PIZZA? BETWEEN MESSINA AND PACHINO, AMONG FOCACCIAS AND SCACCE.
PIZZA? BETWEEN MESSINA AND PACHINO, AMONG FOCACCIAS AND SCACCE.
Photo Source: Antonino Rampulla
On the review of Cracco's pizza margherita , the hypercritical social media people , made up of the brilliant minds of far-sighted economists, navigated football coaches, colleagues tout court by Pico de Paperis and expert chefs, from the only distracted look to the many photos available on the web of the now famous and controversial dish, he has even doubted his edibility ...
However, regardless of the time "lost" (certainly not for his pockets ...) to judge judgments of the competitors of Masterchef, an experience that has so distracted him from the kitchen to cost him a Michelin star , it is likely that the fame of Cracco in the kitchen (strictly Scavolini, mind you ...) is not only due to the television role.
I therefore wonder in what capacity he may utter a word about those who, at any rate, overuse the gourmet attribute are at best able to associate the Big Mac ... And I wonder how can similar pseudo forms -culinaria having taken hold in the home of good eating. I apologize (not without a thin veil of hypocrisy) to the aficionados of a certain paninism made in the USA for my barely mentioned gastronomic snobbism .
Returning to the starred chef's pizza margherita , the misunderstanding, to my fake modest and profane warning, comes from the most widespread and common pizza idea . If I were a Neapolitan I would feel robbed and offended for the mystification of the most famous dish of my gastronomic tradition, and not for the legitimate revisitation of Cracco but for certain gastronomic obrobations that overseas dare to pass off as pizza. And yes, gastropig at the Allan Bay has infected me ... In any case, pace of the Neapolitans, with the term pizza , the man of the world does not refer to the original Neapolitan veracious , but to any bread with a more or less flat base .
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My personal idea is that with the term pizza we should properly refer to the only true Neapolitan pizza , prepared according to its precise and precise disciplinary, related to dough, seasoning and cooking. The absurdity is that the vast majority of Domino's habitués and beautiful company, do not always succeed in appreciating it, preferring the industrial versions in which in the dough there is more lard or margarine of water and flour. Making Neapolitan pizza is not easy and, unless you are in Naples, it is rarely possible to enjoy its faithful reproduction. We are so addicted to a certain idea of pizza that we don't have the palato-cultural tools to taste the original . A few days ago I was able to taste the Neapolitan pizza of a historical place, but with new management, of the city where I live. These are the textual words of a reviewer on TripAdvisor, read as I poked about the latest reviews: "the pizza has the edge too wide, so you find yourself eating a pizza!" The pizzeria in question, in my always more or less modest opinion, serves an excellent Neapolitan pizza (sic et simpliciter ...), with obvious and very tasty pronounced cornice. It is evident that this reviewer has no idea how to present a true Neapolitan pizza . Of course, always better than those who, having reviewed a restaurant in sushi , complained that the fish was raw ...
But how widespread is the habit of not eating the "edge" (to use the same terminology as the average customer), as if it were not part of the pizza, as if it were a useless accessory? Can I save myself in the corner with a de gustibus non disputandum est and with the fact that often the half-hour leavened pizza doesn't have an inviting cornice?
In light of the established fact that the term pizza is usually associated with all the bread-based dishes with a flat base, crushed , Cracco was therefore fully entitled to call his dish pizza . In hindsight it turned out to be the most appropriate marketing choice, above all for the commercial echo that it obtained also thanks to the free propaganda of the haters on duty.
focaccia messinese.jpg
I wonder, however, why in Sicily, as well as what has been done with arancino / a and granita (not surprisingly different and distinguishable, for example, from the Roman supplì and grattachecca), we have not "touristically" focused on proposing the traditional Sicilian pizzas such as, for example, the sfinciuni Palermo, the focaccia messinese, the schiacciata catanese, the pizzòlu of Solarino and Sortino or the scaccia ragusana, instead of filling our waterfront < / em> almost exclusively of pizzerias, serving a very commercial version of pizza (more practical, less demanding and expensive than the original Neapolitan). There are exceptions. For example in the Messina area the focaccerie are widespread. But it is also true that their regulars are the same as those of Messina and only a small part of the tourists.
In Marzamemi I would like to read among the many beachfront signs also a brave and Sicilian scacceria ... However, if the same Cracco did not dare, for example, a focaccia margherita , let alone who first and foremost has the need to pay bills and personnel quickly.
The Pakistani tradition has always and only spoken of scaccia and scacciuni , not of pizza. The maximum of terminological exoticism is represented by pizza muddiata . It is in any case focaccia conceptually different from the Neapolitan pizza for dough and baking, with very simple seasoning (combining anyway easily available popular ingredients such as tomato, garlic, grated pecorino, oil, oregano, salt, anchovies and olives).
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This, if you like to try, is my version of Pachinese scaccia , bastardized by an omnipresent element in the Messina cuisine, the tuma . < br> The mixture
For a kilo of mixture I generally use 400 grams of a particularly strong flour 0 (Manitoba is fine), combined with 100 grams of Russello (a Ragusan semolina), 100 grams of Tumminia (an integral Trapani), 400 grams of mineral water at about 27 °, 5 grams of brewer's yeast, 15 grams of salt and 15 of sugar. I let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes, which will begin to change through autolysis , after which I add 15 grams of extra virgin olive oil (obviously Sicilian), which gives it more flavor and greater elasticity and uniformity to gluten meshes in formation. During the maturation of the dough, for at least 24 hours, I perform the folds 5-6 times (but no later than 4 hours before its use). By pleats we mean to fold the dough on itself for at least 4 times and in different directions, so as to release the gases produced during the leavening process, introduce new oxygen and restart the leavening process.
The filling

After spreading the dough, strictly by hand, I first put minced garlic, finely chopped anchovies, the tuma cut into cubes which I cover with fresh tomato (obviously cut into small pieces) pieces and seasoned with salt and oil) so that it acts as a protection against the heat that would tend to burn it before the end of cooking. Finally, I add olives, grated pecorino and oregano.

Cooking

When I cannot use other means that the classic “home” electric oven selects the maximum temperature and cooks on refractory stone waiting, before baking, for ten minutes after the oven has reached the selected temperature (in order to heat it for well the stone). The drive is ready when the ledge starts to turn brown.
Text Source: Antonino Rampulla
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