Background: The Ancient Greeks experienced “pizza” when they covered their flat bread with oils, herbs and cheese. And the Romans flavored their “pizza” with cheese, honey and bay leaves.
But authentic pizza originated in Naples, Italy. The Neapolitan pizza, to be truly genuine, is to not only be made with fresh mozzarella cheese and fresh tomato, with hand-made dough, but is also to be cooked in a wood-fired oven.
When I was staying with some friends in Camponocecchio, Italy, Kelly actually owned a real wood-fired oven. So for dinner one night, we made pizza…
Thursday, May 27, 2004:
Ok, so dinner last night – what a fabulous Italian experience!! We had pizza. Real Italian pizza. Kelly hand-made the dough, cut fresh veggies and meats, and cooked it in her very own oven in her back yard. Wow. Now that is authentic!
It was completely delizioso! And, I even got to make one myself!! It felt like I was really experiencing Italy. And, I’ve only been here for a few days.
Specifically, to make the pizza, you take a baseball size piece of the dough, cover it with flour, and roll it into shape. Then you put your choice of toppings on. We had many choices, in addition to the traditional fresh cheese and tomato.
The pizza is then placed in the wood-fired oven with a long-handled “Pala Di Pizza” that slides the pizza in and out of the oven. A smaller version of the Pala, aka a “Paddle,” is used to turn the pizza while it is cooking in the oven.
Then you take out the pizza with larger Pala, place it on a wooden board to cool, slice and eat!! Yum!!
To top off the fabulous Italian experience, we had a great dessert. Torta de Gelato – ice cream cake – with Fragola – strawberry – and decorated with sugar – filo-threads of sugar, to be exact. Molto delizioso!!
Sweet (and delicious) Travels!
History of Pizza complements of Wikipedia
How to make a Real Neapolitan Pizza….http://www.suite101.com/content/how-to-make-a-neapolitan-pizza-a120240