"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore." ~ Jack Brooks
From the Latin word picea, "blackening of bread," pizza may have first been prepared in pre-Renaissance Naples where poor peasants took flour, olive oil,lard, cheese and herbs and made a seasoned flat bread garnished with cheese.
"Farsi una pizza assieme," proclaimed the fine old Italian phrase. "Let's have ourselves a pizza" and celebrate friendship and togetherness.
One of the world's first pizzerias openedin 1830, Port'Alba of Naples. The historic eatery still serves pizza today. Made with flavorful high-gluten "0" flour, authentic Neapolitan pizza is baked in wood-fired brick ovens, which gives the dough its unique aroma and taste.
Pizza toppings may be as varied as the regions of Italy, but the key to making excellent pizza is to use only the highest-quality ingredients. "Freshness elevates the seemingly banal to the superb," observed chef and writer Mario Batali.
Ingredients matter.
"To an Italian there is even something sacred about bread," explained International cooking authority Lorenza de'Medici. "It is a symbol of the gift of life itself and that which sustains it."
For cooking authority Lidia Bastianich, the olive oil used in pizza is special. "To me the olive tree signifies life and eternity and is imbued with a sense of spirituality."
"Farsi una pizza assieme!"