Later this week on 13 December, the "Record Pizza Men" of NIPfood enterprise will attempt to create "OTTAVIA", the largest round pizza in the world.
The 100% gluten-free pizza is set to be 40 metres in diameter with over 9,000 kg of gluten-free flour.
It will take more than 48 continuous hours and 5 gluten-free specialized chefs to prepare OTTAVIA. Record Pizza Men's team (www.recordpizzamen.it) is composed of event creator Dovilio Nardi, Andrea Mannocchi, Matteo and Marco Nardi, and Matteo Giannotte.
The chefs will attempt to break the record set in South Africa in 1990 by Norwood Pick'n Pay hypermarket. That pizza (which was made with gluten) was 37.4 metres in diameter, containing 4,500 kg of flour.
"Pizza, which is the most important dish of Italian cooking worldwide, has very old origins as it has more than 3,000 years history," said chef and event organizer Dovilio Nardi. "In ancient Egypt people already used to celebrate Pharaoh's birthday with a flat bread made of flour, seasoned with aromatic herbs."
"OTTAVIA", a word of Roman origin for "eighth son", was named as an homage to the first Roman emperor Octavian Augustus, who represented an epoch-making change in the history of Rome and brought the Empire into a period of economic and cultural unrest.
OTTAVIA will be gluten-free in order to bring awareness to celiac disease, the most frequent food intolerance worldwide. According to recent data coming from the 2011 report of the Italian Department of Health, there are currently over 135,000 people officially diagnosed with celiac disease in Italy and the number of diagnoses are growing rapidly.
The pizza-making event will be held on the 13 December at 16:30 in Padiglione 12 of Nuova Fiera di Roma - Via Portuense n. 1645.
