A Student here that could be lamed one of these days (I will never say the name of Mike, even if put to torture, as I am a very correct person), told me once that he "doesn't like Italian food, as it is just pasta and pizza". Well, in some sense, nothing more wise! Like to say that the sea is just some hydrogen and oxygen put togheter.

There is a golden rule about pizza: if you want a real one, never ask for it North of Rome or South of Lampedusa. And please note: this is only a necessary, not a sufficient condition.

After some years in Australia, I could kill for a pizza as I mean it. There are some fair pizzeria in Sydney, but, well, nothing really great. It's just a question of ingredients. I'll tell you later where to get a good one, anyway. Actually, I spent some periods of my life just eating pizza at lunch and dinner, and never getting annoyed, but just getting more and more addicted to it.

Suggesting pizza is a very delicate issue. First: are we talking about pizza al taglio, or just pizza?

Pizza al taglio ("pizza in slices") is the one you buy take away in little and everywhere scattered shops in town like Rome. You buy them in hectograms or money ("cinquemila con la mozzarella", "five thousands with mozzarella", only saying it I feel an overwhelming production of saliva in my mouth...). Don't expect for any reply or smile from the pizzettaro (the artist creating pizza). If you get it... mmmhhh... that means you got into one of that shops for tourists... Get away.

Maybe the pizzettaro is handy today, if you are a nice girl with long legs dressing a stunning miniskirt, but in all the other cases he will be upset for some reasons you never understand: maybe for all that flour everywhere another time, or all this stupid people asking just for the same thing (a piece of pizza). You will never know why: get it as assumed.

Well, to select the right spot, you have to get in place crowdy, where they can serve it as soon as they get off the oven. Avoid desert spots. Sure, you will pay the quality with some time spent trying to reach the end of some looks only apparently as a queue (as it is well known, Italians doesn't know what a queue is...). But it is worth. You will then get burn your tongue and your hands, and probably you will get a spot of tomato on your best tie or on the tip of your shoes. And it is still worth (if it doesn't drop at ground and you can lick the tie. Or the shoes' tip).

Pizza. Now we are. First: do you like thin or thick? The question doesn't make very much sense. In Naples, good pizza is thick, in Rome, good pizza is thin. Do not expect for a slice of pizza. If somebody propose it, start to think there is something wrong in the place. Nobody will cut it. You are alone with that wonderful circle. Pizza al taglio is rectangular, and you eat it standing up. Pizza must be eaten sitting down in a place where, as soon you put the knife down for the last time, the bill land on you with the clear invitation to get out in useconds. Get to the Formula 1, for example, in San Lorenzo, close to the University La Sapienza.

It is not a case they called the place Formula 1. They just will serve you in microsecond. The magic part is to be able to see somebody sitting down through the grey clouds of smoke of cigarette. Well, there is a rule, signed on the 10 of November (I remember it because I was born on the 10th of November and I read it everywhere on the walls of any public place in Italy for years), that say that you will be convicted in jail for all your life and possibly killed by painfull methods if you will get to smoke in a lot of different place including restaurant.

But rules in Italy are written just to be unattended. Is part of our heritage from Sacco and Vanzetti: we are essentially anarchoids. We hate our Institutions, and we think that if the Government say something you have to do exactly the opposite.

Bigne' - back to food - suppli