Although pizza has become as American as hamburgers, many Italian words are still used in its making, serving, and eating. Here are some basics for any pizzaphile to know:
00 (double zero): The most finely ground flour, as soft as talcum powder, yielding an elegant pizza crust. This is what traditional Neapolitan pizza makers use.
Bianca (white): A pizza bianca is made without tomato sauce. It may not have any cheese either, resulting in just a flatbread with salt and herbs on top.
Buffalo mozzarella: Mozzarella di bufala is a moist, creamy cheese made from the milk of water buffaloes. It is a hot-ticket item on pizzas, and while it is prized for its delicate flavor, it tends to weep a lot of moisture when it cooks, softening the crust below.
Calzone: Pizza crust folded over to pocket ingredients (aka stromboli, panzarotti).
Chicago-style: Chicago has many other styles, including ultra-thin, but the deep-dish pizza, created here in the late 1940s, is its signature. See separate entries on deep-dish pizza, stuffed pizza, and pizza pot pie.
Cornicione: The technical Italian term for the collar or edge at the circumference of a Neapolitan pizza.
D.O.C.: Created in 1955, the Denominazione de Origine Controllata sets standards for many Italian food products, including buffalo mozzarella cheese.
EVOO: Extra-virgin olive oil, the cream of the crop. It has low acidity and a refined taste.
Focaccia: A flatbread, similar to a pizza, but with minimal (or no) toppings.
Grandma pizza: A pizza created in Elmont, New York, cooked in a rectangular pan with a medium-thick crust and minimal toppings. See separate entry on Grandma pizza.
Margherita: The classic margherita pizza is made of San Marzano tomatoes, extra-virgin olive oil, fresh basil, mozzarella, and Pecorino Romano. Nothing more, nothing less. It is personal-sized, 12–14 inches in diameter, and the wood-burning oven in which it cooks should be hot enough that it cooks through in approximately 90 seconds.
Marinara: Tomato sauce without meat. A classic Neapolitan topping, with or without cheese.
Neapolitan: Strictly speaking, a Neapolitan pizza is individually sized and cooked in a very hot wood-burning oven, but in America the term is used much more broadly to describe any circular, thin to medium-thin pizza with sauce and cheese and other toppings. See separate entry on Neapolitan pizza.
Party cut: A term popular throughout the Midwest and as far east as New Jersey. It refers to a pizza that is cut into squares rather than triangles. Both round and rectangular pizzas can be party cut. The seldom-heard antonym, referring to the triangular slice, is pie cut.
Peel: The long-handled spatula on which pizzaioli assemble a pizza. They then use it to slide the pizza deep into the oven, move it around on the oven floor, and retrieve it when it is done.
Pesto: A concentrated spruce-green paste made of basil, olive oil, garlic, and pine nuts. Frequently spread on pizza in lieu of tomato sauce.
Pizzaiolo: Pizza-maker. The plural is pizzaioli. The feminine is pizzaiola (which also is the name for a tomato sauce flavored with oregano).
Pumate: Sun-dried tomatoes, usually sold packed in olive oil. They have an intense flavor.
San Marzano tomatoes: Firm plum tomatoes grown in volcanic soil around Naples; especially good for pizza because they have few seed cavities and minimal sugar content.
Sicilian pizza: Thick-crusted, baked in a pan, and almost always rectangular rather than round. Traditional versions do not include cheese but are topped with herbs and seasonings, perhaps with a puttanesca paste. The quality of Sicilian pizza depends overwhelmingly on the dough. It must rise very slowly and the pan in which it cooks must be oiled enough that the crust gets crunchy at its edges but remains cream-soft within, maintaining proud yeast posture. Too dense, too much time elapsed after it is pulled from the oven, overweight toppings: All spell Sicilian disaster.
Tray: Throughout the Northeast and Midwest, rectangular pizzas with medium or thick crusts frequently are referred to not as pies but as trays.
V.P.N.: The initials stand for Verace Pizza Napoletana, a worldwide organization that trains pizza-makers and certifies that they are making pizza the traditional Neapolitan way.