Pedigreed Pizza

There is pizza, and there is Pizza Napoletana. The two, connoisseurs say, have as much in common as a premier cru Bordeaux has with the plonk in a screw-top jug. Soon pedigreed Neapolitan pizza will join the panteon of European Union-certified edibles like Spannish serrano ham and English blue Stilton cheese. Warning: It takes longer to read the EU specs for Neapolitan pizza than to bake one. To bear the imprimatur of Guaranteed Traditional Specialty, pizza must not stray over 35 cm in diameter nor the crust exceed two cm in thickness; ingredients must include type 00 flour and up to 100 grams of tomatoes (preferably Marzanos) applied in a spiraling motion. The word "pizza" first appeared in and 997 AD manuscript from Gaeta, a souther Italian town. A millenium later, in 1997, separatist militants in northern Italy tried to boycott pizza - the icon of their southern nemesis. Neapolitans responded to the effect "Let them eat polenta," refering to the cornmeal-based mush dear to the wealthier, but allegedly culinarily impoverished, north. If only Naples had patented pizza, food writer Burton Anderson observed, "it would be among Italy's wealthier cities instead one of its poorest." - As written by Cathy Newman, National Geographic