Chris's Pizza Tale from "Down Under"

Chris writes:

I was interested to share some views on Pizza; I was born here in Australia but my family is quite a mixed race group, with parents coming here as refugees back in 1950 from Italy. I have also Yugoslavian and French influences from different relatives and of course the local Australian influence.

Any way my Italian parents were not rich and as a minority they did many things 'the old way' which we kids thought were a bit peasantry and too much effort. The most important was that they baked their own bread and Pizza each week in a 'real' wood oven. I say real because its design is that you build a hot fire in the oven get the bricks hot then clean out the coals and sweep it out and put in the food. All this is quite time consuming and messy but the flavor!

Of course as we grew up, we now appreciate the wonders of this method of cooking and just put up with the work needed. This is where I read with delight your story about your dad and the local kids and the sharing of the cooking. I couldn't agree more it really is a 'get together'.

My different recipes include the 'white' pizza you described but we brush the base with olive oil (home grown and pressed). Then add some thin slices of potato, dried chili, garlic and fennel seeds, some times slices of onion as well.

Another idea which we have adopted (probably due to the time waiting for the oven to heat up) is to make small pizzas about the size and shape of a short black saucer about 80 mm by 5 to 10 mm thick, we put some sauce and maybe some fresh basil on top then fry them till golden ( be careful not to tip them over, they should float nicely on top of the oil), they are a bit oily but are great to eat hot while we work the fire and get the dough and pizzas ready!

Best regards


My Response:
Ah, Chris! My mouth was watering at the tales of the homemade pizza you described!

What a fantastic story of your parents coming to Australia.

Isn't it funny how we sometimes take for granted things early in our lives that turn out to be extremely important later on!

The story of the wood fired oven is an incredible one. I can just taste and smell that pizza right now as I write this!

Pizza On Australia, Good Will to All!

albert

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Here's something that Aussie's like, Vegemite:
I had a roomate from Australia and he turned me on to vegemite: