Reflection

Pizza is one of the most popular foods in the world. Its perception as street food has been consistent since its conception in Naples, never being mentioned as having the same quality and ingredients as gourmet food. Historically, pizza was invented under the ideology that it was food for the poor, an unhealthy but affordable and simple food that was accessible. Over the past 100 years, the concept of pizza has not been innovated upon enough, leaving it vulnerable for people to cut corners. Its place in popular culture has been cemented, but its narrative has remained the same. However, there has been an individual in Rome that has been leading a revolution through his work with roman style pizza al tagliol (a style of roman pizza that is baked in rectangular trays and sold in squares by weight). The man behind it is Gabriele Bonci, known as the “Michelangelo of Pizza”, a title earned for his craftsmanship in having invented over 1500 iterations of pizza al taglio at Pizzerium Bonci. His work has raised the ceiling for pizza al taglio, even pizza as a whole, deviating from the norm, opening an avenue for society to perceive his work with pizza as an art form. He’s accomplished such a feat by using imaginative flavors and creative never before seen toppings, shifting the discussion about roman pizza towards gourmet, natural, healthy and creatively complex. He became the artist roman pizza needed to enter a new plane of discussion in greater food culture.

Nevertheless Bonci does not see himself as a pizza chef, but rather as a farmer. He uses pizzas as a means to reach an idea. He's a revolutionary agriculturalist employing his artform of pizza as a symbol to convey the idea there is a calling to educate our society to be thoughtful and ethical in our consumption. Furthermore, he describes the act of eating itself as agricultural. His accomplishments with pizza are centered around creating and sustaining agricultural networks with small farmers and producers, preserving natural agricultural practices and spaces. He is compelled by the responsibility to communicate what our planet has been able to provide for us. Consciously aware of the power that natural ingredients from our earth have to captivate our minds with just a bite while simultaneously empowering the farmers and producers who dedicate their lives to provide such things. His art challenges us to be thinkers in the midst of a world that is becoming more commercial and artificial in terms of its consumption practices. To think about what is presented to us in an ethical and moral perspective, to think of the farmer, the animal, the vegetable. His works asks us to think about the world we live in, to preserve the natural, to be more consciously ethical and moral in the way we consume food going forward.