Pizza Fritta Napoletana con Ricotta e Cicoli
Naples, Campania (Quartieri Spagnoli)
The original Neapolitan pizza before wood-fired ovens were accessible to the poor: pizza dough stuffed with ricotta and cicoli (the crispy browned remnants left after rendering lard from pork fat) or provola, folded calzone-style and deep-fried in lard. Associated with the postwar poverty cuisine of the Quartieri Spagnoli — Sophia Loren famously sold pizza fritta as a girl. The lard gives the exterior a richer, more complex flavour than vegetable oil frying.