Pizza, Focaccia & Bread Recipes

Bread is an important ingredient in every Italian meal. Italians usually buy bread every day fresh from the Panetteria (bakery) and because, usually, Italian bread is made without using preservatives or animal fat, it dries very fast. This is partially, the reason for the numerous Italian recipes that use stale bread or bread crumbs. There are many kinds of bread because of Italy’s geography variety and its long history of political division has contributed to the development of widely different bread making recipes and traditions.

For the most part, bread rolls are typical of the northern regions while large loaves are typical of the southern regions. Along with bread, pizza and focaccia are very important ingredients of the Italian culinary tradition. They were part of the diet of ancient populations: the Etrurians and Romans had their own kind of pizza, a simple flat bread dressed with probably cheese and honey. A very simple focaccia made with flour and aromatic herbs was part of every Mediterranean culture. For a very long time a simple food affordable from everybody, pizza had slowly become more complex and tasty. The main reason was the introduction of the mozzarella and tomato that gave the unique flavor to the pizza. Naples’ cooks mastered it so well that around 1889 when the Italian royal family came to visit Naples, the queen liked this pizza so much that she wanted to give it her name: Pizza Margherita.