Neapolitan journalist and blogger Angelo Forgione commented on Alberto Grandi’s recent statements about the pizza made in Naples.
Francesco Manno28 MARCH 2023 18:24
Angelo ForgioneNeapolitan journalist and blogger, commented on Alberto Grandi’s recent statements on the subject of pizza: “Incredible! Absurd! Alberto Grandi continues to talk big about pizza (and not only) and the media give it a lot of attention – now the BBC is also France 2 – with no room for those who, like me, deny it with documents. The latest outburst can be heard from Corriere della Sera: “As long as it stayed in Naples, pizza was a big bummer. But by the time it arrived in New York, it was filled with new products, notably tomato sauce, that are becoming the marvel that we know today. Without the journey of the Italians to America, I am convinced that this specialty would have disappeared”.
But how is it possible to let the storyteller Grandi, to whom I personally clarified the following, continue to voluntarily distort the story?
In my book The King of Naples, on the history of the tomato, I contribute all the documents that show how pizza with tomato (and mozzarella) was undoubtedly born in Naples in the first half of the nineteenth century, well before the transmission of the pizza maker Gennaro Lombardi in New York in 1905. It is true that the first pizza of the Neapolitans in the seventeenth century (like the ancient preparations of the Greeks and even the Egyptians) was white, since the tomato was not yet habitual in the Food, and the long one was not known in Europe. Rich in lard, feta cheese, pepper and basil, it was called “mastunicola”, a name derived from the distortion of the dialectal lemma “vasinicola”, meaning “basil” in Neapolitan.
Then, with the start of growing long-berry tomatoes around Mount Vesuvius, at the end of the 18th century, Neapolitan street food began to turn red. This tomato was called “Fiascone di Napoli”, then it died out in the middle of the 20th century, at which point it was replaced by the “San Marzano”.
The use of tomatoes on macaroni and pizza became widespread in Naples in the early 19th century and is documented in numerous writings and recipe books.
Regarding the subject in question, it is Alexandre Dumas who, in his “Le Corricolo”, written after a visit to Naples in 1835 and published in Paris eight years later, reports on their use on the characteristic pizza: “The pizza is with Oil, the pizza is with salami, the pizza is with lard, the pizza is with cheese, the pizza is with tomato, the pizza is with anchovies. […]“.
Almost all the pizzas “in white” that the French writer describes and one already “in red”, prepared mainly in summer and autumn, since the tomato was a product much more subject to seasonality than today, and this can be understood from what we read in the scientific research “On the Diet of the Common People of Naples” published in 1863 by the doctors Achille Spatuzzi, Luigi Somma and Errico De Renzi: “The Neapolitans eat pizza in abundance : […] Pizzas on the top with a lot of oil or suet, with cheese, oregano, garlic, parsley, mint leaves, especially in summer with tomatoes and finally sometimes even with small fresh fish. […] Tomatoes in Naples are used very fresh in summer and either dried or reduced to preserves in winter; […]“.
And the mozzarella? Along with the tomato, its production was stimulated in the same period, and together with the tomato it ended up on the pizza, in Naples and not in America, in the first half of the 19th century, despite the romantic story related to the tricolor invention the 1889 pizza dedicated to Queen Margherita of Savoy. As repeatedly reported in the past, the philologist Emmanuele Rocco testifies to this in the second volume of the work “Uses and customs of Naples and outlines described and painted”, published in 1858. in the chapter “Il pizzajuolo” write that the tomato-mozzarella-basil triptych was already one of the ways to dress on the streets of Naples: “Pizza is not found in the crusca vocabulary because […] it is a specialty of the Neapolitans, yes of the city of Naples. […]
The most common pizzas, known as coll’aglio e oglio, have oil as a dressing, topped with salt, oregano and finely chopped garlic cloves. Others are covered with grated cheese and seasoned with lard, and then a few basil leaves are placed on top. Small fish are often added to the former; with a few thin slices of muzzarella. Sliced ham, tomatoes, mussels, etc. are sometimes used. Sometimes folding the dough creates a so-called calzone.”
It is obvious that in the complexity of that time, pizzas with lard, tomatoes, thin slices of mozzarella, basil and grated cheese were also baked. Just substitute lard for the oil to have at least one mid-1800s daisy.
Professor Grandi pretends not to know that pizza with tomato sauce (and mozzarella) was born in Naples, unlike New York, in the first half of the 19th century. He’s faking because at least I made it clear to him and he didn’t mind.
Then, known by the Americans thanks to the Neapolitan emigrants who had gone to the States at the beginning of the twentieth century, knowledge about it was first spread by the American soldiers deployed on the Italian front for the Second World War, who also discovered the original one Taste in Naples and then demand from US tourists in the 1960s asking for it at Italian restaurants in the years of economic prosperity.
But on what basis does Professor Schisciastoria say that the Neapolitan pizza would have disappeared without emigration to America? In Naples, in 1905, the year of the first Neapolitan to make pizzas in New York, pizzas have been eaten with tomato sauce for a century and without for at least three. And they continue to let him speak undisturbed.”