Pizza Perfection Paige Hannah

I strode into Pizza e Musica cold and hungry. It was 7:45pm, nearly an hour and a half past what I would typically consider normal dinner time. True to form, however, most Italians were just beginning to emerge from their cozy apartments in search of the perfect place to trade their time and Euros to participate in the nightly celebration known as la cena. The sweet smell of dough beckoned us 15 or so American students inside, and as I stepped out of the biting Perugian wind, I was embraced by the warmth of the wood burning oven, leaving me feeling as though I was being greeted by an old friend. As we huddled around the glass wall covering the pizza artist’s workbench, Zach, our gracious host and instructor for the evening began to tell us the ins and outs of pizza making, including the phenomenon of the “yeast fart.” Between jokes, we were told that the absolute best pizzas are made in a wood burning brick oven. For the dinner crowd, the fires are lit in the early afternoon, allowing the brick to absorb the heat, which it will hold throughout the evening as countless pizzas are transported from the ovens to the stomachs of satisfied customers. We observed carefully as the owners demonstrated their craft while Zach translated both words and actions. After several students tried their hand at making their own pizzas, we hungrily, sat down to order. While I am typically one to order my pizza con prosciutto cotto, this evening I venture for the Quattro Stagioni. This particular pizza’s ingredients represent –you guessed it– the four seasons. In addition to tomato and mozzarella, the ingredients include prosciutto for winter, artichoke for spring, olives for summer and mushroom for the fall, each represented in its very own quarter section. I watch the fornista as he sprinkles a handful of flower on the countertop, and then uses his small paletta (‘shovel’) to pick up one of the perfect round pieces of dough he prepared earlier that day. Using a series of seemingly simple hand movements, he gently rolls and stretches out the dough in a perfect circle, creating his canvas for his masterpiece. Surprisingly, he does not fling the dough above his head. Rather, he proceeds to pick up the dough and pass it in a fluid motion back and forth between his hands, as though he was rubbing them together, until the dough is the desired size—a motion the fornista appears to have embedded into his very DNA. He scoops a small ladle full of tomato sauce and spreads it around the dough, careful to not go over the edge. After delicately sprinkling some mozzarella, the four toppings and a splash of olive oil, he picks up the pala, a flat shovel with a long handle, and in the blink of an eye the pizza is slid into the oven. The pizza only takes about 90 seconds to cook, during which time the fornista is careful to take his smaller pala, also called a paletta, and rotates the pizza. He is concentrated but casual as he uses the edge of the pizza like a fulcrum to pivot the pizza so all sides can cook evenly. He again inserts his pala gracefully, pulling out the perfect pizza. It is delivered to me on my own personal plate, and I gaze at what lies before me. In a world of music, this pizza is a magnum opus. My growling stomach begs me to begin eating, and my fork and knife graze the surface of the pizza. Each section of my pizza brings a different surprise, as my mouth is filled with four distinct yet complementary flavors. My favorite is the mushroom. The melted mozzarella and the spongy mushroom provides a full sensory experience for my tongue. As I finish off my pizza, I feel a bit gluttonous as I think to myself, “I could definitely eat more of that.” In this experience I learn that in Italy one does not just make a pizza. Whether it is the simple margherita or if you enjoy the more complicated filetto, piled with tomato sauce, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, arugula and flakes of parmiggiano, making a pizza is a delicate combination of an art and a science. In a country world-renowned for its cuisine, don’t expect your standard-issue Domino’s or Papa John’s from a commercial-sized oven. Instead, you will receive your own

personal pizza, one that may seem simple in its ingredients, but one taste and you will never look at pizza the same again. So sit back, take a chance, and put your evening safely in the hands of the fornista. I promise you won’t be disappointed.