Found a book online written by Bob Brown and published in 1955 called ‘The Complete Book of Cheese’. And believe me, for its time it had a lot to say about cheese. Possibly a lot of it would be discounted now.

We’ve come a long way in 60+ years …. or have we? Probably an argument for another time!

Anyway, there’s a fun looking pizza recipe I wanted to share. Copied exactly as written so it’s not my fault if you have to read it more than once 🙂

 
Pizza—The Tomato Pie of Sicily

DOUGH

1 package yeast, dissolved in warm water
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

Make dough of this. Knead 12 to 20 minutes. Pat into a ball, cover it tight and let stand 3 hours in warm place until twice the size.

TOMATO PASTE

3 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, sliced thin
1 can Italian tomato paste
8 to 10 anchovy filets, cut small
½ teaspoon oregano
Salt
Crushed chili pepper
2½ cups water
In the oil fry onion tender but not too brown, stir in tomato paste and keep stirring 3 or 4 minutes. Season, pour water over and simmer slowly 25 to 30 minutes. Add anchovies when sauce is done.

CHEESE

½ cup grated Italian, Parmesan, Romano or Pecorino, depending on your pocketbook

Procure a low, wide and handsome tin pizza pan, or reasonable substitute, and grease well before spreading the well-raised dough ½ to ¾ inch thick. Poke your finger tips haphazardly into the dough to make marks that will catch the sauce when you pour it on generously. Shake on Parmesan or Parmesan-type cheese and bake in hot oven ½ hour, then ¼ hour more at lower heat until the pizza is golden-brown. Cut in wedges like any other pie and serve.

The proper pans come all tin and a yard wide, down to regular apple-pie size, but twelve-inch pans are the most popular.

…………..

Not exactly written as our recipes are today although a lot more coherent than Victorian times, when half the ingredients don’t seem to exist anymore and everything took hours.

Let me know if you try this one. I’d love to know how you get on – Did you find a ‘handsome tin’? 😀

Bon Appetit!

Linda x

P.S. And if you’re a real pizza fan, you could become a master! I found this book online (Amazon of course)

Mastering Pizza

The recipes–gleaned from years spent researching recipes in Italy and perfecting them in America–have a variety of base doughs of different hydration levels, which allow home cooks to achieve the same results with a regular kitchen oven as they would with a professional pizza oven.

Mastering Pizza