Name Plates: Pizza a la Garibaldi

What do an Italian revolutionary, a biscuit, a beard and this post have in common?  They are all named Garibaldi!  This Pizza a la Garibaldi comes from The Italian Cuisine I Love (1977) by Jules J Bond.  I have a particular fondess for Jules J so I was eager to pick this book back up again.  And who doesn’t love pizza?

What is Pizza a la Garibaldi?

Ok.  So, I’m not going to explain pizza.  Because it’s pizza!

Pizza a La Garibaldi though? Has cheese, green and black olives, oregano / marjoram, and anchovies.  I also added some strips of roasted red pepper for reasons which will become clear right about now!  This is the picture of the Pizza a la Garibaldi from The Italian Cusine I Love.

And this is me trying to recreate it.  I think Jules J piped lines of tomato sauce on his pizza.  There was no way in hell I was going to do that so strips of piquillo pepper it was!  I wish I’d had some of those cute rolled anchovies with capers to get the same look as Jules.  Mine looked like blobs.  

The Recipe And Variations

I was interested to see that Jules uses bread dough as a base for his pizza.  I have not been able to find yeast for love or money since the start of the first lockdown when everyone went sourdough mad so I was unable to test that part of the recipe out.  Also, my preference is for a thin and crispy base rather than a thicker base so I used one of those souvlaki pitas for my pizza. 

The Pizza a la Garibaldi was very tasty but for me the big disappointment was the cheese.  Part of the joy of pizza, for me anyway is that beautiful streeeetch of the mozzarella. 

Parmesan may be tastier but does not give the same joy!  I will definitely use mozzarella next time I make this.  

Who Was Garibaldi?

Well, we don’t have all day so here are a collection of fun facts about Giussepe Garibaldi

Unifier of Italy

Garibaldi was almost single-handedly responsible for helping Italy move from a collection of city-states to the country we know today.  He and his volunteer army of guerilla fighters, the Redshirts,  conquered Lombardy and later Sicily and Naples. 

Anti Slavery Advocate

Abraham Lincoln offered Garibaldi a job as a Commander in the American Civil War.  Garibaldi refused the post partly because Lincoln did not condemn slavery strongly enough for his liking.

Pacifist

Even though he was a soldier for most of his life, in his later years Garibaldi became something of a pacifist beliving that war was generally neither righteous or an effective means of getting what one wants.

Champion of the Underdog

Garibaldi believed in worker’s rights, women’s emancipation, racial equality, and the abolition of capital punishment.

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Garibaldi spent some time in South American and for the rest of his life work the clothing of the gauchos.  He is also the originator of the Garibaldi beard.

Keen Entolmologist*

A little known fact about Garibaldi is that he was an avid collector of flying insects, a love he developed in South America.  In order to keep his collection with him on his travels, he had specimens of his collection baked into little clay tablets.  He could then pop these into his pocket to look at between skirmishes. 

These small clay tablets are believed to be the origin of the Garibaldi biscuit.

(Photo via Delicious Magazine UK)

Modern Day Garibladi

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find one of these but come on down Navarone Garibaldi.  In case you haven’t heard of him, he is the son of Priscilla Presley and Marco Garibaldi, stepbrother to Lisa-Marie Presley and a member of the band Them Guns.  Hmmm…maybe he could have gone with The Guns of Navarone…or would that be too obvs?  Anyway, here he is!

Have a great week.  And eat some pizza! It’s scientifically proven to make you happy!

*This “fact” is little known because I wanted to have an interesting story for the origin of the Garibaldi biscuit.  The actual truth is that the reason why they are named after Garibaldi is totally unknown.