Monday, August 31, 2009

Pizza by any other name?


What I don't get, among other things like carburetors, engineering and electricity, is how one gets the word NEAPOLITAN from NAPLES. It's so confusing to me that on occasion I've been stumped when trying to recall the city of origin for my favorite pizza.

Is the root of problem that the city has different names - the whole Naples/Napoli thing? Napoletana is an obvious relation to Napoli, if we could just agree to call the city Napoli and not Naples. Pizza Napoletana...I like it. It isn't even hard to say! Or, if we've got to keep the Naples thing, why not Napolese? Like Calabrese from Calabria? I'm adding the name-translating phenom to my list: carburetors, engineering, electricity, and mankind's penchant for translating names. I get that there's a certain laughability to mispronouncing names in foreign tongues (gringos dropping Neeka-hwa-hwa comes to mind) but, really, does Nicker-ah-gwa sound better? Just because we CAN translate a name doesn't mean that it's helpful. Especially when one is attempting to book a train ticket to Vienna and cannot remember the Austrian name for the city.

ANYWAY, I just love this thin crust, quickly cooked goodness. My all time favorite spot is Coalfire here in Chitown. Pictured above is the pizza Margherita, named after an Italian Queen whose grave we saw in Rome. It's the only pizza we order at Coalfire, and yes, it's that good. Drop everything and get one of these soon. I've been checking in weekly regarding the opening plans for a neighborhood pizzeria, said to be called Nella's Pizzeria. Nella was the pizza maker at Spacca Napoli for awhile, and while Coalfire puts SN's pizza to shame, the latter brings down the house with their salads, salumi and gelato. Oh, the gelato! The cappuccino flavor is unrivaled.

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