A Cheese-less Pizza Pie and an Italian Identity  [Op-Ed]

Each region in Italy has its quirks and I think quirks are what gives people a unique identity. Pizza topping preferences fall into that category the same way we might judge a group of people by the way they take their coffee. 

Rome prefers cheese on their pizza like most others do. Central parts of Italy prefer a pesto with sprinkles of cheese on top. Where my family is from, Naples and Ischia, we prefer a tomato pie without cheese. A true Neapolitan-style pizza forgoes the cheese without foregoing good taste.

As a child growing up in an Italian-dense region in the Northeast USA, I never questioned a cheese-less pizza. I never questioned a pizza with cheese, either. Pizza was something we had religiously every Friday and I welcomed every pie that I could put my chubby little hands on.

My great-grandparents started that tradition of Friday night pizza at least as far back as I can remember. And while pizza is central to American life, it means something a little bit different to those of Italian descent. Pizza isn’t just a way to unwind after a long week, it’s a way to enjoy a taste of home.

PIZZA AS CULTURAL EDUCATION

My family grew up on the same street as my grandmother, great-grandparents, great uncle and his family. If you’ve ever seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you’ll understand the vibe.

I spent a few hours with my grandparents every day after school until my parents got home from work. During those hours, my great-grandmother would teach me to cook basic things and often tell stories about her childhood.

On Fridays we always made homemade pizza. She would make the dough while I was at school so it had time to rise. When I came home, she would show me how to make a quick pizza sauce consisting of tomatoes, good olive oil, garlic, copious amounts of oregano, and only a pinch of red pepper flakes because I was too young to handle any more. 

I often asked her to show me how to make the dough from scratch since I knew how to make the sauce. She showed it to me a few times, I know she did, although I can’t remember them exactly. Most of the bread technique I had to relearn as an adult and eating a lot of horrible pizza until I figured it out. Still, I can’t remember exactly how close it was to hers. 

She would roll the dough for a good twenty minutes while I sat at the table and watched. Almost every Friday for a few months she would make this pizza dough with me and reiterate stories about Naples. History has never been a favorite subject of mine and admittedly I glazed over a few of her stories wondering when we’d be able to eat. 

As an adult I realize she wasn’t teaching me how to make a pizza. A nine-year-old who lives with their immediate and extended family doesn’t need to know how to be self-sufficient. Instead, she was teaching me how to carry my past with me as I moved into a new future that she could only dream of. 

Pizza was just part of the experience and seeing me growing up as Americanized as I was, I think she wanted to make sure something of her stayed behind when she passed on. Maybe it wasn’t the language. She was the only one that spoke it when I came around and I didn’t catch on quite as fast as I should have. Maybe it wasn’t her memories, because a nine-year-old doesn’t listen to anything, let alone something that isn’t about them. But pizza could be one thing of hers I could learn and carry with me as I grew up. 

It’s like making a Mother Yeast. It builds character over time until it develops a unique flavor from age. And no matter what kind of dough you make, whether it’s something new and innovative or old and familiar, a part of the Mother Yeast goes into it. The Mother Yeast doesn’t define the bread it goes into. It’s the essence of the Mother Yeast that enriches the bread and gives it the rich and complex identity it needs.

As an adult I realize she wasn’t teaching me how to make a pizza. A nine-year-old who lives with their immediate and extended family doesn’t need to know how to be self-sufficient. Instead, she was teaching me how to carry my past with me as I moved into a new future that she could only dream of. 

To be honest, I don’t remember much of what she said about making the pizza. I can’t remember how the dough felt or the sound of her voice as she taught. I do remember her technique, rolling the dough until it was paper thin and slathering it with her tomato sauce with a wooden spoon. I remember the oil drizzled on top and another dusting of hot pepper flakes, and it going into the oven on a metal pan to help crisp the bread. And I remember asking her why we buy pizza with cheese on it but we make it without.

“We don’t put cheese on it,” she said. “Cheese doesn’t go on pizza in Naples. Where you come from, you eat it without cheese. You let the sauce do the talking.”

Sometimes I’d ask her to put cheese on it and she’d refuse. The pizza always went in the oven without so much as a scrape of parmesan. Twenty minutes later, we would have a cheeseless pizza and a hot cup of decaf coffee. Yes, always a tomato pie and a cup of hot coffee.

Picture it. The woodland of Connecticut in 1998. Nine-year-old me, able to make pizza from scratch, cuss in Italian, and with a well-developed bad coffee habit. Now in my thirties I can proudly say not much has changed except the caffeine is stronger and my pizza is spicier. I’m now old enough to handle the full tablespoon–and then some.

THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

It seems that people carry more things from their past than they realize–good and bad. And while I can’t remember most of the things my great-grandmother told me, I can remember how to make a damn good pizza. 

“We don’t put cheese on it,” she said. “Cheese doesn’t go on pizza in Naples. Where you come from, you eat it without cheese. You let the sauce do the talking.”

I’ve come to believe that a simple Napolitan pizza, somewhere in the sauce that is left uncovered by cheese  is all the things unspoken and all the things no longer remembered that she took great care to pass on through me before she died. I’ve also come to believe that while a personal legacy doesn’t mean much to me in my current life stage, a homemade cheese-less pizza will somehow carry the same record of our history when I pass it along someday.

The tradition of Friday night pizza has been on hold for over 20 years now. I can’t promise that I’ll be faithful enough to keep the tradition when I have a family of my own. I can promise that I will make my great-grandmother’s pizza with my kids. They won’t know her and they’ll never have the experiences I did with her. But a homemade cheeseless pizza will be part of their identity, just as it is mine. And hopefully, someday, they’ll carry on the memory of my great-grandmother with them, even if they don’t recognize it. 

“Where you come from, you don’t put cheese on it,” I’ll tell them. “That’s how our family does it.”