The Royal History Of Pizza

Video: The Royal History Of Pizza

Video: The Royal History Of Pizza
Video: The Secret History of Pizza | Epicurious 2024, September
The Royal History Of Pizza
The Royal History Of Pizza
Anonim

There's probably no one who doesn't love pizza. This delicious dish has a rather unusual history. Now I will take you to the time when kings Ferdinand I and Ferdinand II reigned, and I will tell you about their attempts to bring the people's dish into the royal court.

King Ferdinand was the first to dislike boring royal receptions and hours of standing and idleness in the palace, but he also disliked the dishes prepared in the royal kitchen. So he disguised himself as a peasant and walked the streets of Naples. And it was there, unfortunately or not, that he met the famous pizza master, whom they called Thunder.

His real name was Antonio Testo. Pizza she left incurable marks in the king's tender and hungry stomach, and when he ate almost to burst, he returned to the palace. As you can guess, he hurried to brag to his people around him, but he encountered dissatisfaction and misunderstanding.

And when he tried to put pizza in the royal kitchen, he met with strong opposition from Queen Maria Carolina of Habsburg, who was King Ferdinand's wife at the time. The queen was horrified to learn that her husband wanted to feed her stuffed donuts whose dough was kneaded with her feet.

However, the king did not move at all and instead of offering another option for kneading, he changed into rags again and went to satisfy his hunger for pizza. However, if he had been a little bolder, Europe would have learned about the existence of pizza much earlier.

Pizza dough
Pizza dough

This mistake was corrected by King Ferdinand II, who created a royal council, which aimed to integrate the cuisine of the people to that of the royal court. It was he who solved the problem with kneading, ordered it to be done either by hand or with some special device.

But after one problem was solved, Ferdinand came across another - the lack of utensils to eat pizza. However, royal celebrities did not like to eat with their hands, this was contrary to the table etiquette. King Ferdinand did not mind eating with his hands, but this was unacceptable to the queen.

Remembering the lost battle for the place of pizza in the royal court of his predecessor, Ferdinand II immediately began to act. He commissioned a nobleman named Gennaro Spadicini to make a kneading machine and a cutlery. And so the man did not sleep for a long time in thoughts of how not to upset the delicate royal psyche in thoughts of kneading dough with feet and sweat, and finally found the solution.

He ordered a bronze human statue to be poured to knead the pizza dough. As for the device, there were already forks at that time, but they had only three teeth. That's why Spadicini ordered another tooth to be placed so that there would be four. We still use his invention today.

Pizza
Pizza

And what do you think - whether Ferdinand managed to implement pizza in the royal court? Yes, and how! And exactly on the queen's birthday. On this day, a master pizzeria presented his gift to the queen - a giant pizza. And yet, because she had an occasion, Her Majesty decided to try a piece. The Marinara or Four Seasons creation received the Queen's approval.

When ordinary people learned that pizza was served in the courtyard, out of respect for the king and queen, they began to knead the dough with their hands. At that time, the first pizza oven was built in the palace park. And do you know who was appointed chief pizzeria? The same one who addicted Ferdinand I to pizza - Antonio Testo.

In 1889, Italy learned of a master pizzeria named Raphael Esposito, whose pizza Queen Margarita allowed to be named after her. And so the pizza gradually won the royal hearts and today is a favorite of both the poor and the rich.

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