BUDAPEST, Hungary — In Hungary’s capital, a metropolis greatest identified for its goulash, a pizzeria is inviting diners to journey again two millennia to a time earlier than tomatoes, mozzarella and even the phrase “pizza” had been identified in Europe.
At Neverland Pizzeria in central Budapest, founder Josep Zara and his staff have created a limited-edition pie utilizing solely components that will have been accessible in historical Rome, lengthy earlier than what we all know in the present day as pizza ever existed.
“Curiosity drove us to ask what pizza might need been like way back,” Zara stated. “We went all the way in which again to the Roman Empire and puzzled whether or not they even ate pizza on the time.”
Strictly talking, they didn’t. Tomatoes arrived in Europe centuries later from the Americas, and mozzarella was as but unknown. Some histories have it that the invention of mozzarella led on to the invention of pizza in Naples within the 1700s.
However Romans did eat oven-baked flatbreads topped with herbs, cheeses and sauces, the direct ancestors of contemporary pizza, which had been typically bought in historical Roman snack bars known as thermopolia.
In 2023, archaeologists uncovered a fresco in Pompeii depicting a focaccia-like flatbread topped with what seem like pomegranate seeds, dates, spices and a pesto-like unfold. The picture made headlines all over the world, and sparked Zara’s creativeness.
“That made me very interested by what sort of taste this meals might need had,” he stated. “That’s the place we received the thought to create a pizza that individuals might need eaten within the Roman Empire, utilizing solely components that had been in extensive use on the time.”
Zara started researching Roman culinary historical past, consulting a historian in Germany in addition to the traditional cookbook De re coquinaria, thought to have been authored across the fifth century. Following his analysis, he compiled a listing of traditionally documented components to current to the pizzeria’s head chef.
“We sat right down to think about what we would have the ability to make utilizing these components, and with out utilizing issues like tomatoes and mozzarella,” Zara stated. “We needed to exclude all components that originated from America.”
Head chef László Bárdossy stated the constraints pressured the staff into months of experimentation, and some false begins.
“We needed to discard a pair concepts,” Bárdossy stated. “The truth that there wasn’t infrastructure like a water system on the time of the Romans made issues tough for us, since greater than 80% of pizza dough is water. We needed to provide you with one thing that will have labored earlier than operating water.”
The answer: serving to the dough rise utilizing fermented spinach juice. Historic grains akin to einkorn and spelt, broadly cultivated in Roman instances, fashioned the bottom, and the dough ended up barely extra dense than that of most trendy pizzas.
The completed pie is topped with components related to Roman aristocratic delicacies, together with epityrum, an olive paste, garum, a fermented fish sauce ubiquitous in Roman cooking, confit duck leg, toasted pine nuts, ricotta and a grape discount.
“Our creation could be known as a contemporary pizza from the attitude that we tried to make it understandable for everybody,” Bárdossy stated. “Though we wouldn’t use all its components for on a regular basis dishes. There’s a slim area of interest that thinks that is scrumptious and is interested by it, whereas most individuals need extra typical pizza, so it’s not for on a regular basis consuming. It’s one thing particular.”
For Zara, the mission displays Neverland Pizzeria’s broader philosophy.
“We’ve all the time preferred arising with new and attention-grabbing issues, however custom can also be essential for us, and we thought that these two issues collectively swimsuit us,” he stated.
Nonetheless, he added, there’s a trendy boundary the restaurant won’t cross.
“We do a whole lot of experimentation with our pizzas. However in fact, we positively don’t use pineapple,” he stated.
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Béla Szandelszky contributed reporting.
