Thursday, November 20, 2008

Culinary Comment (Italy Edition)

As I alluded to in a previous message, the food we enjoyed in Italy was uniformly excellent (with one exception). The highlight was the lunch I had our first day in Rome, at a small outdoor cafe just across the street from the Tiber River, a few blocks away from the Vatican. What I had is what you see pictured above (not the actual pizza I ate, since my camera was on the fritz at the time, but a reasonable facsimile I found on the web). This is known as a Bismarck Pizza, and as you can see, the highlight is a nice sunny-side-up egg baked into the middle of the pie. It also has ham, and of course cheese and tomato sauce. It was scrumptious. The next day for lunch, I was tempted to order it again (at a different place), but figuring that being adventurous paid off once, I might as well try something new. The Porcini pie (with big chunks of mushrooms) I had was pretty good, but it was no Bismarck. I wonder if I'll have the chance to enjoy this delight again if I don't ever get back to Italy? That might be reason enough for a return trip.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, John - this sure looks good. You can make one for me when you get home. Mom

Lil' Sis said...

Dr John,
I second that - it sure does look good. About how big diameter was the one you ate?
Lil' Sis

John Hajduk said...

Lil Sis,
I ate about a twelve inch pie. The big difference between the one I ate (and most of the pizza I had in Italy) and what we're used to here, is that they have very thin, crispy crusts, not the thick, doughy things we're used to, and the toppings are more judiciously applied. I suspect if they had a Bismarck at Papa John's, it's come with three eggs, sausage and pepperoni in addition to ham, and maybe some peppers and onions too (hmmm, actually, that doesn't sound too bad). I'd guess that, even though it looks big on the plate, the full pizzas over there have about the same calories as two or three slices of the typical American pizza (I'm thinking Bocce's, for example)
Dr. John