, by God!
Always. They never cut slices and pick it up with their hands, unless as I mentioned, you are buying from a street vendor and carrying it away.
Of course not
Mortadella and pistachios
Aubergines and provola cheese
Zucchini flowers anchovies and mozzarella