Want a career as a pizza maker?
Move to Italy. Evidently there’s a big demand for pizza makers, but very few Italians willing to take the jobs. So most Italian pizza is made by Egyptians these days. Weird. But then I guess it’s no weirder than the U.S. where Mexicans, Guatemalans and Costa Ricans make pretty much all our “ethnic” cuisine, from French, Italian and Greek to Chinese and Thai. If we can sub out the work, why can’t they?
Funnily enough, I was just at Benihana’s, the Japanese chain, this weekend, where our chef was Enrique. I looked around, and yeah, most of the servers and chefs and waitpeople did not appear to be ethnically Japanese.
I haven’t been to one of those in a long time, though I think my daughters would love it. However I heard they don’t flip food onto your plate anymore because of a lawsuit. Is that true?
– Joe
Hi Joe,
I’ve reading you for a while… you are such a great source of knowledge!
Since I’m Italian, I think I can explain you this shortening of pizzaioli (pizza makers :D).
Wages are really low here in Italy, both for high-end jobs (I’m a web developer and I make around 26k euros per year) and for low-end jobs (ex. pizza maker). But for low-end jobs are very low and working conditions aren’t that good.
That’s the main reason people don’t even consider such jobs.
Egyptians, though, come from a poorer country, so for them the salary is acceptable.
A friend of mine who is half egyptian and half italian has told me that their food is very similar to ours, especially the baking, so they know how to do it the right way.
Hope it helps 🙂
pardon: shortage, not shortening. Being a blog about food, words are mixing in my mind!
I understood perfectly. 😉
– Joe
Hello Monica!
I greatly appreciate the comment, and thank you! That’s a perfectly sensible explanation.
Cheers,
– Joe