A simple pan-bread with a recipe essentially unchanged for the last 2500 years, the Torta al Testo
Forget delivery or Digorno! With a simple set up, some creative sourcing, and a few minutes rolling in the dough, you can get back to the basics of delicious and nutritious food – even on the road. Frozen and industrial pies (they don’t even really deserve to be called pizzas) are quite simply amongst one of the most unhealthful – albeit not to mention unpalatable – noxious weeds that constitute the thorny thicket we call the modern Western diet.
Enter a version that can trace its lineage back over 2500 years to where the Etruscans lived in what would become the shadow of the eternal city, Roma! The dough is a simple affair, as all good doughs should be; organic durum flour (a varietal distinct from modern bread wheat), water, salt, and in this case a touch of baking powder. Roll it up, roll it out, and slap it around a little. Then simply let it rest until you’re ready.
A little olive oil in the pan to crisp it up. When it comes out nice and hot, top with a little salt, pepper, dried herbs and light massage of garlic clove for a palate pleasing perfume. Combine some heirloom varietal organic tomatoes and some organic, fresh, and locally crafted mozzarella cheese (scored at a local grocery-cheese & wine shop); top with good quality olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and sea salt (scored from aforementioned store), and get ready to board a plate-cation to the Mediterranean. And don’t forget the wine.
A few simple, fresh quality ingredients that are prepared with love and respect; a hallmark of the Italian approach to food.
This is the power of a Culinary Medicine approach. Two items that appear intellectually identical; both containing a dough, tomatoes, cheese, and seasonings, could not be further apart terms of how they affect our health and how they affect our palate. It’s not complicated. But the simple things are often not easy, either. It takes a bit of work, a bit of effort, a bit of learning, and most importantly a willingness to open up and experience a perspective change. One that reveals the relationships that form the connectedness of all things.
But perhaps the most important lesson to remember here, is if I can do it in a hotel room, you can do it at home!
