Fresh mozzarella?" says Giancarlo. "You eat it like a soft apple, while it's still warm, and the warm milk oozes out and runs down your face. That's the fresh mozzarella you can get in Italian pizzas."
Another gift from Peru:
"He has a faraway look in his eyes. He's back in Caserta, north of Naples.
Then his eyes dart to the oven. "But we're almost as good. See? Between 55 seconds and one minute, 15 seconds. That's all it takes to bake a pizza in this oven. It's about 1000 degrees in there."
..."This is a pure wood-burning oven. Stefano Ferrara — he's maybe the most famous wood-burning pizza-oven-maker in the world — he came over from Naples, the ancient home of pizza, and built it right here. And we use only oak, because it burns hot and gives its own flavor. The pizzas you get here are identical to Italian pizzas in just about every way. We even fly our tomatoes over from Naples."
Wow. Turns out they're San Marzano tomatoes, originally a gift from the kingdom of Peru to the kingdom of Naples, back in 1770. Their taste is much stronger -out of the ballpark, compared to the cardboard critters we get from Vons - sort of bittersweet. Giancarlo says they're the only tomatoes that should be used in a true Neopolitan pizza...
Now we've taken pizzauthenticity to a new level. Maybe, though, it has the tang of being a little... what? Spartan? Doctrinaire? Like, whatever Naples does has to be right? On the freshness and flavor front, that's great. But I'm glad the New World has its crazy ideas for pizza, too — thin, thick, flavors like pineapple — no matter how much the purists may gasp.
Would I go back? In a heartbeat, if only to taste those tomatoes, to learn what our New World tomatoes used to taste like."
WHOA!