Slice - slice.seriouseats.com

J'adore les pizzas

Posted by Adam Kuban, February 25, 2005 at 1:08 PM

Photograph from the New York Times

We at Slice never went through that whole hate-the-French thing, but if you did, check this out: The French aren't so bad; they like pizza, too. And it looks like there's even such a thing as French–style pie. And we're not talkin' Stouffer's.

Nice, France — FRANCIS CRESCI'S decision to ban mozzarella at the pizzeria he opened here in 1956 was less a matter of taste than conviction. It echoed the insistence of his grandfather, an immigrant from Umbria in Italy, that nary a word of Italian be heard in the family's new home in Nice. The young Mr. Cresci thought his pizzas should speak either French or, like his grandfather, Nissart, a dialect with Italian and old Provençal influences.

"In every region of Europe the locals were eating foods produced on their land," recalled Mr. Cresci, now 78. "I reckoned there was enough cheese to choose from in France."

The nutty, buttery flavor of semihard cheeses like French Emmenthal and Cantal distinguishes much French pizza from Neapolitan-style pies made only with milky mozzarella. When the cheese is spread over a thin round of dough coated with tomato and herbs and then subjected to the relentless whoosh of heat in a brick oven, the result is a bubbling, molten masterpiece.

"C'est une pizza qui vive," said Mr. Cresci's son, Ludovic, who now oversees La Pizza, his father's business. Sure enough, that pizza is alive.

The story traces the French style pies to the 1940s, at Chez Etienne in Marseille, and explains why people might not often associate the French with pizza:

"Many of the people who go into the business are only looking at the profit margins," lamented Julien Panet, president of the Association of French Pizzerias. "They see it as requiring minimal investment and savoir-faire. There's no pride, there's no passion for culinary art."

Heh. Sounds a lot like most Gotham pizzerias. But in the south of France, it's different:

First, they are raised on a Mediterranean diet: they understand tomatoes, basil, olive oil and anchovies. Second, the region's proximity to Italy and its influx of Italian immigrants, vacationers and retirees has, over the decades, provided a steady supply of pizza cognoscenti.

Maybe there is also something in the rocks and the trees. The custom-made ovens first installed at the original La Pizza on the Rue Massena in the heart of Nice, and at a second, 400-seat locale that opened on the Quai St.-Pierre in Cannes in 1960, turned those meccas of people-watching into ones of pizza-watching. The baking stones were constructed, like many of France's finest bread ovens, with volcanic ash quarried in the region. Their fires were set ablaze with logs from the Riviera's lush pine groves.

Read more: Southern France Makes Pizza Its Own

[J'adore les pizzas = "I love pizza." Thanks to C. Angeli for translation.]

3 Comments

Tags: Foreign Pizza, France, Nice