1. Pizza is Neapolitan only if TSG…“MA OVERO FAJE?”(Are you joking? in Neapolitan ed.)

BY ANTONIO PUZZI

said a very young and beautiful Valeria Moriconi, playing Pupella in the film adaptation of Miseria e nobiltà of 1954, the film in which the unbeatable king of laughter, Totò, was consecrated to the role of Felice Sciosciammocca. The subject of the discussion was a "pizzella" received as a gift from Peppiniello, born Franco Melidoni, which the boy had unfortunately put in his pocket together with a letter that his father, Totò, had asked him to deliver to the "knight", the person who would have helped them fight poverty and that instead had refused the letter, because it was greasy with pizza oil. That "pizzella", even if rigorously folded over, has been known since 5 February 2010 as Pizza Napoletana TSG, Traditional Specialty Guaranteed, of the European Union. And before? It was simply “pizzella” or “pizza”.

And this was precisely one of the reasons why the reservation of the name was not requested at the time. In practice, a regulation was being codified, born from the wisdom and daily practice of about three centuries but it was well understood that this was only one of the possible ways in which pizza expressed itself in "its" Naples: a living product, like the dough and therefore in continuous evolution, a product that is impossible to confine to the chains of a legislation.

According to the codified recipe, "Pizza Napoletana TSG looks like a rounded baked product, with a variable diameter that must not exceed 35 cm (13 ¾ in), with a raised edge (cornice) and with the central part covered by the topping".

And the following is the explanation to prepare the dough: “Pour one litre (35.2 UK fl oz, 33.8 US fl oz) of water into the mixer, add and dissolve between 50 and 55g (1.76 – 1.94 oz) of sea salt, 10% of the total quantity of flour is added, then 3 g (0.11 oz) of brewer's yeast is dissolved, start the mixer and gradually add 1.8 kg (63 ½ oz) of W 220-380 flour until the desired consistency is reached, known as the dough point. This operation must take 10 minutes. The dough must be worked in the mixer preferably with a fork for 20 minutes at low speed until a single compact mass is obtained”.

SO NO SOURDOUGH, LOOK OUT! But let's get to the processing times: “The dough, once removed from the mixer, is placed on a work table in the pizzeria where it is left to rest for 2 hours, covered with a damp cloth, so that the surface doesn’t harden, forming a sort of crust caused by by the evaporation of the humidity released by the mixture itself. After the 2 hours of leavening, the loaf is formed and this must be done by the pizza chef exclusively by hand. […] Once the loaves (staglio) have been formed, a second leavening takes place in food boxes, lasting from 4 to 6 hours. This mixture, stored at room temperature, is ready to be used within the following 6 hours"

8 hours of leavening and consumption within the following 6 hours, therefore! I challenge anyone to find a pizza chef who today even remotely recognizes himself in this description.

Is it a wrong regulation? Absolutely not, but pizza has evolved in the meantime and above all the attitudes of the two associations that best represent the category have changed: the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana and the Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani. In particular, the Disciplinary of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana has changed (recently), and for a couple of years it has recognized the use of sourdough and also the use of coarser flours.

However, the turning point came with the request to change the protection regime from "without reservation of the name" to "with reservation of the name" in order to safeguard the registration of the product in question, after the abolishment of the registration of agricultural and food products as TSG without reservation of use of the name. In 2015, the Ministry of Agricultural Policies was practically "forced" to include the protection of the name in the Official Gazette of 25 November. This choice was solicited by the Neapolitan Pizzaiuoli Association – who feared the removal of the TSG recognition - (according to what Ettore Rosati, Director of the Qualivita Foundation, declared to Francesco Seminara in an interview for La Repubblica). Yet today they are the first to take sides against it: Sergio Miccù was president then and still is today. No one in Europe has opposed the public request, leaving the go-ahead for registration with reservation of the name Pizza Napoletana TSG.