With its pizzas, piadinas, and focaccias, central Italy is always coming up with surprises. You have the “pizza bianca,” which traditionally reigns supreme in Rome. Not far away you’ll find the realm of Umbria’s “torta al testo.” In Tuscany there’s the “schiacciata.” Amid this simple and delicious variety, a sort of culinary island has emerged: that of Vejano’s “pizza a fiamma.”
Vejano’s pizza a fiamma – already well-known in the 19th century – is a unique dish that must be tried. Made exclusively in the small town of Vejano – where the ancient Etruscans vied for power with the Romans – it’s a sort of “inflated” pizza with yeast in its dough. Yet it’s completely empty and extremely soft. It can be eaten on its own in place of bread or stuffed with chicory, mortadella, prosciutto, cheese, ricotta, or even nutella. From evidence collected by ARSIAL (the Regional Agency for the Development and Innovation of Lazio’s Agriculture), which officially recognized the dish as a typical local product, it was discovered that pizza a fiamma already existed in Vejano in the 19th century.
Signora Santa Ravioni who, at 91 still makes bread and pizza a fiamma in her home’s wood-fired oven, told us her grandmother was the one to teach her this art form. So we have living proof that pizza a fiamma was already being made in Vejano in the 1800s. The idea seems to have taken shape precisely during that era: a baker, in order to test the temperature before baking bread (not a new idea by any means, as this is how Tuscan schiacciata was created, among other things), placed a pizza in the oven. As soon as it hit the extremely high temperatures of the wood-fired oven, the pizza swelled up. And that’s the secret of pizza a fiamma, soft yet empty inside. The dough is practically the same of normal pizza, even better if prepared with a starter. Before placing the pizza in the oven, women would make the sign of the cross and say “San Martino a cresce” (“Saint Martin, let it rise”), as a prayer for it to come out perfectly. Today, Vejano’s pizza a fiamma can be savored in local restaurants or during the festival held every year in mid-July.