T A B L E_T A L K It's springtime in Paris. What would you be doing if you were there? Fantasize in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Silver linings in the Asian cloud By Don George Travel execs pump each other up at annual confab (04/13/98) Club Fed By Jeffrey Itell How Madeleine Albright spent more than $40,000 on a Caribbean weekend (04/10/98) Mondo Weirdo Readers' worst travel tales (04/09/98) Tiger, tiger, burning bright By Jeff Greenwald A blood-curdling encounter in Nepal (04/08/98) My grandfather's village By Amy Brill Searching a Greek island for roots (04/07/98) Your virtual travel agency - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Feature archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		The best little Pizzerias in Naples THREE GREAT PLACES TO SAVOR ITALY'S SIMPLE, HAND-HELD FEAST. BY DAVID DOWNIE The off-duty taxi driver took a bite of hot pizza and looked up from the taxi stand near Naples' seafront drive. I followed his eyes. He mumbled something about volcanoes. To the east, thrusting skyward, smoky old Vesuvius seemed about to erupt. I blinked and realized the picturesque gray wisps were coming from the smokestacks of a steel mill at the volcano's base. Naples and smoke are inseparable. An old saying about con artists goes, "The guy's selling the smoke of Vesuvius." But Vesuvius and its neighboring rust-belt steel mill aren't the only source of smoke in the Siren City: Naples has dozens, maybe hundreds, of wood-burning pizza ovens scattered around the atmospheric old city. Neapolis, the "new city" 2,000-odd years ago, is a layer-cake of ancient Greek, Roman, Barbarian and Mediterranean civilizations -- all of them, apparently, pizza-eating. "Naples is pizza and pizza is Naples," quipped the witty pizzaiolo at Pizzeria Vesuviana, a Spartan place in the edgy Porta Nolana district, abutting the train station. Cool tiles, a picture of Padre Pio, a cash register. Outside the eatery, fish mongers waved live octopuses and paper-wrapped bouquets of fresh fish. Market customers jostled into the Vesuviana for their breakfast: pizza alla marinara. It was only 8 in the morning. The pizzamaker bounced his ball of dough, punched it and tossed it in the air. I watched its trajectory. It peaked, then free-fell in front of a giant painting of Vesuvius. In the painting, an enormous pizzamaker cooked his giant pizza over the mouth of the smoking volcano. "You have everything you want over there," said the flesh-and-blood pizzamaker, putting on an act for me, l'americano. He caught the falling dough, gave it a spin and set it down. "You have everything in America, so for goodness sake, leave us our pizza." He said it jokingly, politely, but he meant what he said. After swirling the dough with fresh tomato sauce, he flicked some herbs and fresh garlic on. Another pizzamaker -- the oven man -- held out his long-handled paddle, then slid the rosy round pie into the mouth of the beehive-shaped oven. A miniature Vesuvius. "Now they tell us pizza was invented in America," said the first pizzamaker. "Soon we're going to have pizza fast food joints." His colleague glanced into the oven and used his paddle to lift and spin the disk counter-clockwise, a quarter turn at a time. A third, plump, pizzaiolo appeared. "We've been eating pizza since, since, forever," he added. The oven man withdrew the baked confection. "We eat pizza for breakfast, for lunch, for snacks, for dinner. Pizza comes from here," continued the plump one. "It's our invention." The oven was hot, very hot: Vesuvius domesticated. It had taken under a minute to bake my pizza marinara -- which, contrary to its name, doesn't count fish among its ingredients. In Naples, the marinara is what the sailors and fishermen ate when going to or returning from their boats. It has no fish and no cheese. It is exquisitely simple. "Naples is pizza and pizza is Naples," the first two pizzamakers repeated, one after the other. My table was cool, clean and barren: a salt shaker and a knife-and-fork rolled in a paper napkin. I'd never eaten pizza for breakfast. It was good -- actually, better than good. The first pizzamaker came over. I thought he was going to give me a hug. He touched my arm. "Drink, capo? Coke?" I raised an eyebrow. "Whattsamatter, we drink Coke with it. Or white wine." I asked for sparkling water, an uncontroversial choice at 8 in the morning. "You eat it like this," said the third pizzamaker. "You cut a piece off, then fold it and pick it up with your fingers. Nothing formal about it. This is poor people's food. Always has been." Out in the congested streets around the pizzeria, the Porta Nolana market was in full swing. I made my way past the live octopuses, the glowing purple eggplants, the pendulous provolone cheeses and pennuli plum tomatoes, the spluttering Vespas and three-wheeled Ape trucks with live chickens. Everyone seemed to be wolfing pizza -- small, round, take-out pizzas folded over into quarters and held in grease-stained brown paper. N E X T+P A G E | Wallet style