149 senses and the city Che pizza! Don’t you worry: I won’t tell you how or when pizza was born, nor will I provide the best addresses [simply taking into account the proverbial spoilt for choice]. Fried, cooked in a wood-burning oven, folded a portafoglio. Elastic, tasty, with a soft and swollen crust. Pizza is Naples, as Naples is coffee. Dense, sometimes sweetened by default, leaving on the strictly boiling tazzulella a thick brownish patina. What makes it so special? Is it water, humidity, air, that creamy sauce? Still a mystery. Desserts, torture and delight. In particular for every expat who, sooner or later, will be victim of the pastiera ordeal [«can you do it?» «would you do it for me?»], Easter cake summed up by foreigners in three adjectives: very difficult; very good; very heavy. By the way, if you cultivate the perversion according to which dessert is good when not too sweet, better not to set foot down here: sfogliatelle [ricce or frolle], delizie with lemon, brioche col tuppo, St. Joseph’s zeppole, fiocchi di neve and even baba could be fatal to you. Not to mention the Christmas glycemic arsenal, including almond pastries, mustaccioli, raffiuoli, struffoli and roccocò. In an attempt to work off the guilt trip, two walking advice among sweet and salty, pop and sublime. Treat yourself to a huge ice cream [mulberries and annurca apple, for instance] and, while enjoying it, climb through �uartieri Spagnoli and Stella �uarter, looking for the houses dwelt by Giacomo Leopardi, ardent lover of granita, sorbets confetti and sugared tarallini. Or go to down to the boardwalk, where Castel dell'Ovo stands, once home to the most famous gourmet of antiquity, Lucio Licinio Lucullo. Here, lulled by the breeze, you can bite fresh coconut, lupins and a hearty suet, pepper and almond tarallo, preferably warm, possibly accompanied by a cold one. Finally, if you are saturated with pasta and potatoes [with or without provola], Genoese onion sauce, spaghetti with pummarola or with clams [in this respect, the address of reference is Trattoria da Nennella in �uartieri Spagnoli]; if you have already deepened the difference between mozzarella, fiordilatte and provola, we challenge you to try two genuinely traditional dishes: the mussel soup on Holy Thursday and the minestra maritata. The latter is older than pizza and Pulcinella's macaroni. In fact, before the spread of carbs, Neapolitans were called mangiafoglia² due to their diet, rich in vegetables. Rarely at the dinner table any piece of meat appeared, but semel in the year even the poorest were entitled to a little meat: it happened, and still happens today, at Christmas, when chicory, cabbage, beets, endive, broccoli, borage meet in the pot pig, beef, chicken, hen and plenty of cheese. It is an arranged marriage, of course, and each family provides differently for its success. In any case it is a sacrament, and as such it must be respected. ² Tr. leaf-eaters.
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