by Lina Malafronte
Piennolo or San Marzano tomatoes? Buffalo mozzarella or fior di latte? Friggitelli o friarielli? Anchovies or tuna? These are the ingredients -to tell the truth, some of the ingredients more popular when the skies are blue and the mercury soars.
Summer is in full swing and the traffic chaos has already started. Sea, mountain or lake, a little over half of the Italians, according to what the first data collection revealed, chose to spend some days, even if less than the previous years, because of the economic crisis, away from its daily environment.
The other half, that who, for various reasons, remains in the city, has to endure the sultriness and the extremely hot temperature of this scorching summer. And, under burning rays, on the steaming asphalt and with very high humidity, it certainly doesn’t renounce to the taste, albeit in a lighter version.
Without saying no to goodness and pleasure, to avoid to get heavier and be in a cold sweat to digest rich toppings as buffalo sausage or colonnata lard, guests opt for something fresher, but no less appetizing.
Besides margherita and marinara, which are in great demand, we can go ahead with the caponata pizza. Quite different from the Neapolitan-style caponata, the one made with the fresella, with which it shares only its shape, this pizza, blend of 00 and whole wheat flour, is garnished, added strictly when the pizza is out of the oven, with little yellow cherry tomatoes, black olives from Gaeta, arugula and tuna from Favignana.
Fish and golden apples again on another pizza invented just when the sun beats down hard on our heads. Named Mediterranea and then renamed Sorrento, the pizza shows fresh anchovies, little yellow cherry tomatoes, parsley, basil, chives and it is finished by a sprinkling of orange flavoured oil.
Among the tireless pizza eaters’ choices another pizza, as light as the others, takes the lead. It is the Nerano pizza that, with zucchini –a lot of water, vitamins, mineral salts and almost zero calories, great helpers when we gasp, fior di latte, grated provolone del monaco and mint, proves to be perfect.
Not forgetting the one with the white dairy product from Agerola and Ligurian handmade pesto sauce, another important protagonist of these months, and Cosacca, also known as pizza del Puveriello that, even if it is very simple, made with onli San Marzano tomatoes squashed by hand, pecorino cheese, extravirgin olive oil and basil, is delicious.
How to finish the dinner? Do you think you could have a better happy ending without an ice-cream, genuine ace in the hole in hot summer days? While the one we are offering these months stops the time, making eyes and mouths open wide when only thinking about it -but it is a new story that we will tell you next time we wish you all great summer holidays. La Notizia staff will be glad to welcome you in September.
