Not all pizzas are equal! Here’s how to recognize a pizza made in the purest Italian tradition.
Ah, pizza! The French love it more than anyone else in Europe. They even eat twice as much as the Italians, who are responsible for this marvel! But how can you tell a good pizza from a bad one when this appetizing dish is now offered on a multitude of restaurant menus? With the most eye-catching names, confusion quickly sets in, as does the multitude of counterfeits. Discover in this article the determining factors for recognizing a good pizza.
Authentic pizza requires respecting a whole code established by generations of Neapolitans. Sight is the sense that will help you detect the first clue of a real traditional pizza: the appearance of the dough. According to the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN) founded in June 1984 in Naples, whose aim is to promote and protect, in Italy and throughout the world, the real Neapolitan pizza, The pizza must be “round, with a diameter of no more than 35 cm, with a raised edge and a central part no thicker than 4 mm”. When tasting it, it must be crispy without being brittle, melt in the mouth, and the edge, golden, must be hollow and not brioche-like.
Then, the aromas that come off the pizza are revealing: it should smell of fresh bread, “the tangy smells of tomato and mozzarella”, “the fruity and spicy flavor of oil and garlic” and “the herbaceous flavor of fresh basil and oregano”, details the association’s website. The choice of ingredients is indeed the ultimate clue that does not deceive.
First of all, they must be in moderate quantities, at the risk of masking the quality of the dough (two or three ingredients, no more), then certain ingredients on the menu should immediately ring a bell: crème fraîche, which is often used in “white pizzas” but also eggs, must not appear in the pizza toppings. “Whether it’s a pizza regina, a margherita or a calzone, eggs have no place here. This sign is unmistakable on the menu”, recalled Gianpaolo Castellano, one of the founders of the pizzeria Fratelli Castellano, in an interview with Women’s Journal.
As you will have understood, if today the variations in terms of pizza are infinite, be careful! We ignore them pizzas topped with pasta, apples or other oddities. And as the aptly summed up The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana: “in the middle the red of the tomato jumps out at you and mixes with the oil, the green of the oregano and the white of the garlic in the Marinara, and with the white of the mozzarella and the green of the basil leaves in the Margherita”. In short, these are the colours of the Italian flag that validate a real pizza.