It seems a century ago and it’s been only twenty years. And yet for pizza the last twenty years have represented a real revolution.
From humble, popular, street food it became a gastronomic, cultural, social and media phenomenon. But let’s come to the question of the title. What can we learn from the last century pizza makers? Many things, linked not so much to technical aspects as to human ones.
Let us be clear. In the last few years the quality of flour, the basic mixes for the dough and the availability of topping ingredients have been examined in depth. Also the oven has evolved, especially in alternative gas and electric cooking; precisely, considering the wood-burning oven, today we know better than yesterday how it works, how temperatures vary inside and how they affect the final product characteristics.
Pizza, however, is not only about technical aspects or the assembly of different ingredients. Pizza is something more, just like all products that are entirely handmade from start to finish. It is the added value that makes the difference.
And here we come to the core of the question: what can we learn from the last century pizza makers? Let’s try to answer after the above premise. “Dedication and respect for their work”.
Unlike what happens today, in the last century pizza chefs had no examples to follow that could inspire them. It was a profession that did not bring side benefits. You didn’t become famous, you didn’t become rich, you didn’t become a media personality; you couldn’t think of receiving certificates and glory, much less travel and be valued and respected as a star. It was a hard, tiring job. In spite of everything, they continued to do it, refining the craft with small gestures and inventions, until they took it to the millennium which then blew it up. And in fact, the current generation of “millennial” found a fertile ground, they met a professional figure (that of the pizza chef) that was already defined and that just had to take off.
And a note of merit goes above all to the “Centenarians”, the group of the Master Pizza Chefs of Naples (whose pizzeria is more than a century old) who have ensured the continuity of the craft, building its history and laying the foundations for the worldwide recognition of the pizza chef art, passing the baton from one generation to another. The early years of 2000s were the worst period. When the fashion of cooking broke out, everyone wanted to be a chef, but the pizza maker was looked upon as an almost inferior being. In those years in the pizzerias outside Naples (which were many already) it was difficult to find young pizza makers. It was a job that was carried out mainly by a mature generation that was in many cases becoming older, and there was the risk that it could disappear with them. In fact, the new generation of that time seemed to no longer believe in this ancient profession. “Chapeau” therefore to those who endured, i.e. the Starita, the Lombardi, the Surace and the others of this historic group.
