I recently read a delightful article about a woman who ordered a pizza in Italy and was told that such a pizza doesn’t exist.
The gist of the *article is about how the journalist, who resides in Italy, went to her local takeaway pizzeria and ordered a marinara to which the takeaway owner and pizza maker promptly told her that such a pizza doesn’t exist.
According to the pizza maker, the customer had ordered a pizza rossa.
The differences?
Traditionally, a marinara is a tomato and garlic pizza.
A pizza rossa is a simple tomato and garlic pizza – with the addition of mozzarella.
The journalist was used to a marinara being a pizza with tomato, garlic and mozzarella. The pizza maker vehemently disagreed. She said she was perhaps thinking of a margherita and that she could perhaps make her a margherita with garlic.
A margherita is a pizza topped with tomato and mozzarella.
I found the whole incident to be very amusing as I imagined the face-off between someone who is clearly a pizza purist and someone who just enjoys good pizza.
What’s your opinion on the matter? Are you a purist or not? I’m hedging my bets because pizza has obviously evolved radically from its origins in Italy and it has been significantly changed to suit the ever changing tastes depending on which country you live in.
What I do know is that I’m a thin crust baby all the way. And if you put pineapple or seafood on my pizza, things will get ugly pretty quickly.
I’m heading up to the water cooler station to get everyone’s opinion – as with all things food, it should make for an interesting debate! Ciao bella!
*excerpts from an article at the BBC Magazine
