> And the final product must be consumed within 10 minutes after emerging from the oven.
I like this requirement because it means I could go into a place, order a pizza, sit there starting at it for 15 minutes, and then report them for a violation. :-)
Joking aside, I'm always intrigued by these associations and legal categories that nail down specific characteristics for certain foods (or other items). A lot of them require stuff to be made in a specific geographical area, so it's cool to see this Naples pizza one focusing on the actual process rather than the location. But this is still largely about the process rather than the product. It'd be an interesting challenge to see if you could define such categories in terms of the product itself, so you could verify just based on the pizza whether it was a "real" pizza, without knowing how it was made.
I do have to wonder whether it's really worth it to go through all this rigmarole to get the official Neapolitan pizza seal of approval. In practice I find that in a fair amount of cases, the most "authentic" version of something isn't necessarily the one I like the most. And if it costs the restaurant a bunch of money to get this certification, I'm not sure it's going to be worth it to me as a customer when that cost is passed on to me. I care more about how good the pizza is than how authentic it is.
Amusingly, I once met an Italian (from the Veneto area) who loved Little Ceasar's pizza and said Italian pizza was "boring".
>I'm always intrigued by these associations and legal categories that nail down specific characteristics for certain foods
>A lot of them require stuff to be made in a specific
All these organizations are basically just lobbying/PR groups trying to ensure some amount of baseline "make work" for their members. They engage in certification and quality control (not that those aren't valid activities) as a means to that end. Their odd requirements like "made in X" and "consumed in Y" make sense in this context since they're basically political requirements to curry favor from various groups.
It mostly works. Neapolitan Pizza tastes the same everywhere and engineered structures mostly don't fall down but given the change these organizations try their hardest to capture markets and stamp out lower end competing offerings which is bad.
>I do have to wonder whether it's really worth it to go through all this rigmarole to get the official Neapolitan pizza seal of approval.
In my neighborhood in Denver I have several Neapolitan pizza options. One is fully Vero certified. I go there often because it truly does give me the taste of Napoli from my childhood.
The best option, however, is recognizable as Neapolitan pizza but is much better than anything I have ever had in Italy (at least to my taste buds).
I feel like both really have their place and both restaurants have been around for quite awhile at this point so it seems to work for both.
That said I do appreciate the places that have are fully Vero certified because when I travel if I see that sticker in the window I know I am gonna have a pretty good pizza.
> I could go into a place, order a pizza, sit there starting at it for 15 minutes, and then report them for a violation
it's just the other way around: the pizzeria's duty is just to serve you a fresh pizza, but if you haven't finished eating it within 10 minutes, THEY can report YOU for violation and the pizza police comes for YOU. This ensures that customers don't hog the table (which is bad for business).
I like this requirement because it means I could go into a place, order a pizza, sit there starting at it for 15 minutes, and then report them for a violation. :-)
Joking aside, I'm always intrigued by these associations and legal categories that nail down specific characteristics for certain foods (or other items). A lot of them require stuff to be made in a specific geographical area, so it's cool to see this Naples pizza one focusing on the actual process rather than the location. But this is still largely about the process rather than the product. It'd be an interesting challenge to see if you could define such categories in terms of the product itself, so you could verify just based on the pizza whether it was a "real" pizza, without knowing how it was made.
I do have to wonder whether it's really worth it to go through all this rigmarole to get the official Neapolitan pizza seal of approval. In practice I find that in a fair amount of cases, the most "authentic" version of something isn't necessarily the one I like the most. And if it costs the restaurant a bunch of money to get this certification, I'm not sure it's going to be worth it to me as a customer when that cost is passed on to me. I care more about how good the pizza is than how authentic it is.
Amusingly, I once met an Italian (from the Veneto area) who loved Little Ceasar's pizza and said Italian pizza was "boring".