Paolo, Author at Quatro Fromaggio and Other Disgraces on the Menu

Pizza

Everybody knows pizza, in a form or another, and so does for sure every Italian.

In Italy, a ‘pizzeria’ (a restaurant specialized in serving pizzas) is the default for low-commitment dining, a place for every time Italians don’t feel like cooking (especially -for some reason- on Sunday nights). A traditional pizza is an affordable and reliable delicacy, and it’s something that can’t easily be made at home.

Most people when going out for pizza, just get one pizza (usually with a beer or a coke) and they’re done. There could be appetizers, especially if the wait is going to be long, and desserts at the end. Typical pizzeria appetizers are: bruschetta , grilled scamorza, calamari fritti (deep-fried squid). Typical desserts are: profiterol, tiramisù , millefoglie . Espresso coffee is almost a must when ending the meal, often accompanied by a liquor, such as limoncello , grappa , amaro.

Delivery service exists, especially in the big cities, whereas in small towns pick-up is probably more frequent. Regardless, pick-up and delivery only represent a small percentage of the Italian pizza business (pizza degrades quickly when not eaten right away, especially in the cardboard box – when it comes to pizza most Italians prefer to eat out).

There is, however, one type of pizza that Italians may take home and reheat, or get to go and eat right away as street food: it’s Pizza al taglio (pizza by the slice). This type of pizza (“bakery-style”, thicker, cooked in rectangular trays and sold in squares) can be a real treat but doesn’t compare with traditional pizzeria pizza.

So, let’s talk some more about traditional pizza. Other than being thin crust, traditional pizza has to be cooked very quickly (in about 90 seconds), traditionally on the stone of a wood-fired brick oven (at 485 °C or 900 °F), and has to be made with high quality toppings such as fresh strained tomatoes and fresh mozzarella (also known as bocconcini) – the base of 95% of Italian pizzas. The other toppings depend on the style, and every pizzeria chooses what to put on the menu – some pizzerias may have more than a hundred types of pizza. Pretty much every pizzeria, however, also serves a number of traditional pizzas, which are always a big hit. The most important are:

Marinara (Sailor’s): tomato, garlic, oregano, oil.
Margherita (Margaret, named after Margherita of Savoy): tomato, mozzarella, basil, oil.
Capricciosa (Capricious): tomato, mozzarella, grated Parmigiano, basil, mushrooms, pickled artichokes, prosciutto cotto (not proscuitto! – Italian ham), olives, oil.
Quattro Stagioni (Four Seasons): normally the same ingredients of ‘Capricciosa’, placed each one in one of the four quadrants.
Quattro Formaggi (not Quatro Fromaggio! – Four Cheeses): tomato (optional), mozzarella, other cheeses (such as gorgonzola , ricotta, fontina), basil.
Napoletana (Neapolitan): tomato, mozzarella, anchovies, oregano, capers (optional), oil.
Regina (Queen): tomato, mozzarella, prosciutto cotto, mushrooms.
Vegetariana (Vegetarian): tomato, mozzarella, grilled vegetables, oil.
Calzone : usually a Margherita, Regina or Capricciosa pizza folded in half, sealed and baked more slowly than a regular pizza.

Most Italians simply pick one of the many pizzas on the menu, or just make slight variations (e.g. double mozzarella, added fresh tomato slices, or added oregano). Some order a Margherita with an added topping or two, effectively making their own. This, however, is not very popular because Italians are very careful in combining ingredients – if two or three toppings go well together, chances are that their combination has a name and is already on the menu.

In any case, the number of toppings should always be moderate. Italians don’t feel cheated if the toppings layer isn’t much thicker than the crust itself – the crust is not a tray that has to be filled up as much as it can hold! And if there’s meat, it should never be more than one kind (there is no meat lovers pizza in Italy).

One last important thing to consider with toppings like cold cuts (e.g. prosciutto crudo), or greens (e.g. basil o arugula), is that they have to be added at the end as they shouldn’t be cooked.

Which leads to a Top Five list of the most common mistakes made in North America when imitating traditional-style pizza:

#5: Using too many toppings or too much of each.
#4: Having an oily crust – the crust should be dry, either fluffy or crunchy depending on the style.
#3: Using rich tomato sauces instead of simple uncooked strained tomatoes.
#2: Using some processed cheese other than mozzarella.
#1: Using non-traditional toppings, such as chicken, ground beef, or -worse- exotic preparations (e.g. curry, teriyaki, Thai).

Espresso Myths

What’s Espresso?

Espresso is what you get if you order a coffee (‘un caffè’) in any Italian café (or ‘Bar’ as Italians call them). Home-made coffee generally isn’t espresso, it’s a short coffee made with a stove-top machine called ‘Caffettiera’ (either ‘Moka’ or ‘Napoletana’). More recently, however, electric espresso machines have appeared in many Italian households.

Italians truly love their coffee and enjoy it several times a day: for breakfast (usually in the form of a ‘Cappuccino’, see below), at break, after lunch, and after dinner. However, most Italians drink single shots – saving the double (or ‘doppio’) for “extreme needs” to wake up (though these days people probably prefer energy drinks). In North America, double is more common.

The difference between an espresso and a coffee made with a Moka is the fact that an espresso machine quickly squeezes pressurized hot water through compressed finely ground coffee, whereas a Moka gently pushes the water through a smaller quantity of mildly compressed coffee. The difference made by the espresso maker is in the remarkable added creaminess and intensity.

Most Italians take their coffees with one or two teaspoons of sugar, some add cold milk or cream. If you add steamed milk to espresso, you get a Caffè Macchiato (not a Machiatto) – which literally means marked or stained coffee (coffee marked/stained with milk). If you add more steamed milk, you get a Cappuccino (not a Capuccino) – which literally means small cap. If you instead add espresso to a glass of steamed milk, then you get a ‘Latte Macchiato’ – which means marked/stained milk (milk marked/stained with coffee). ‘Caffè Latte’ is instead normally any warm milk (including steamed) with any type of coffee (including the regular home-style coffee). ‘Latte’ alone in Italy simply means cold milk.

Espresso Fails

Now, let’s focus on what can go wrong outside of Italy. Here are a few hints that your espresso experience is likely not going to be authentic:
1) If you enter a café, order an espresso, and the attendant (or ‘Barista’) asks you: “For here or to go?”
2) If you hear the attendant operate the grinder dispenser lever more than once for a single or twice for a double (or for two singles).
3) If you get your espresso cup filled up to the top.
4) If your espresso is lukewarm.
5) If your cappuccino is extra hot and the foam is heaping.

Here are some explanations:
1) Nobody in Italy would ask you if you want your espresso “to go”. Espresso to go exists served in special cups with a lid, but it’s very uncommon. An espresso takes 5 minutes at most to drink, generally while standing at the bar and would get cold if consumed any later.
2) The grinder has a dispenser that produces the exact amount of coffee for a single shot. Since quantity is extremely important for the end result, it’s not something that you want to mess with (too much coffee would give a thick cream that would come out so slowly to get cold before you have a chance to drink it; too little coffee would give a lighter tasting coffee without any creaminess). The dispenser operates correctly only when filled with freshly ground coffee; if almost empty, then you’ll have to bang on the lever to get every last bit out, losing control of the quantity.
3) Espresso cups are small, but this doesn’t mean that they have to be filled up to the rim. Perhaps, in North America, the customers might complain saying that they paid for a full cup, but about half is what Italians expect. Espresso cups are either made of thick ceramic and preheated, or thin ceramic, or even glass.
4) Properly made espresso (e.g. in preheated cups) is very hot.
5) ‘Cappuccino’ in Italy is normally not served as hot since the microfoam insulates the drink from the environment, keeping it at the right, sipping temperature. Proper cappuccino foam has small bubbles and looks like cream, not like beaten egg whites!

Preface

I was born in Italy and I have been living in Vancouver, Canada for the last 10 years. I love Vancouver and I love eating out in Vancouver, but I can’t help but notice the many distortions of Italian dishes on restaurants menus.

For some reason that I don’t understand, in Vancouver Italian food is almost as common to find as it is to find sushi. And it isn’t just because of the many (more or less authentic) Italian restaurants, west coast restaurants, and even chains often like to feature Italian dishes as part of their regular menus.

If on one hand, I’m flattered for all this attention, on the other hand, I’m seriously worried that the authentic Italian cuisine might get undermined by all these unsuccessful imitations; that people will either decide that they don’t like Italian food or -worse- that they like the imitation better than the real thing, and would turn the latter away. Frightening!

Even just on spelling and pronunciation, I understand that some Italian words will get Americanized (e.g. ‘Parmesan’ cheese), but I don’t understand why people can’t do an Italian spell check or even just a Google search before printing out their menus (it’s ‘focaccia’, not ‘foccacia’!) Maybe I’m hyper-sensitive to the issue because Italians don’t make many spelling mistakes (the Italian language is written pretty much exactly like it’s pronounced), but this makes Italian spelling mistakes stand out even more.

In this blog, I’m very pretentiously trying to fix the problem. I will say the proper ways to write the names of Italian dishes. And, from what I know, I will also try to say how the dish should look and taste… for sure I will say how the dish most definitely *shouldn’t* look or taste 🙂