A classic Mortadella Pizza is experiencing a newfound popularity
I’ve never tasted Bologna, a.k.a. “Baloney”. As a child of vegetarians, I was spared that American childhood staple. Today, I am no traditionalist. I may be guilty, in the eyes of some Italians, of pushing innovation and interpretation into the territory of bastardization, but I have never tried Bologna and I don’t intend to. I’m open to breaking rules, but naming an American hyper-processed lunch meat after a city that many consider the culinary capital of one of the most food obsessed countries in the world is a pretty egregious move. Sorry Italy, there is no excuse for that behavior. So please, everyone, let’s sever any connections between Baloney and Mortadella, and hopefully it will fade away into obscurity.
We can make amends by celebrating the true meat treat of the ancient and great city of Bologna: Mortadella! This delicious salumi, or something like it, has been made in Italy since at least the time of the Romans — and the current form has a documented history going back to the 14th century. Lean pork meat is pulverized into a smooth paste, spiced with salt, myrtle berries, and sometimes studded with black pepper or more recently pistachio, and cubes of fat are folded in … then the whole thing goes into a natural casing. Smaller ones use pig bungs (look it up), and behemoths weighing as much as 200 pounds are packed into beef casings. The secret to its aroma and flavor comes from the cooking process; it’s cooked very low and slow at 180 F for 20 hours or more. The final product is sweet, smooth, and mildly spiced with a firm texture that creates a delicious bite even when sliced paper thin. Imported mortadella can be found at Italian delis or from importers of Italian products here in the United States. Of course, the United States is not alone in its love of this lunch meat.
It’s well known that Argentina and Brazil have huge Italian diaspora communities and their pizzeria scenes are massive, historical, and very popular. Buenos Aires and São Paulo love mortadella as much as they love pizza. In São Paulo there is a famous mortadella sandwich; a massive pile of thinly sliced mortadella is grilled on a plancha, then topped with Queijo Prato (literally translated as plate cheese and similar to Swiss), then the giant pile of mortadella and cheese is placed on a Portuguese roll and served as a knock-you-out, need-a nap-after, sandwich.
Anthony Bourdain loved it so much when he visited São Paulo that he put it in his book, Appetites: A Cookbook. In Buenos Aires bakeries, you can find something called Sándwich de miga; white bread with the crust taken off, filled simply with a slice of meat or cheese, mortadella being a popular choice, and possibly mayonnaise or mustard. Sándwich de miga is very similar to the tramezzino found in Turin and Venice. It’s a very out of place looking sandwich for Italy with its angular pale white squares of bread filled with salumi and mayonnaise. A sort of cognitive dissonance occurs when viewing these in the land of the amber hued crusty panini. But mortadella is not content to be contained in sandwiches alone —pizza is where it really shines!
The first time I remember mortadella being the star of a pizza was when Alan Richman named the mortadella pizza at Great Lake in Chicago the “No. 1 Pizza in America” in his 2009 GQ article. I had been watching Great Lake pizza from afar and sadly I never got to go before it closed, but from the photos, I was amazed at the look of the charred pizza hidden under a thin layer of mortadella lazily draped on top. Since then, I have tried many versions of mortadella pizza all over the world. At Atte Pizzeria in Buenos Aires I added my take on the most classic mortadella pizza to the menu. On a 12-inch Neapolitan dough, pistachio pesto (pistachio, garlic, Parmigiano, olive oil and a little salt which is blitzed to an almost smooth puree) is drizzled on the base, on top of that are chunks of fior di latte mozzarella and some funky taleggio cheese. The pizza is cooked in the wood fired oven. When the charred blistery crusted pizza comes out, we put little piles of very thinly sliced domestic mortadella on the pizza, and finish with finely grated Parmigiano and a sprinkling of crushed pistachio. The vibrant green pesto and lush pink mortadella bundles make this pizza as beautiful as it is delicious.
So, how should you incorporate mortadella into pizza? If you have a slicer, slice it super thin and drape it on after it comes out of the oven. You can lay it flat right onto the cooked pizza or stack it high by folding and twisting it to make small piles. You can create a mortazza, a viral sandwich at the moment, by taking a pizza dough flattened into a circle, covering it with only a thin layer of olive oil, folding it in half and baking it. When it comes out, unfold the dough and stuff it with thinly sliced mortadella. If you don’t have a slicer, cutting it into small cubes or sticks helps preserve the integrity and makes sure it doesn’t burn. Cooking mortadella in the oven is perfectly acceptable, despite what some people say. You could channel Argentina and put cubes on a pizza with mozzarella, then sprinkle some oregano and drizzle spicy chimichurri on it when it comes out of the oven. I’m a huge fan of muffulettas, so recently I made a muffuletta pizza. I start with mozzarella, provolone, chopped black and green olives, sliced red onions, and strips of mortadella. When it comes out of the oven, I sprinkle on some finely chopped giardiniera, Parmigiano and sesame seeds.
The brutal honest truth is that mortadella doesn’t need us, it doesn’t need pizza, and it doesn’t even need bread! It is perfect on its own, sliced wafer thin and lifted with bare fingers into open mouths. I salute all the mortadella purists out there, but feel free to innovate. I have included a recipe featuring this superior lunch meat that is versatile and global, and you can find Mortadella Muffuletta Pizza recipe.
Anthony Falco is an international pizza consultant.
