Pizza – Hungry Breton

Pecorino and Asparagus Chaoson or Calzone…

You are probably wondering what the hell is a “Chaoson”? Well in Breton, it means “slipper” as in “Hey Ma! Where are me slippers?” and slipper in French is “chausson” but “chausson” is also the name of a folded pastry or pizza. So “pizza en chausson” is literally “Pizza in slipper” which is basically a “calzone”. I hope I haven’t offended my Italian friends out there, but since my latest story “The Kittiwakes of Goulien” is set in a stronghold of Breton culture, it was only fair that I would “Bretonise” this little baby. It is also a way to link the fact that I have moved on from mushrooms in brine which made me the victim of many a laughs from my fellow ornithologists on the cliffs of Cap Sizun. I also had some Irish Pecorino that Vincenzo La manna- Cheesemaker at Vincenzo’s Little Dairy in Cork- had sent me, a younger one this time and I wanted to do something with it, even if I had enjoyed most of it on its own…

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The day I became a “Pizzaiolo”, or for you and me, a pizza chef, started in the autumn of 1995, after spending five months in Galway; “Blue eyed girl” and I were coming back to Sligo. “Arnold The Hero” gave us a lift, the skies were very low like today and my mood wasn’t much higher. Maybe it was the fact that I was leaving the “City of Tribes” for another little bit, maybe it was the fact that he played a cassette of Mano Solo ( son of “Cabu”, one of the cartoonist killed in the Charlie Hebdo attacks). Don’t get me wrong, his material is great, just freaking depressing when you are hangover and rain is battering the Western land… Or maybe it was the fact that I had to find a job, no pressure so… A few days later, I saw an ad in one of the Italian restaurants of the town; bold as brass, I jumped in thinking I would have nothing to lose, I had no experience in the food business, or very little. I remembered what one of my peers once said to me: “ If you are in a night club, and you fancy a girl on the dance floor, if you stay on your chair, your chances are virtually none; if you get up your ass, and ask that girl if she would like to dance with you, your chances suddenly jump from 0 to 50%”. That is more or less what I did that day, and I got the dance…

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