Pizza Journal July 4, 2022. La Comedia dell'Dante/Daniele
July 4, 2022
The hills outside of Rome are on fire. Funny that didn’t make the news in America. I suppose we have our own problems. And our own fires. I’ve listened to farmers chronicle the days without rainfall this spring and summer, and unremitting heat that started in May. We’ve reached the burst-into-flames point on our journey through the pre-apocalypse.
It’s raining ash on the northern half of the city, including the Parioli neighborhood where I’m staying. I notice the extreme haze while driving away from Fiumicino airport. The smell of woodsmoke hangs over Il Cigno Pasticceria while I stop for a coffee-flavored granita, and a coffee. Served in a chilled silver chalice! I’m tired. Or maybe my blood oxygen level is low. Or maybe withdrawal is setting in. Twenty four hours away from American cold brew and my thoughts and movements are slowing down.
I was sure someone in Parioli was grilling brats in an oil drum over fancy charcoal, to celebrate our country’s glorious revolution. Italians love American things. There’s a Don’t Tread on Me flag hanging from the balcony behind the hotel. Maybe it’s that guy. I wonder if he misses his AR-15. Writes it letters. Has a postcard from the gun range taped to his fridge.
God’s cigarette ash is falling on my shirt. Makes sense: we’re only a few blocks from his house. I pass the dome of St. Peter’s basilica on the way to dinner. He’s a deity, thoughtful and kind. In college I loved coffee and a smoke. Old Testament god has a long memory! Twentieth Century god, smoking Camels up on high, sweet fumes rolling forth from the pearly gates like the clouds that used to roll out of the cracked window of my Mazda 3. Back when my young lungs could tolerate this air quality.
It’s 95 degrees at the vatican. A smoky heat, just as satan likes it. Nothing can dampen my spirits while I’m in the eternal city. Even Zanni, the immortal car thief from Commedia dell’ Arte, who crept up the banks of the Tiber and smashed the passenger side window of my Fiat 500 won’t ruin this afternoon. Zany Zanni! I have no things to steal. Not even an ashtray full of pocket change gleaned from autostrada toll booths. It’s too early in the trip. Better luck next cycle, my journeyman friend.
People say it's foolish to rob rental cars indiscriminately. But I sympathize. Even though I play the part of the Vecchi in this performance, we’re all hungry. My sins include gluttony, and sloth. I could walk to Seu Pizza Illuminati, but Vecchi always drive. Maseratis. Hertz had several, and an Alfa. As a minor Vecchio, a demi-Vecchio, second class, I’m assigned an SUV crossover. The reasonable fuel economy and lack of ostentation is troubling. Where are my superfluous cupholders!! I’ll be angling for an upgrade, leveraging sky miles, hotel points, ill-gotten gold, and ordinary nepotism.
The Illuminati are gathering. A notable contingent are Americans, or at least English-speaking. Many are blonde. Some were on my plane. It’s not my plane (minor Vecchio) and also not theirs, a fact that’s embarrassing to both parties. We avoid eye contact. I scrub the scorn from my visage when they humbly request a “to go” box. Perhaps madam would enjoy tonight’s meal with a serving of ranch? For true pizza illuminati, your belly is the to-go box. Daniele averts his gaze.
Until Rome’s sun dips below the first range of apartment buildings facing our table, all optical perception is impossible. At best I can see shapes. Borderless shadows. This is intentional. No Italian dines at 7pm. The enduring pain of scorched retinas is a debt worth paying to avoid the eternal damnation of diners foolish enough to approach the portal of Seu Pizza Illuminati at American dinnertime. Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. Or, abandon hope of tasting the 100% courgette pizza, a wonderfully fresh creation that brings appropriate seasonality to Pier Daniele Seu’s airy, faintly charred crust. It’s an ethereal meal, meatless, laden with color, form, and fragrance. Perfect small zucchini blossoms adorn each bite.
Even more vivid is the 100% tomato pizza, where Seu layers pomodori in every imaginable color and form. San Marzano tomato sauce, whole yellow tomatoes, roasted tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, it all crashes together and makes beautiful chaos. A lil’ grated grankase and basil bely the name, but it’s barely noticed, and wholly forgiven.
It’s infernally hot. The illuminati crowd every table. The sun has a triptych of windows to bring down from the heavens its magnificence. The oil in Seu’s fryer makes crocchetta from every living thing, saint or sinner, of land and sea. Cod with potatoes and cream, zucchini flowers, ricotta and anchovies. Fried food has never been so beautifully plated. There are even potato chips.
There is no room for dessert. Virgil guides us to a simple digestivo from Marco de Bartoli, made from Zibibbo grapes grown on the island of Pantelleria. It’s an inspired choice. Windswept, battered, pushed down into the ground for the whole of their existence, desiccated by the brutal unremitting Mediterranean sun. A liminal place, a small boat crossing from Africa on the journey to a paradise falsely advertised. I leave and climb the hill, and walk past a long ruined palazzo. The tram station is also destroyed, tracks torn up. Graffiti of a beautiful woman’s face rises up steps to an unkempt mop of urban vegetation. Abandoned bird scooters are Rome’s newest obstacle, adding to the gauntlet of vespas, pedestrians, tourists, men carrying styrofoam coolers of fish.
It’s dusk. The heat has broken. Teenagers congregate in front of the colosseum. The couple in front of me are speaking Russian. A drunk woman yells at a waiter that she once owned a winery in Napa. The crescent moon makes worn steps wet and slick. I smell summer’s garbage. A seagull perches on the lamppost. Its caws are obscene, coarse mocking of gli innamorati that surround me, the colosseum, all of central Rome. I should shout back. Seabird, you make a point. They might be drunk on cheap Sardinian beer. But there’s nothing wrong with love.
