Happy day to the pizza makers who give us happiness!
A pizza maker is made and a good pizza maker is born. First truth of the secret of Neapolitan pizza, Intangible Universal Heritage according to UNESCO. “In the end this is an art, not just anyone can do it. It is learned since they are children, it is a family trade in many cases”, says Coke, founding partner of Grosso Napoletano in Madrid, where once they understood the secret they decided to only bring pizzaioli from Naples.
“It's something special and you have to have skill. It is not easy, first you have to come up with a recipe, it depends on the water and the flour, each one has its own recipe within the limits set by what Neapolitan pizza is, and then carry it out, knead it live It's not easy at all," he continues.
The circle of congratulations.
The secret of the perfect Neapolitan pizza is a combination of secrets. That is the second truth. Of course, it is essential a good dough, that the particularity of the Neapolitan is that it is not put in the fridge and must be fermenting for more than 30 hours. There is no doubt that you need not good ingredients, but the only ones, the best. At least if we talk about pizza di Napoli, the tomato has to be San Marzano and the Buffalo mozzarella with denomination of origin of Campania. But a pizza worthy of humanity and its heritage will not come out if the pizzaiolo does not “he has given good slaps” or if he oven is not wood, or more specifically, if it was not at the exact temperature.
With your hands in the dough...
They are things that Mario, executive pizza chef from Grosso Napoletano he started learning when he was 13 years old. “In Naples, being a pizzaiolo is very vocational, it is the official profession of the Neapolitans. In Italy if you say 'I'm Neapolitan', they say 'make me a pizza'. Everyone in Naples loves making pizza or eating it or watching it being made. My eight-year-old brother orders a 'well levitated pizza with high edges because he wants to see if there's any air inside'. These are things that are talked about a lot, it was the first street food in the world”.
Mario, like many kids his age, loved to see how they made pizza. Not surprisingly, UNESCO has recognized that "for many young professionals, becoming a pizzaiuolo also represents a way of avoiding social marginality."
In his case it was not out of necessity but out of pleasure, and Mario was lucky that his uncle had a pizzeria and in the summer of 13 she started working with him in the afternoons. “He stocked groceries and made takeout pizza boxes,” he remembers. “And at 16 he was ready to make pizzas. It's like the army, they train you and then they send you to war."
The secret is in the oven.
He was one of those who was born with the gift to stretch and knead pizza just like the Neapolitans do it, “slapping it, because you can throw it in the air, and if the oven is fine, it will turn out fine, but it is not the same”, he confesses he. But he was not good at the oven, and his uncle told him that until he controlled it, he would not knead dough again.
“Before being a pizzaiolo, you are a fornaio, you go through the oven, the oven has to be your friend. And it is not easy, you have to know that there is a type of firewood that is placed behind and heats up more, other thinner logs are placed in front to make a flame. It is not easy to know how to turn it 360 degrees with the shovel and not burn yourself. And it is essential that for a pizza to come out perfect, the oven is always between 450 degrees and a maximum of 480 or 490, at the most. If it is more, the mozzarella melts with the tomato and an orange stain forms”, explains Mario. "In Grosso, a pizza with that color does not come to the table."
The authentic Neapolitan pizza.
At 18, Mario already controlled the oven and the dough. "And I took my uncle's job," he laughs. At 21 he came to Madrid on vacation and stayed. He started working in the first Neapolitan wood-fired oven in the city (“That was a year younger than me, from 1994”, he says) in a now defunct pizzeria in Cava Baja and today he is a recognized pizzaiolo, who came recommended from Naples for the partners of Grosso Napoletano.
The third truth of Napoletana pizza is “that a good pizzaiolo without a good team behind him is nobody”, says Mario. “It is a job that can only be done well with passion and with humility”, he adds. "You are never good enough to believe yourself better than others and you always keep learning from everyone." Although yes, when you reach a respected level, your true secrets are not shared with everyone.
In Grosso Napoletano they follow Mario's recipe and system and whoever cannot make it yet is in the oven. But... "I don't teach anyone to make pizza," He says. “I have my secrets, my technique has taken me months and years to learn and perfect, I cannot teach it in five minutes”.