"Once you've had really good pizza, it's hard to go back!"
You might hear our tummies growling in the background because today we talked about one of our mutual favorite subjects - pizza!! Alison shares some surprising facts about the history of pizza in Italy, and both Andrea and Alison discuss favorite ways of preparing dough and topping the pizza. There are infinite variations on this theme and they are all right - we don't judge what you want to put on your pizza, even if it's pineapple (but maybe a little if it's Nutella). Share your pizza pictures online and tag us on Instagram so we can drool over them and copy your brilliant ideas in our own kitchens!
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Here's what we talk about:
2:00 New patron and a cool review!
3:50 Ancestral Kitchen Challenge update
7:30 What Andrea ate for breakfast
10:05 What Alison ate for supper
14:00 Pizza!
14:45 Defining pizza
17:48 History of pizza
"Pizza was a street food in Naples"
20:30 How a Neapolitan street food became a global phenomenon
"Pizza as we know it was not eaten nationally in Italy until the 70s and 80s"
25:15 Italian food and regionality
26:36 Flatbreads
"Flatbreads are core to humanity"
27:46 US styles of pizza
30:30 Bad pizza!
32:00 How Alison makes her spelt pizza dough
33:27 How Alison shapes her pizza dough
35:05 How Andrea makes her pizza dough
"Pizza is a great way to get our kids involved in the kitchen"
40:30 How we manage transferral from bench to oven
46:00 Toppings
50:35 How to avoid a soggy Margherita pizza
51:01 Making tomato sauce
55:21 Lardo on pizza
56:09 Don't set your oven on fire like Alison did!
1:00:00 Pizza temperatures/ovens
"My first oven in Italy had a integral pizza stone!"
1:01:42 It doesn't have to be perfect!
1:03:32 Pizza screens
1:04:47 Meatza
1:06:52 The problem with Nutella
"This makes me want to make pizza!!"
Resources Mentioned
See, you all knew pizza was popularized in Naples
Nourishing Traditions for Kids as a Handicraft
2022 Ancestral Kitchen Challenge
Chewing the Fat book (also see The Eternal Table, by the same author!)
The Art of Eating Well: An Italian Cookbook by Pellegrino Artusi
Taste & the TV Chef: How Storytelling Can Save the Planet by Gilly Smith
Gola Podcast Episode: Nutella Nightmares
Sourdough Wholegrain Spelt Pizza Recipe on Alison's Website
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Thank you for listening - we'd love to continue the conversation.
Come find us on Instagram:
Andrea is at Farm and Hearth
Alison is at Ancestral Kitchen
The podcast is at Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
Original Music, Episode Mixing and Post-Production by Robert Michael Kay