Parma World Pizza Championship and a chat with Tony Gemignani
After a 2 year hiatus, a long waited comeback
Two weeks ago I was in Parma, a small Italian town in the Emilia Romagna region, internationally known for two main food products: the prosciutto di Parma (Parma ham) and the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (which is NOT the same thing as the Parmesan).
Parma is also known for several cold cuts, delicious homemade pasta, the sweet Lambrusco wine and it is usually considered the center of the Italian food valley.
You know what Parma is not famous for? Pizza. Unless you’re a pizzaiolo visiting the town for three of the most exciting days of the year: the World Pizza Championship, an internationally known event that is been held by 29 editions. This year has seen a majestic comeback after a two-year hiatus.
I spent three wonderful days over there and, believe me, trying to describe the atmosphere you breathe there is hard. Especially when it is charged by the energy of hundreds of people who couldn’t wait to gather again after such a long time around their unique passion for pizza.
As the name implies, the event is first and foremost a championship. Almost 800 competitors have participated this year from multiple nations. It is structured kinda like the Olympics: there are several categories, and participants can compete in many of them, depending on their skills.
Neapolitan pizza, Roman pizza, pan pizza, gluten-free and many other styles of pizza-making are part of the cooking categories. But there are also skills-based competitions like the largest pizza and the acrobatic freestyle. Altogether on a three days event that for pizzaioli worldwide has probably the same resonance that the SuperBowl has for the American football lovers.
I can only imagine the tension, the anxiety, the excitement, the happiness, the relief, the sadness, the frustration and the wide range of emotions that pizzaioli can go through during their participation. As a humble watcher, I could only feel the electricity in the air and live it as a passionate pizza lover, but I could never understand what a champion can live during those moments.
The chat with Tony Gemignani and an audio recap of the event
Therefore, what better way to understand the emotion from the point of view of a pizzaiolo, if not talking to one of them? But not just any of them: I met 13-times world pizza champion Tony Gemignani, and chatted with him about his experience at the WPC, which he’s been attending continuously since the year 2000.
Not only that: we covered different topics like the importance of working as a team, the culture of American pizza in the US and abroad and what the future of the pizza industry has in store for us. You can listen to the chat by clicking on the player below.
Speaking with Tony and living the emotions of the event through his words was truly an amazing experience. However, I too tried, to the best of my capabilities, to retell the feelings I experienced those days. I did it during my weekly chat on Pizza Cultura, the Clubhouse room I host every Wednesday at EST 1P - CST 12 - PST 10 on Pizza Club.
You can listen to the whole, 1-hour recap of the room just by clicking on the player below.
This newsletter
Welcome to Pizza DIXIT. Some of you might know already my website as they’ve previously subscribed to this newsletter straight from its homepage.
Established in 2015, Pizza DIXIT was originally a blog focused on my journey around the world in my quest for looking for the best Neapolitan pizza abroad (because apparently the one I could eat in my hometown of Naples was not enough).
Time has passed, and through the years the blog evolved into an all-around communication project about pizza that branches off in different ways.
This Substack newsletter wants to be the latest installment of a new part of this project that I started last year: the promotion of the Italian pizza culture for an English-speaking audience. This project involves the new English blog, the weekly Pizza Cultura room on Clubhouse and an upcoming English podcast.
Producing this amount of content, especially in a language that is not my own, is hard, and not always I’m able to have a regular production. However, I always find it exciting to try new media and the many doors they can open for my communication. I’ll do my best to do a regular update of this newsletter.
Meanwhile, please do encourage my work by sharing this newsletter with other pizza lovers like you and commenting below. My goal is to provide that kind of insider info you can’t really get anywhere else and to help spread the Italian pizza culture in the world. Don’t be shy and ask as many questions as you like in the comment section.
See you, pizza lovers!