Stereotypes

A couple of days ago I read a wonderful post on a city that is much more than the stereotypes it is too often associated with. For me Rome is still the world’s most beautiful city, so I couldn’t agree more.

But it made me think about the city I grew up in, Naples. What are the stereotypes people associate with Naples? The usual things: spaghetti, mandolino, Pulcinella, pizza…

…wait a minute. It might not be reason enough to live in Naples, but pizza is the best thing the city has now.

So I decided to make the most of these days in Italy and devoted yesterday to the sacred god of Food (in a more prosaic way, “to eating like a pig”).

There are some places where you can eat very good pizza: Michele, Salvo (excellent but a bit far from the city centre), Sorbillo and a few others…We went to Di Matteo, right in the historic centre.

I have nothing against American style pizza – the “deep pan” kind, nor against any of these. I only hate it when I read things like “the original Italian-style, thin and crusty” pizza.

The “original” Italian pizza is the Neapolitan pizza. And it’s definitely not, NOT “crusty”!!!!! It MUST NOT be crusty, because you have to be able to fold it in four (into a “wallet”) and eat it that way without it cracking or going to pieces!
Well, you don’t have to do it… but you have to be able to if you want to. See?

 

After all, pizza is street food in Naples. You can stop outside, grab your pizza and go. 

There were three of us, and for €23 we got:

three pizze, two margherite and a marinara (olive oil, oregan, tomato, garlic)

 

four – where’s the fourth? – crocchè (potato croquettes, but I think the picture is self-explainatory…);

  

and a pizza fritta. This thing.

I mean, look at its size…check the hands of the guy. He’s not a dwarf. And that’s  not a miniature-sized plastic cup.

This kind of pizza fritta (fried pizza, or deep fried pizza) is not the creation of a bored scottish cook; it’s made with pizza dough, filled with ricotta, mozzarella or other stuff (we wanted salame in ours but for some reason got ham; eated it anyway…) and deep fried instead of oven-baked:

Oh, and four cokes.

£15. And I don’t mean per person. Ok, you get the plastic glasses, but that’s part of the experience.