Grazie per le parole piacevoli!

You are right. The crust should fold immediately!

Also, let me add these tests:

Are the toppings “peasant food?” Californians do unspeakable things to “pizza,” like considering artichoke hearts and other expensive ingredients pizza toppings. To eat traditional pizza Napoletana you eat a slice folded, and let the oil drip out the bottom while you eat the top. This allows you to go back to work in the fields after lunch without being tired and full of oil. Apizza is peasant food! Simple, inexpensive, and delicious.

Are your fingers a bit black after eating? If not, your crust isn’t cooked. Traditional pizza has a slightly carbonized, beautifully thin crust.

Cheese is a topping. Thus, it should never be a layer of goo, but used judiciously just like pepperoni or clams. Less is more. And don’t forget the peccorino Romano!

And Antonio, I appreciate being your eroe di pizza di giorno, but I’m just an American of German and Finnish stock. I don’t deserve it. Let me suggest Neapolitans make Frank Pepe, Salvatore Consiglio, Gennaro Lombardi, and Rosario Zito their pizza heroes in America. They have kept the tradition alive on this side of the ocean!

Buon appetito mi amico! Tell us when you are coming to New Mexico! I’ll tell the Zitos to get ready.

Ciao!

I am from Naples (in Italy, not in Florida ) and this post touched me so much. It is so good to see people who know differences between our tradition and their imitations and still appreciate the original style.

Sure that American-style pizza (how I call it) is often more tasty, and I don’t deny it can be good sometimes, but the secret of the original recipe is that it is more _balanced_, the pie very thin, but still very soft; a first test to spot if a pizza is made following the original style: take a slice (of Margherita, of course) from the border without folding it, it has to flop down instantly.

I have to let you know that many people in Italy from outside Naples even don’t know what you know and appreciate, you are my pizza hero today. Thanks.

BTW, if I ever come to New Mexico I’ll surely try Giovanni’s pizza, tell him

Take care,
Antonio

I have had neapolitan style pizza from a small town in Michigan, a town you wouldn’t expect pizza like this. It is by far my family’s favorite for pizza. The bad news is they finally closed their doors a couple of years ago. Since then my mom has spent countless hours trying to reverse engineer the pizza. The sauce is damn near impossible to perfect, and the crust. Oh the crust!

Even though I am from Chicago and enjoy Chicago pie the most, I do not hate on other types, except NY pie, as it isn’t pie, it is pizza paper :p

/me runs and hides before someone comes at me with a funny accent from one of the burros.