seriously, dude, non e un foodblog

Here in Rome, the two supporting columns of my stately snacking edifice have been pizza bianca and pizza rossa. In the US, I'd always seen pizza bianca as just a white pizza: that is, cheese no sauce. Roman pizza bianca is just flat bread plus oil and salt (usually coarse salt, maybe sea salt if it's a little fancy). Pizza rossa = ditto, with a little tomato sauce topping it.

Now, if there's a more perfect afternoon snack than a hot slice of pizza bianca, please let me know about it, so that I can pack up and move to wherever it's to be found (Do you have space on your couch? Thanks.) In the meantime, here's a shot of Beth enjoying some:



This particular pizza is from the Forno Campo De' Fiori, located at the west end of... well, I'll let you figure that one out, Sherlock. It's thin, light, a little bit crispy, and for my money, is the second best pizza bianca in the city. The third best pizza bianca is not far away, on one of the little streets near the Campo, at Paneficio Roscioli. Roscioli's pizza is thicker and chewier; a slightly different style, and almost as good. (I should point out that Roscioli is probably a better bakery overall; they have a wonderful selection of pastries and cookies, as well as breads. So they're worth a stop if you're in the neighborhood: and as long as you're there, hit their salumeria on the other side of the street.)

But the best pizza bianca I've had is from Fratelli Beti, on Via Dezza in Monteverde. They have a razor-sharp understanding of just how much oil and salt to put on the pizza. It's salty, a tiny bit greasy, and something that slips the surly bonds of mere bread-ness to touch the face of snack heaven.

Now at this point, you're probably saying, "yes, yes. This all sounds very nice. But how great can a snack be if it lacks any sort of cured pork product?" And you'd be right, of course. Fortunately, somebody has boldly stepped up to the plate to resolve this dilemma: yet another bakery in the Campo dei Fiori area. I can't remember the name (it's something like Fornaio Baullari), but it's on the Via dei Baullari, a street that runs between the Campo and the Corso Vittorio Emmanuelle. I promise that you won't miss it; just look for the place that has a mortadella the size of a telephone pole, thrusting proudly into the street:



Here you can see a couple admiring the sausage. (Well, she was admiring it. He was a little nonplussed. I can't think why.) I can't remember whether they went into the bakery, but if not, they missed out. What they do there is take a piece of pizza bianca, cut it into half, and pile on a few slices of mortadella. They do it with prosciutto, too, but I haven't yet tried that: the siren song of that mortadella has just been too hard to resist. That is one heck of a sandwich.