Tuesday 3 of April I' ve think about a tour out of my town an I've decided to go to Salsomaggiore, a nice touristic place on the sweet hills between Fidenza and Parma.

But it is not a trip so I am here as a special correspondent for www.pizza.it to tell you about this 10° World Championship of Pizza, an event for all pizzamakers that very enthusiastically take place of it in the Sport Palace of Salsomaggiore.

 

I find immediately a great happyness and quiet on the pizzamakers' smiling faces - (but they are not here to vie !? I'm thinking about ...So the competition is good for them!!)

 

There are three kind of competition: gastronomic (the classic pizza - the pizza in backing-pan) the ability (the largest pizza, the speedy) and the Acrobatic Team Competition.

There are 350 pizzamakers - competitors for this exhibition and four jures for four ovens (from Castelli and Marana 's companies) composed from expert persons of this sector).

They judge various aspects about pizza and pizzamaker (care, clean, clothes) then they judge cooking, taste, quickly of rolling the paste, ingredients combination, an so on.

A lot of stranger competitors pizzamakers are from Australia, Giappone, U.S.A..

In the first day of Championship monday 2 of april, seven italian acrobatic teams and one japanese challenge. The italian acrobatic team named "Sicilia" wins, first classified, with chef Paolino Bucca.

The second classified is the japanese team (I've seen a lot of japanese boys and girls make acrobatic evolutions with their dishes of paste!).

Then, I meet the boys of "Sicilia" Acrobatic Team they are very happy for the winner: the brother Gabriele, Piero and Sergio from Mazara del Vallo (Trapani) and Pasqualino form Cammarata (Agrigento). Since one year they working well together in the name of the passion for Pizza and they train two times for week with steadiness and seriousness because this passion give them the greatest satisfaction and complete their professionalism.

Then there is Leone Coppola (he has a pizzaria in Gavirate - Varese) who is a pizzamaker and a great friend of Paolino Bucca.  

I'm very enjoy with him when he plays with a group of children very happy with the hands in the flavour and the paste.

Leone make smiling and happy all the people with this exhibition on the bycicle with italian colours (red, white and green) with his Bersagliere cap on.

The show must go on, so walking between the stand of companies and greeting my friends Mr. Margaritt of Lilly Codroipo, Mr. Bonato of Paulaner, Mr. Ferri of Caseificio Funetta, Mr. Scarpellini of Molino Spadoni ... I run into Adriano Celentano ... but he is not the real guest, he is a perfect double! The pizzamaker Claudio Mele is here to vie, his voice and look and movments are the same of these of Adriano! 

The special pizza he presents is the Campagnola with "lampascioni" special vegetables.

All pizzamakers here are very interested to partecipate in this event with heart and fantasy.

One sicilian pizzamaker, winner of the first Italian Championship of Fiuggi (Mr. Riggio), for example, has prepared some dresses with paste of pizza's decorations and an other group of Naple's pizzamakers have played a performance to present their pizza as Pulcinella.

 

A lot of cameramen and journalist crowd around pizzamakers and their works this is their moment and their show, to award for their skill and creativity.