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A pizza parlour has been attracting attention in Naples for taking on a Christmas staple with a local twist. There’s a pizza-based nativity scene on display in the heart of the city, as seen on Friday, in a tradition that spans back for over 20 years.
“I’m a Neapolitan who lives in San Gregorio Armeno, I have been doing it for 20 years and every year the crib gets bigger and bigger, little by little,” said Carmine Mauro, the owner of Pizzeria 900.
The installation takes over a month to be completed. “If I did everything together it would collapse, so you have to wait until the pasta is dry and hard, because all the characters made of pizza go on top, one by one I fix the characters onto the pizza with toothpicks,” Mauro explained.
This year, the nativity scene has seen a particular novel adaptation to bring the piece up to speed with the latest worldly developments on the COVID-19 global pandemic front.
“I like it very much and it has also unfortunately been decorated with the episode that hit us this year, the shepherds have masks on and then there is also the centre to do swab tests, so I would say it’s an ultra-modern nativity scene. Very pretty,” a passerby said.
*SOUNDBITES*
SOT, Passerby (Italian): “Swabs, beautiful. So, I like it very much and it has also unfortunately been decorated with the episode that hit us this year, the shepherds have masks on and there is also the centre to do swab tests, so I would say it’s an ultra-modern nativity scene. Very pretty.”
SOT, Pizza nativity scene co-maker (Italian): “From the first lockdown we also started with donations of different kinds, from pizza to bread, in the first lockdown we donated more or less 100 pizzas a week during the first lockdown, we did it systematically every Saturday and Sunday for the people who are less fortunate than us.”
SOT, Carmine Mauro, Pizza parlour owner and pizza nativity scene maker (Italian): “[To make the crib] this big it takes me a month, a month and a half because the dough is initially soft so I have to wait for it to harden, dry, then gradually add pieces of the crib. If I did everything together it would collapse, so you have to wait until the pasta is dry and hard, because all the characters made of pizza go on top, one by one I fix the characters onto the pizza with toothpicks, if someone comes and want to taste one of the characters when I’m cooking, they can just eat them.”
SOT, Carmine Mauro, Pizza parlour owner and pizza nativity scene maker (Italian): “I have been preparing the Neapolitan crib for twenty years, I’m a Neapolitan who lives in San Gregorio Armeno, I have been doing this for 20 years and every year the crib gets bigger and bigger, little by little. Many people come to visit, once a Roman he wanted me to make a small shell-shaped nativity scene for him to take to Rome.”
SOT, Carmine Mauro, Pizza parlour owner and pizza nativity scene maker (Italian): “This [the nativity scene] is always displayed outside the pizzeria every year. It goes out in the morning and go back inside in the evening. It’s always outside, there are people, clients, who admire it, take pictures of it, also passers-by and tourists, who are not there now, but last year there were a lot of tourists who took pictures and posted all over, making it tour all over the world, even as far as Australia.”
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