Cuisine

Traditional Neapolitan cooking is very rich and complex, with many simple but complete foods, such as pizza, as well as elaborate and tasty dishes. Many years ago, pizza and macaroni were the foods that served to fill the bellies of the poor, who were forced to put off the next meal for at least twenty-four hours. But in fact this often had to last for weeks, even months, until some special occasion presented itself, usually a religious festival - and then, what a time they had of it! - everything imaginable was cooked and eaten. At last, they sat at a table with a rich, abundant meal in front of them. This was the time they got their strength back and recharged themselves for the rest of the year, or at least up until the next festivity. Most times, people preferred, or were forced, to have a quick snack. The "maccaronaro" was the old-time snack bar, and outside it the Neapolitans stood waiting for a hot meal to eat standing or walking.

Macaroni is a wise invention of poverty. The simplest, most logical and basic use of wheat. It is cooked in plentiful salted boiling water and eaten slightly underdone, so that it retains a suggestion of hardness. Some time ago, it was the custom to eat it with the fingers. But the food that responded best and most satisfactorily to the needs and "take it or leave it" life of the poor was pizza. It was, and is still, a kind of flat bread made of slightly leavened water and flour, mixed with diluted bacon-fat and with pieces of tomato, slices of mozzarella and basil leaves. Or it might come with olive oil, tomato pieces, fresh, filleted anchovies, plentiful origan and a clove of garlic. It is cooked in a baker's oven with plenty of well-heated wood. Pizza used to be eaten (and sometimes is even now) folded in four or simply folded over once.