The Life of a Pizza

The Life of a Pizza

There's no pizza like real Neapolitan pizza. If you don't believe it, try one at Ciro a Santa Brigida (Via Santa Brigida 71, 081/5524072). This restaurant is a little more upscale than a typical Neapolitan pizzeria, but its pizza is the real thing, and it's proper to eat it with your napkin stuffed into your shirt to avoid tomato stains. The restaurant's owner, Antonio Pace, president of the True Neapolitan Pizza Association, is behind an unusual initiative to upgrade the quality of pizza worldwide. Mr. Pace and Professor Carlo Mangoni di Santo Stefano, a nutritionist at the University of Naples, have written what they call a Pizza Discipline, a treatise that discusses everything from the history of pizza to the perfect ingredients for the perfect Neapolitan pie. Based on the Pizza Discipline, the city of Naples recently registered a logo that pizzerias can hang in their window if, and only if, they serve true Neapolitan pizza. That means using sinfully luscious buffalo-milk mozzarella made in certain areas near Naples, kneading the dough for exactly 30 minutes, and letting it rise for four hours. (The "discipline" includes photos of dough taken through a microscope before and after it has risen.)

It may take a while before pizzerias around the globe actually hang the logo in their windows. But the city of Naples wants it to eventually be a sign of quality as distinctive as the DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata, or denomination of controlled origin) on wine labels. The logo will be blue, with Mt. Vesuvius in the background, a red pizza with mozzarella in the center, and Pizza Napoletana written across the foreground. Make sure you're the first to spot it!

Some pizza history, as recounted by Professor Mangoni (who scoffs at claims that pizza was invented in the United States):

Pizza marinara, which doesn't have mozzarella at all but is simply a pie with tomatoes, garlic, oregano, and olive oil, first appeared in Naples around 1760. King Ferdinand of Naples liked the pizza, but his wife, a Habsburg princess, wouldn't allow pizza in the palace. The king would often sneak out to one of the world's first pizzerias, making the places famous.

Even earlier, there's a mention of plates of flour with other food on top in Homer's Iliad, but Professor Mangoni says this was just a precursor to pizza, not the real thing. Tomato sauce, says Mangoni, dates from 1733.

Mozzarella came later. The pizza Margherita was invented in 1889, when Naples chef Raffaele Esposito was called on to prepare a meal for the Italian queen, Margherita. He made a pizza with tomato sauce and mozzarella, and his wife had the idea of adding basil to honor Italy's red, white, and green flag.

According to the Pizza Discipline, the only true pizzas are marinara and Margherita. Anchovies, pepperoni, and so on are heresy. So don't expect to see the logo with Mt. Vesuvius at your local pizza joint anytime soon.

In Antonio Pace's family, pizza goes back a long way. He claims his grandfather's grandfather made pizza in 1856. Pizza fact or fiction aside, at Ciro a Santa Brigida, everything is delicious. Ask for a taste of plain buffalo mozzarella and just savor it in your mouth. If you have an intolerance to lactose, there's still hope -- Professor Mangoni and his team of scientists are developing lactose-free mozzarella. If they manage to match the taste of real mozzarella, he says, pizzerias will be allowed to use it and still display the Pizza Napoletana logo. Go figure.