Corn on pizza? Craziness, you say! Oh but how wrong you would be...
Before I went to Italy I assumed that the stereotypes of Italians eating tons of pizza was just that – a stereotype. After spending a few months there, however, I can tell you that they really do eat it as frequently as you would think.
In fact, nearly every single kid in all eight of my classes claimed pizza as their favorite food. Some of them ate it nearly every day of the week. Pizza is simply an integral part of Italian culture. And nearly everything is acceptable as a topping. French fries, hot dogs, pineapple, potatoes – you name it, they'll put it on a pizza.
My first night in Italy – when I was exhausted beyond all belief and completely culture-shocked – my host family served pizza as one course for dinner. Corn pizza. I was a little surprised what with all I'd heard in the US about how Italians only put “this” or “that” on a pizza and everything else is blasphemy.
Much to my surprise, it was delicious. So, when the husband and I were watching a program on television the other night before bed and he saw a “Mais Pizza” featured from a pizzeria out in California or somewhere, and he expressed interest, I decided to make him one to see how he liked it.
Unfortunately I didn't get my dough stretched out as thinly as we like so it was more of a flatbread, but it was still a thing of beauty. There's just something about the way the natural sweetness of the corn interacts with the salty umami of the pork and the yeastiness of the dough – it's lovely.
There's not really a great deal of complexity in creating said pizza. Use storebought pizza dough or make it yourself from scratch. (This recipe's a good one, you'll just have to excuse my crappy photography.) Slap some marinara on it (just enough to wet the dough, don't glop it on), add some nice whole milk mozzarella, sprinkle some fresh (or frozen, if you must) corn on it with a little bit of crispy bacon or prosciutto, throw it on your oven on the highest possible temperature for about 8-10 minutes and presto – corn pizza.
Feel free to thank me later.