Cooking the Neapolitan Way

[Guest guest]

Cooking the

Neapolitan Way

 

© by Allen Rucker

 

 

Excerpt taken from the Soprano's Family Cookbook. This

is a small

introduction by Natalie Del Greco, Librarian, Newark

Public Library.

 

First thing said, this food did not originate in Tuscany,

Rome, or

Siclily.

 

Neapolitan food, like Neapolitan people, is essentially

hearty and

straightforward -- what Middle Americans would call

" stick to the ribs "

food -- though centuries of outside influences have also

given this

cuisine variety and sophistication. The area around

Naples, with the

sea on one side and rich mountain farmland on the other,

is a veritable

cornucopia of raw ingredients. Broccoli, olives, and

other vegetables

grow like weeds. Neapolitans were once called

mangiafoglie, or leaf

eaters, by Northern Italians because their diet was so

rich in

vegetables.

 

Then the influence of foreign invaders like the French and

the Spanish,

and the introduction of a few new ingredients, the unique

cuisine of

Naples began to emerge. First pasta, or in the parlance

of the times,

maccerone [macroni], moved to the center of the table.

It was easy to

store for months on end and it went with almost anything.

 

Meanwhile, at some point, a resourceful Neapolitan came

up with the idea

of spreading a juicy red vegetable from the New World --

the tomato --

over flat bread, add a little cheese, and call it pizza.

Pizza, like

much of this cuisine, started out as peasent food but

soon became

high-class. As the story goes, one day Queen Margherita,

wife of the

reigning foreign overlord in the 1880's, decided to try a

little of this

so-called pizza. A smart pizzaiolo made a delicate

concoction [i.e., no

garlic or anchovies] with only tomatoes, mozzarella, and

basil, the

three colors of the Italian flag. The queen apparently

loved it, the

dish was dubbed Pizza Margherita, and you can now get it

in Dubai and

Tibet.

 

Of course, the sauce of the tomato went very well with

spaghetti too.

The thing about pasta and tomato sauce -- or any sauce --

is that you

can eat it constantly in an endless assortmentof tastes

and textures, as

many young gourrmands have discovered. Some experts say

that it was the

great Naples -- born opear singer, Enrico Caruso -- the

Pavarotti of his

day -- who helped spread the cause of pasta. Being an

opera singer, he

had a big appetite and apparently demanded a bowl of

spaghetti daily, no

matter where he performed.

 

No doubt Caruso also craved a little pizza after a hard

night of

Puccini, and given the massive immigration of Neapolitans

to America

from 1870 onward, there was probably a pizza shop around

the corner.

This great influx of immigrants, mostly poor, mostly

unskilled, brought

the whole rich palette of Neapolitan ingredients with

them -- anchovies,

basil, olive oil, garlic, and onions [though not in the

same dish],

their cheeses, and all of their preserved pork products,

like salami,

prosciutto, and capicola.

 

They even brought the idea of take-out pizza. Long

before home pizza

delivery was the American norm, street vendors in Naples

would walk

around with metal boxes on their heads and sell you a hot

pizza right

outside your kitchen window. And you can still buy it on

the street

today.

 

For many new Italian-Americans, food became a means of

economic

survival.

 

“Fortunately

art is a community effort - a small but select community living in a

spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the

flesh.”

-Allen Ginsberg

 

 

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