Don't believe Sicilian men are the most jealous in the world. We are the most jealous in Naples. And the most passionate ones,”Gino Sorbillo beats himself in the chest, wiping large drops of sweat from his forehead and taking out the fifth pizza in the last few seconds from the oven. I believe him. Twenty hot, half-naked Neapolitan men are standing around me. And if they could distract themselves from the sacred ritual of making pizza even for a moment, I would be in danger. It's strange that they even let me in here. Pizzaiolo (pizzaiolo - the one who makes pizza) in Italy can only be a man (there are exceptions, but rarely). In Naples, the homeland of pizza, this is the most prestigious and highly paid profession, dating a pizza maker is like marrying a man on the Forbes list, only pizza makers are more fun, more religious and more reliable as husbands.
“Undiavola! Due marinare! Tre margherite! " - when announcing orders, waiters shout out over the noisy crowd. The aromas of basil, garlic, salami and sweet San Marzano tomatoes, grown at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, mingled with the aromas of hot dough, wood and sweat. I am standing at the stove in Sorbillo, one of the most famous and oldest pizzerias in Naples. It's past midnight, but there is a huge queue at the door. At the long table in the center, a group of very smart young people are eating (in incredible quantities!) Pizza and drinking it prosecco. This is the birthday of the daughter of one of the leaders of the Comorra (the Comorra is the Neapolitan mafia).
Gino Sorbillo's kitchen is a theater, I can't take my eyes off. With quick movements, roll out the dough to the thinnest, a few millimeters, layer, toss it into the air a couple of times, chop the mozzarella, basil and tomatoes, add a drop of olive oil, put the pizza on a wooden shovel with a long handle and put it into the burning oven for exactly 60 seconds. Gino has broad shoulders and blue eyes, when he smiles, he becomes like Jude Law, only much more brutal. Gino is the sex symbol of Naples. He is a fourth generation pizza maker: his great-grandfather - the owner of a pizzeria - had 21 grandchildren, everyone followed in his footsteps, and therefore there are 21 types of pizza on the Sorbillo menu. Despite the fact that the pizzeria is located in one of the most criminal areas of Naples - on the medieval viTribunali - the Pope and all the Italian elite have been here, and Sophia Loren is a regular customer. Tourists regularly fall in love with Gino himself (at 35 he is the father of three children). Another pizza (I've already eaten three) - and I'll either burst, or lose my head. In Naples, a taste for life awakens, sensations are turned on with might and main - sounds, smells, colors. Moreover, these men 's blood seems to be a couple of degrees hotter than in Russia, it was warmed up by Vesuvius, eternally smoking on the horizon.
"You will fly with me like pizza if you are with me", - pizza maker Paolo sculpts pizzas one after another with incredible speed and at the same time seduces me. Throwing three pieces into the oven, he grabs my hand and begins to circle in a dance. "Paolo, what is the secret of real pizza?" - "The secret is you." He looks at me straight. “If you're in love, pizza tastes a thousand times better. You need to sculpt it the way you hug a woman. I'll show you this tonight. " He is also a fourth or fifth generation pizza maker: his father and grandfather work in their Mattozzi pizzeria on the old piazzCarita, dating back to 1833.
Admiring how I gobble up Margheritall Roman prepared especially for me - with tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and anchovies - Paolo says that recently his heart was broken, but now it is open for me. I run off to the next pizzeria, Trianon, for a short while, darting through a maze of narrow streets lined with bassi squats. And there I fall into the arms of four pizza makers at once, whose names sound like music: Raphael, Alfredo, Salvatore and Pasquale. Their working day is 12 hours on their feet, but everyone has relaxed faces and surprisingly happy eyes.
“Sitting in the office day after day - is this life? Yes, this is a punishment! " - indignant Pasquale, a man with an aquiline nose. "What's the secret to delicious pizza?" - "Good dough and - amore!" The answers of my fans are not original, but the cooking of this four is a well-coordinated conveyor belt: Raphael rolls out the dough, Alfredo puts the ingredients, Salvatore puts the pizza in the oven, and Pasquale takes it out. Everything happens with incredible speed. “You look at me as an adult, and Neapolitan men remain a little bambini for the rest of their lives,” Raphael explains to me. “We never fully mature. Therefore, Mamm is the main woman of our life, and only then comes the wife. A woman should be in command of the house, a man is the head of the family only nominally. All power is in your hands. " It all sounds familiar to me.
Across the street from Trianon there is another important establishment - the pizzeria DMichele, which became famous all over the world after the book and film “Yes. Pray. Be in love". The author of this book, Elizabeth Gilbert, ate here. There is always a line at the entrance, and there are only two types of pizza on the menu - "Margarita" and "Marinara", and both cost only 3.5 euros. I was greeted by two handsome men: a huge Alfonso and Massimo, a burning brunette with a Roman profile and black eyes. They are descendants of the founder of this pizzeria, which is about 150 years old - in Naples, everything is inherited, because the money should not leave the family. During World War II, there was a bomb shelter here, and meat was fried instead of pizza in a hefty oven with an altar and a statuette of the patron saint of fire, St. Anthony. Pizzaiolo Massimo, which tourists in Naples photograph more often,than baroque palazzo and churches with frescoes Giotto tells me that when the film was filmed, the whole quarter was cordoned off here for a week and paparazzi were on duty around the clock. “But Julia Roberts disappointed me,” he shrugs. "There is nothing like that in her."
And I lost all shame and frankly admire Massimo, his ideal form with his hands - he sculpts dough, as if playing the piano. But this pizza maker is tightly married, he excitedly tells me about his beloved "principessa" - a beautiful 13-year-old daughter. "Who is the ideal woman for you?" - “Passionate, sincere, faithful. My grandmother also said that I shouldn't marry a woman who doesn't know how to make stew sauce.” I don't know how to cook stew, but now I have an incentive to learn.
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