At 5 a.m. one morning in December, I found myself cycling as fast as I could to the bakery I worked at in Clapham, trying to get keep the blood pumping. My fingers felt like frozen gherkins, which made using the brakes difficult. Shivering and exhausted, I asked myself: what am I doing?
At work, my hands thawed over a cup of tea, and I set about mixing dough, laminating croissants, and doing all the other things bakers do. After a year in the bakery, my mornings passed on autopilot. But that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about Naples. My girlfriend is from the city and we’ve been back to visit her family. That chilly English morning, all I could think about was the sweet tomatoes, coffee granita, and having a tan.
If speaking another language is nerve-racking, asking for a job is terrifying
I met Serena two years ago. Though she was studying in London, she grew up on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius in a suburb, a bit like what Edgware is to London. As we fell in love, I learned more about her home. Naples is more than pizza. It is the city of Maradona and Caravaggio, two languages and six hour lunches, camorrista and corruption. But it also about pizza. Over a bleak pub roast, I asked Serena to imagine summer in Naples: an old flat in the historic centre, a balcony overlooking a piazza. Apparently naivety is contagious. She agreed.
These days, you need a visa to work in Italy. For that, you need a job with a contract, and so I translated my CV into Italian and emailed 20 of the best pizzerias in Naples. I heard not a peep. So I started getting serious. I began Italian lessons twice a week and got some experience at a pizzeria in south London. I would start at the bakery at 5.30 a.m., work for nine hours, race home for an Italian lesson, then churn out pizzas in the evening.
Before I knew it we were having a leaving party. I hugged my flatmates and my family then got on the plane. A few hours later, we were standing inside a flat in the middle of Naples that was now ours. It doesn’t have a balcony, and is a five minute walk from the closest piazza, but it is perfect. I barely had time to unpack. I had 90 days to find an employer willing to undertake my immigration forms, or the dream was dead.
If speaking another language is nerve-racking, asking for a job is terrifying. I stood summoning up my courage outside the first pizzeria for so long that the waiter came out and asked if everything was OK. When I finally got the words out, he looked confused, took my phone number and sent me on my way. It was this treatment every day for a week.
Eventually I was invited to a pizzeria for a shift as a commis. For six hours, my duties extended to standing still and watching the oven. Surprisingly, they invited me to come back for a second shift, in which I was allowed to grate some parmesan over a few pizzas. On the third shift I asked about getting paid. I did not get invited for a fourth.
As the days passed, I felt like I was running out of pizzerias – which was ridiculous really, as there are over 8,000 in Naples. I had handed out my CV dozens of times and yet my phone remained silent. I had never faced such rejection in my life.
But one Saturday, either a barista sprinkled something in my espresso, or I was touched by the hand of God, but inexplicably I became charm personified. I sauntered into 12 pizzerias, complimenting the food, the decor and the pizza makers in my best not-quite Italian. Perhaps they were amused at this silly Englishman.
In every Neapolitan pizza restaurant there is a tiled, 500 degree furnace, sometimes two. A fornaio loads fresh logs into the oven, which combust on entry; fornaios seldom have arm hair. Using a two-metre-long piece of wood, he then transfers the rounds of dough onto the floor of the oven and keeps them spinning for the 60 seconds they take to cook. Last week, the claret-faced wretch wielding the big stick was me.
There was sweat pouring down my face as I loaded dough and logs into the oven. After a while, a more experienced fornaio took over, and I spent the rest of my shift clearing tables, but that’s OK. I have a smile on my face and I now have an answer to that December morning question. I’m making pizza in Naples.
Comments