citinotes
Kingdom of pizza
“Twelve pizzas, a pork shoulder and a pork kidney on Christmas Day…”: This pizza order, the oldest documented food order in history, was unveiled in a notarial document located in Gaeta, a town in Italy, at the end of the first century AD. While pizza-like dishes, featuring baked flatbread topped with oils, herbs, and cheese, had been crafted since the Stone Age, it was in Italy, particularly Naples, where the evolution of pizza as we know it was ‘patented.’
Pizza aficionados may be familiar with the story: on the occasion of the visit of The well-known tale among pizza aficionados recounts the historic event during Queen Margherita’s visit to Naples in 1889. Court chef Raffaele Esposito, commissioned to create a pizza tribute to the Queen of Italy, selected toppings inspired by the colors of the Italian flag: tomato (red), mozzarella (white), and basil (green). Pizza Margherita, the world’s first modern pizza, caused a sensation. Queen Margherita, delighted, sent a letter of recognition to Chef Esposito. Subsequently, Italian immigrants carried this iconic recipe to New York, and the rest is history — wherever this Neapolitan invention reached, it became an instant hit. Over a century later, very few foods, if any, can rival the popularity of this unbeatable recipe.
Naples isn’t just renowned for pizza; it’s also the birthplace of spaghetti and home to the most delectable gelati (ice creams) and coffee. The city’s profound connection with food is deeply embedded in local culture, serving as a timeless source of pride and a potent element of social bonding. Restaurants such as “Trattoria Da Nennella” and “Osteria Don Vittorio” bear the names of their cooks, often ordinary family men and women, indicating the quality of their food. Travel writers meticulously documented the pivotal role of food in shaping the city’s identity, drawing parallels between pizza and Mount Vesuvius, spaghetti and the sinuous city streets, and porcelain cherubs and rum babas. In each meal, they discern a reflection of the city’s landscape, history, and lifestyle.
Domenico Rea (1921 – 1994), a prominent Italian writer and journalist of the 20th century, dedicated his life observing and documenting his homeland, Naples. As a representative of the realist movement, Rea sought to portray, with remarkable honesty and perceptiveness, the challenges faced by post-war Naples as it endeavored to regain stability. In the first selected excerpt, Rea skillfully interwines the world-renowned Neapolitan pizza, the city’s history and the unique features of its natural landscape.
Rea further posits that Neapolitan cuisine serves as the most faithful reflection of the city: the elusive form of spaghetti mirrors the careless mobility of street kids; the scorched rim of pizza seems to emerge straight from Vesuvius’ crater; and the intricate twists of sfogliatella, a popular Italian pastry, evoke the orante scrolls of Neapolitan baroque. Together with Jean-Noël Schifano (1944 – ) they assert that understanding Neapolitan food is key to comprehending local culture. Both of French and Italian descent, Schifano has played an active role in bringing the two cultures closer. In the selected excerpt, the reader delves into the secrets of sfogliatella, unravelling as many crunchy layers as the diverse colors, forms and temperaments of this vibrant city.
The parallels drawn by these two astute observers of Naples between the city’s food and its landscapes are captivating. Equally intriguing are the travel notes of the French author Dominique Fernadez (1929 – ), a specialist in Italian Baroque. Fernandez sheds light on the evocative power of the city’s religious architecture. Describing domes as puffy as wedding cakes and porcelain cherubs with a sugary sweetness, he contends that Neapolitan churches are a delight for both the eye and the taste buds, capable of stirring the most tender memories of one’s youth.
“Food unites us: Every Sunday is an opportunity for our families to come together and enjoy nonna’s (grandma’s) specialties, one dish after another: antipasto, primo and secondo piatto.” explains Dominique, a friend from Naples portrayed her city in an interview with Citimarks. In this cherished gathering, the three-course culinary ritual is observed with devout respect, “every single time”, she adds. Chronic poverty remains a enduring challenge in Naples, making those who can enjoy a wholesome meal appreciate it all the more. The significant role that food -and its absence- has played in shaping local culture is immortalized in literature: In the following excerpt, Domenico Rea (1921 – 1994) breathes life into Pulcinella, one of the most renowned characters of the Commedia dell’Arte theater genre. Impoverished, coarse, and always hungry, Pulcinella embodies the quintessential Neapolitan archetype; his willingness to do anything for a plate of spaghetti serves as a constant reminder of the city’s deep connection with food and its people’s timeless struggle to make ends meet.
All three of the mentioned authors possess an unparalleled talent for delving deep into the Neapolitan heart, bringing its most essential and timeless elements to the surface. Explore their captivating travel notes and discover our favorite food markets and restaurants at the end of this article.
Citinotes
chapter 1
A Vesuvian pizza
Any pizza not originating from Naples is simply something else. This airy, translucent delicacy, as soft as a seam, with rims as fluffy and charred as cooled lava from Vesuvius […] is a manifestation of Neapolitan life, much like Neapolitan spaghetti, and certain now-famous cakes.
The Neapolitans weren’t the original inventors of these culinary delights, but they were the ones who gave birth to the distinct form known as “Neapolitan” pizza. […] Pizza, or schiacciata or stiacciata, was always there:always existed in some form – someone, somewhere would lay wheat, rice, or another edible ingredient on a burnt stone to stave off hunger, devoid of any pleasure. Had the pizza been reduced to the concept of schiacciata, it would only have been a gray, odious thing, a sort of bitter medicine for the Neapolitan. […]
The miraculous second invention lay in giving it shape: making the pizza round, square, or rectangular. Why round? Because everything surrounding the Neapolitan man was round – the sun, the moon, and a gulf as circular as the space between Vesuvius, Sorrento, Capri, and Ischia. However, the Neapolitan would not be satisfied with merely shaping the pizza; it had to be adorned with color, a sign of life as vibrant as a child’s whimsical drawing.
This is why the pizza’s tomato red symbolizes the Turkish pirate ships engaging in relentless raids; the mozzarella […] as white as the sails of the caravels scattered by hundreds in the port by the king… by any king to whom basil is devoted knowing that, no pizza is worthy of its name without basil and its flavor – and would perhaps symbolize the sunset, extravagance, or that indefinable “extra element”, that “something more” without which the Neapolitan spirit cannot live.
Pizza is an anthropological extension of the Neapolitan: a unique way of being, a manner -exclusive to Neapolitans- of staying warm under the sun or moon, immersed in a vibrant world. If, by chance, these colors later coincided with the Italian flag, it was a pure coincidence.
Domenico Rea, Visite privée : Naples, Editions du Chêne, 1991.
The pizza serves as the gastronomic thermometer of the market: its price fluctuates, based on the cost and availability of its ingredients thoughout the year. If the fish pizza is crafted with half a grain, it indicates a bountiful fishing; if it’s made with whole grain, the catch was surely bad.
Alexandre Dumas, Le Corricolo, Editions d’aujourd’hui, 1843.
At the pizzeria Concettina ai Tre Santi, one can find the most gourmet pizzas in Naples.
chapter 2
Sfogliatella, a hundred layers old
The Neapolitans have unparalleled mastery in aligning their food with their personalities. The elusive and mobile nature of spaghetti mirrors the frenetic adventures of the scugnizzi (street kids of Naples). The pizza, with its fluffy, scorched rims resembling cooled lava from Vesuvius, is a culinary masterpiece that is 100% Neapolitan. Even the sfogliatella, a cream-filled pastry with stacked, curvy layers of dough, didn’t come into existence in Naples by chance. Its intricate layers recall the neurotic staircases of numerous princely palaces, and its twisted threads replicate Neapolitan baroque.
Domenico Rea, Visite privée: Naples, Editions du Chêne, 1991.
The sfogliatella emerges from an 18th-century oven burning at 300°C, conceived in the crusty and pulpy dreams of a nun secluded in her baroque monastery, surrounded by decorative golden scrolls.. […]
The sfogliatella is Naples. It has the shape of Naple’s ampitheatric design, with houses stacked, one on top of the other, like in a thin ribbon of puff pastry. It has the color of Naples, a hue of tufa crumbling and flowing toward the sea like a sunlit honeycomb. It embodies the sweetness of Naples, an oriental sweetness, that is rounded, velvety, and enveloping -enticing us, absorbing us and […] allowing us to momentarily forget the thin, crumbly ribbons of our western self.
With a wavy movement and the form of a seashell, the sfogliatella becomes a playful joy for children to explore, creating rings with the golden ribbon that they unroll and eventually bite into, savoring the blond caviar, redolent of Turkish delight. Every lover of Naples partakes in a communion with this soft shell of vertiginous coils, transforming Naples into a city within a fictional palate of flesh. […]
The Neapolitan food deserves praise, as nowhere else can one find such harmony between life and sustenance. Similarly, no other place exhibits a greater harmony between men and myths, between life and its collective representation.
Jean-Noël Schifano, Naples, Seuil, 1981.
The famous Sfogliatella pastry.
chapter 3
Cherubs of sugar
The churches of Naples may not boast the title of the world’s most beautiful, but why would the Neapolitans desire a kind of beauty that intimidates and keeps its distance?
Neapolitan churches serve as shelters, nests, alcoves, and caves—sanctuaries shielded from noise, dust, light, and the heat wave. They are merciful havens where one can instantly reclaim the soul of a child, surrounded by playful cherubs exuding politeness. These cherubs extend their arms, inviting you to touch them, appearing sugary, almost urging you to take a bite.
With their dynamic contortions and ceaseless movement, they adamantly refuse to be reduced to mere objects of contemplation. […] The churches themselves resemble padded dressing-gowns and blissful wedding cakes, transmitting a series of exquisite sensations—more through the mouth than the eye—plunging you into the same physical pleasure one experiences when biting into a cake. […]
The Church of San Gregorio Armeno, nestled in the heart of Spaccanapoli, embodies the ideal church for me. At first glance, it may appear as a rocky structure, but upon closer inspection, it seems as if a caramel-like material fashioned this church, adorned with pulpy rough patches meticulously carved by the hands of some childish cherub. It shares nothing with the whipped-cream style of Bavarian or Austrian churches. The atmosphere here is dark, golden, dense, and archaic—a pre-erotic style, a cave-like hideout despite the extreme sophistication evident in every detail.
Dominique Fernandez, Le volcan sous la ville, Plon, 1983.
chapter 4
Pulcinella, the instinct of life
I am white-dressed mask, and I’m always hungry
I come from Naples, homeland of perfect spaghetti,
land of songs, land of macaroni,
I am a specialist in beatings
How many have I taken, so many have I given!
Poetry of the Carnival — Domenico Volpi, writer of youth literature.
Naples is the birthplace of Pulcinella, who, though vanished, has imprinted his comical visage and poignant message deep within the Parthenopean soul for over four centuries. Emerging from the countryside (rumored to be Acerra) in the 17th century, he swiftly assumed the role of a literary “spokesperson” for Naples, personifying the city’s prevailing vices and most glaring flaws.
Pulcinella is eternally hungry, filled with spaghetti everywhere: beneath his hood, entangled in his hair, and even tucked into his boxers. His insatiable hunger compels him to part with everything he possesses: his household furniture, his wife, his daughter, and eventually, himself..
Due to this unrelenting hunger that spans the centuries, Pulcinella is prepared to serve anyone, even to the point of adulation. One thing he steadfastly refuses to do is work; in the midst of his direst troubles, he opts to dance, sing, and frolic around.
Possessing a distinctive nose aids him in better identifying smells and moving toward their source. When he speaks, Pulcinella stammers, utters nonsense, and repeats suffixes, prefixes, and flexional endings to the point of paranoia. One might suspect him of not thinking, of having an empty-headed quality, of transferring words directly from his stomach to his lips. He operates without conscience. Threats from the henchmen of foreign powers in Naples don’t faze him. Pulcinella willingly falls at their feet, not solely driven by a morbid love of servility, but also because he admires the uniform, the shining sword, and the mighty horse upon which the henchman sits.
Pulcinella behaves like a thoughtless entity. When someone knocks on his door, he responds by farting, announcing, “I am taking a dump.” His greatest pleasure lies in indulging his visceral, instinctive self. The Neapolitans cherished Pulcinella to such an extent that they elevated him to the status of a Patron saint, hanging his sacred image on their home walls alongside the icons of their revered saints. […].
Although Pulcinella may no longer exist, his legend endures. Neapolitans recall him through various gestures and sayings. […] Ultimately, bad luck remains the inevitable destiny that awaits Pulcinella; bad luck is the sole belief that Neapolitans hold onto.
Domenico Rea, Visite privée : Naples, Chêne, 1991.
Pulcinella embodies the authentic national character […]: a genuinely phlegmatic servant—composed, seemingly indifferent up to a certain point, almost lazy, and yet humorous. Similar young hotel servants and valets reminiscent of Pulcinella can be encountered everywhere. Today, one of our own provided entertainment simply by delivering some paper and pens: a minor misunderstanding, coupled with a touch of sluggishness, good-natured intent, and a bit of mischief, resulted in the funniest of scenes that could be replicated by any accomplished theater out there.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1786, in Voyage en Italie, Bartillat, 2003.
Naples for foodies
Explore the most delicious food spots in town
