During our class, we obviously needed to not just eat the pizza but make the pizza as well. You know, like that old movie quote: “In this country, you gotta make the pizza first. Then when you get the pizza, you get the power. Then when you get the power, you get to eat the pizza the women.” (or something)

Under the expert tutelage of an authentic Italian pizza chef we set out to make a classic margherita – one of the first pizza types ever made, reflecting the colours of the Italian flag and initially sold among poor people.

The dough was made from fine, local flour with fresh yeast and warm water which then needs to be left for 24 hours. So in this class, that means you get to use the dough from the class the day before.

Then you stretch the dough in various complex ways that we tried to remember after the class and made some notes. When they shared the recipe it did not include the dough manipulation in any actual detail, alas!

Then you swirl on the tomato sauce – preferably made from local, sweet tomatoes that grew in the Italian sunshine. A couple of leave of slapped basil (you seriously slap the basil between your hands to bring out the flavour) and finally the Fior Di Latte (not mozzarella!).

And into the oven it goes for a few minutes (they didn’t let us do that bit – probably wise) and they were ready to eat:

They were very nice! One was a bit burnt on the bottom which obviously wasn’t our fault – our execution was flawless.

So we made lots of notes later that night for when we get back home and invest in our own portable pizza oven. It looks like we can get the same flour that we used in Naples too! We just might need to practice a bit before we invite anyone over for dinner 😁