by Enzo Coccia
After almost a year, I return to write something in my little diary. There is no excuse to justify my absence because I could have certainly found even only half an hour to be devoted to writing, collecting my thoughts and putting them down in black and white. I could hide behind the most common matters: “I was too busy”, “I worked a lot in my pizzeria”, “I have been abroad for a long time”. The truth is that I had neither the will nor the mental focus to do it. Now the present situation as prisoners allows me to think a lot and I feel the need to convey and share my thoughts.
Writing is a way of speaking aloud to myself and to those who want to read these few lines about the future of my world: the Neapolitan pizza. I am confined to my home like all those to whom the lockdown has been imposed with one hope: the chance that the expected date to be able to go out is not further delayed or postponed; traditional and digital media do nothing but bombard people with information on the management and organization of public places in the so-called Phase 2 of the coronavirus emergency.
However, these are vague hypotheses and words, empty talks: nobody can tell how the pizzeria will be organized and what will really happen.
But in all this confusion, I know for sure what the new mission of my Pizzeria La Notizia will be when this emergency ends; everything will be contained in one word: ESSENTIAL.
We almost always take things for granted and we don’t place the proper amount of importance on what we say. “Essential” has an immense, enormous value and, after this pandemic, in my humble opinion, we must adhere to it. I don not intend to explore the many meanings of the word essential in relation to the family, the social sphere, the solidarity, the environment etc. At the moment I intend to give an explanation to its meaning from the point of view of my job. My pizzeria will have the intrinsic meaning of the concept of essential in its new foundations: back to being the essence with which the pizzeria shop was born at the beginning of the 19thcentury, a simple and sincere relationship with people, customers and friends with a quality offer, based on seasonal products only. A return to a genuine need from the diners, a primordial pleasure such as eating with an essential tempting and good steaming pizza.
