Pizza is no longer just a practical and inexpensive meal for football evenings with friends. This dish has become a real phenomenon on social networks and is the subject of trips around the world to meet the star pizza makers of the wood oven!
Pizza has come a long way since its birth in Naples. It was originally the food of the poor in the vicolo, these narrow streets where women cooked the dough on the windowsills. A base of tomato, a little oil, basil when there was any. Nothing more. Then there was the exile of millions of Italians who went to New York, Buenos Aires, Melbourne, taking the recipe with them and reformulating it on site with local ingredients and tastes. American pizza, thicker, more generous; Argentinian pizza, with dripping mozzarella; Brazilian pizza, where pineapple is only scandalous for Italians.
La pop culture version pizza
Specialized tour operators now offer pizza tours: five days in Naples and Caiazzo with visits to mills and meetings with pizza makers, comparative weekends between Rome and Milan, one-week immersions with an Italian-Japanese artisan. Also offered are stays exploring local scenes in Lisbon, Athens, Mexico, where young chefs revisit dough with native flours.
To immerse yourself in this true pop culture, two essential books. The encyclopedia presented by Ézéchiel Zérah, produced with more than 30 contributors, provides a world tour of the great pizza capitals: Naples obviously, but also New York, Tokyo, Marseille, Sao Paulo. The second book is that of Franco Pepe, pizza chef of the first pizzeria to be among the 50 best discoveries in “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants” ranking. His creations reflect his high standards and the search for ingredients from small, trusted producers scattered throughout Italy: a rare apricot grown on the slopes of Vesuvius to garnish his crisommola del Vesuvio, a sweet and savory pizza that has become iconic; the scents of the Amalfi Coast concentrated in its coastal sensation; without forgetting the ritrovata, a tribute to his father’s pizza marinara, and the margherita sbagliata, a daring reinterpretation of the absolute classic.
This summer, the journey begins with pizza!
In my library
Pizza by Ézéchiel Zérah, photographs Jean-François Mallet, Flammarion, 320 p., €45
Franco Pepe, pizza chef, from the eponymous chef, in collaboration with Elisia Menduni, independent researcher, anthropologist, pizza specialist, Phaidon, 240 p., €39.95
Pizza by Ézéchiel Zérah, published by Flammarion, and Franco Pepe, pizza chef, by the eponymous chef, in collaboration with Elisia Menduni, by Phaidon.
Flammarion/Phaidon
The recipes
Wrong Margherita
Recipe by Franco Pepe, taken from his book Franco Pepe, chef pizzaiolo published by Phaidon, photographs Adam Bricker and Brian McGinn.
For a pizza
280 g of pizza dough
120 g Riccio tomato sauce
150 g Campania PDO buffalo mozzarella, cut into slices
1 tbsp. teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil
For the fresh basil sauce
50 g fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp. teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil
Pour the tomato sauce into a fine strainer placed over a salad bowl and let it drain until it is thick and smooth. Pour it into a pouring bottle, season with a pinch of salt and place in the refrigerator at 4°C.
For the basil sauce, blanch the basil leaves for a few seconds in boiling water. Drain and immediately transfer to a container of water with a large quantity of ice cubes to preserve their intense green color. When the leaves have cooled, drain them carefully and mix them with the olive oil and a few ice cubes. When you obtain a smooth sauce, pour it into a pouring bottle and place in the refrigerator at 4-5°C.
Stretch the dough to form a disk, leaving an even edge all the way around.
Arrange the mozzarella slices on the pizza, drizzle with olive oil and bake for 1 minute 30 to 2 minutes at 420-450°C. Once the pizza is cooked, place eight small strips of tomato sauce on the cheese as well as dots of basil sauce.
Roman-style pizza
Roman-style sheet pan pizza, by Ézekiel Zérah.
Jean-François Mallet / Flammarion
Recipe taken from the book Pizza by Ézéchiel Zérah published by Flammarion, photography Jean-François Mallet.
For 4 people
2 pieces of pizza dough, 250 g each
10 tbsp. tablespoon of homemade tomato sauce
2 balls of mozzarella
4 slices of raw ham
9 black olives
10 fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp. tablespoon of olive oil
salt and pepper
Flour the work surface, then roll out the two pieces of dough into a single large rectangle using a rolling pin. Slide it onto a baking tray covered with baking paper and preheat the oven to 220°C. Spread the tomato sauce on the dough with a spoon.
Spread the cubed mozzarella, ham slices, olives and basil leaves. Add a drizzle of olive oil. Bake the pizza for 20 to 25 minutes, monitor the cooking and adjust according to your tastes (if you like the pizza a little soft or a little cooked), add salt and pepper and enjoy.
