Feature: When Italian pizza not made by Italian

It is not surprising anymore that when you enter a pizzeria in Italy you often find the pizza chef to be Egyptian, Turkish or even Chinese.

"And the pizza is good. It might not be an organic pizza prepared with the best ingredients, but it is simple and tastes good," Laura Messi, a mother and worker, told Xinhua while eating a pizza in the center of Milan.

"Italians are not having children anymore. So it is obvious that certain jobs are increasingly carried out by migrant workers," she added looking at the man who made her pizza, a Turkish. "I have no objections at all if they make good pizza and pay the taxes," the woman went on saying.

"Turkish pizza is a traditional dish in my country, but is different from the Italian one. In Turkey we put meat on pizza, but here I make classic Italian pizza," the pizza maker, Kanber Saban, explained to Xinhua.

"How did I learn to make classic Italian pizza? From my Turkish fellows in Italy. I started this job seven years ago and I was taught by other Turkish who had started before me," Saban said.

According to FIPE, the Italian federation of public restaurants and food outlets, pizza maker is among the most required competences in the country that bakes 5 million pizzas every day on average.

"This is a record, with numbers that are still growing in a sector that employs around 150,000 workers and needs more professionals but cannot find them," FIPE said in a statement.

The Accademia Pizzaioli (academy of pizza makers), one of the numerous pizza organizations in Italy, has estimated there are about 65,000 Italian pizza makers in the Mediterranean country along with 20,000 Egyptians and more than 10,000 Moroccans.

"Actually Egyptians are very good at making pizza, and some nationals from other countries too," Riccardo Onni, the owner of an Italian pizzeria in Milan that boasts a pizza chef with 30 years' experience, told Xinhua.

"But you have to take into account that there are important differences between pizzas that cost around two euros (2.14 U.S. dollars) and pizzas that cost 8.50 euros as in our pizzeria," he pointed out.

"We use top-quality ingredients, from the best flour and tomatoes in Italy, the latter named San Marzano, to Buffalo mozzarella from Campania region," Onni stressed.

"I do not believe that Italians are not willing to make pizza anymore. Our school in Rome is attended by a lot of Italians besides a few foreigners also including Chinese," Angelo Iezzi, President of API, the Italian Pizzerias Association, said.

"It is true, however, that many Italian pizza chefs are discouraged from bureaucracy and low salaries here, thus prefer to open a pizzeria abroad, for example in Paris, where pizza costs 36 euros per kg compared to 18 euros in Italy. This is what happens quite often with our students," he explained to Xinhua.

"Being a pizza maker is a job that requires strong spirit of sacrifice, but also gives a lot of satisfaction, and that is why there will always be professionals looking for making pizza in the best way possible," Iezzi said. Endit