Pizza the Italian Way

Last Sunday was another "festa" at Giuseppe and Mimma's house. They are such party people. Ten thirty in the morning Mimma started the pizza. A wooden trough held a yellowish flour, yeast and salt. There were four of us women in the kitchen and it was as much a social affair as it was about making the dough.

As water was poured into the flour mix we took turns working it into the dough. What a great experience. Bob came over and took these photos. When the dough was just right Mimma scraped the bottom of the trough with a metal scraper and poured olive oil into the bottom, then worked it just enough to get the dough enclosed in the oil and pushed it over to the side. Next it was cut off a chunk of dough, slap it on the bottom of the trough, work it into a ball and set it on a cloth-covered board to rise. Mimma covered it with a cotton cloth then about five or six layers of heavy blankets. (And here we're always careful to put something very light on our dough.)

The dough rose while we women chatted. The men went off somewhere. (Which was probably another Italian experience Bob should talk about sometime.) All came back together to put the pizzas together.

Everything from anchovies to zucchini was available to put on pizza. Bob and I brought sun-dried tomatoes (which I can never get enough of) and calamata olives. Everyone brought something.

The pizza was cooked in a pizza oven outdoors. Made of bricks and stone, the pizza oven is a staple at those houses with room for it. It's used not only for pizza but also for the wonderful Italian bread that just doesn't cook the same in our American ranges.

Wood is burned in the oven to get the stones hot enough to cook then the wood is pushed to the back and the stones are brushed to be ready for the mixture of wonderful ingredients--fresh mozarella, fresh tomatoes (they don't use pizza sauce like Americans do), prosciutto, olives, whatever the mind can imagine. (Mine had my favorite of sun-dried tomatoes and chopped basil.) Each pizza is placed onto a "peel" (in the left hand of the lady in the back)and is slid off onto the "floor" of the oven. It cooks in about 5 minutes to a golden brown and is ready to eat.

Eating it was the best part, of course. I think this was the best pizza I had ever had in my life. The crust was light and tender, the toppings perfect. Do you think, when I get to heaven, God will let me eat that same pizza daily for the first few hundred years?