Just about everybody in America has a good idea of what Neapolitan pizza is: your basic medium-thin-crust pie with a puffy edge, topped with tomatoes or tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and, perhaps, meats and veggies. But according to the experts, just about everybody in America is wrong.
In 2004, the Vera Pizza Napoletana (V.P.N.) association of Italy convinced the Italian Ministry of Agriculture to present true Neapolitan pizza to the European Union as a protected product like chianti, balsamic vinegar, and Asiago cheese. They were unhappy that pizza makers around the world were making pizza and calling it “Neapolitan” when, in their opinion, most such pies were bastards. When the stink arose, Neapolitan pizza makers all across America took notice and said, “Who cares?”
An untraditional garden pizza being pulled from a traditional Neapolitan wood-fired oven at Pizzeria Lauretano, Bethel, Connecticut.
But in these days of artisan baking, some of the nation’s most ambitious pizzaioli yearn to make their pizza exactly right and do proudly produce V.P.N.-approved pies. These are the qualifications a pizza must meet to make the grade.
◆ It must be cooked in a wood-fired dome oven at 800 degrees.
◆ Size can be no more than 14 inches in diameter.
◆ Flour must be extra-fine 00, preferably from Italy.
◆ It can be made only of fresh, nonprocessed ingredients, including basil, San Marzano tomatoes, and buffalo mozzarella. Forget Hawaiian pizza, cheeseburger pizza, and barbecue chicken pizza. Allowable configurations are marinara, margherita, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and prosciutto di Parma.
◆ The dough should be kneaded by hand or a low-speed mixer. No mechanical flattening of the dough is allowed; even a rolling pin is taboo.
◆ The bottom crust must be like a cracker and no thicker than a credit card. The outer crust can rise up and be dense and chewy. The latter should have a few charred black bubbles on its surface, proving the extreme heat of the oven.