Egg and mayo, sausage and fries or pan-fried: a journey through 50 shades of pizza

At first glance, everything seems normal on this long, narrow cobblestone street in the center of Pesaro, the second most populated municipality in the Marche region. It's 11 a.m., and the large italicized letters float across the front of Caffè Barrier, a charming café with its 17th-century beams fixed to the ceiling and three shades of wood from the parquet floor to the bar. A customer with short, salt-and-pepper hair and a red scarf tied tightly around his neck is chatting with a friend. Everything seems normal. Until my eye falls on the food section of the counter, where about fifteen small red, white, and yellow tarts are lined up, with the latter hue dominating. I know exactly what it is; I came especially for this, and it's not a tart, it's the Rossini pizzetta.

A child of Pesaro who became famous with his operas, Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) was also renowned for his fork. I'm not sure he would have appreciated his surname being associated with this round and crunchy specialty made with tomato sauce, hard-boiled egg and coils of mayonnaise. In Pesaro, the Rossini pizzetta is king, eaten with pride since the early 1970s, especially at breakfast with coffee (the locals, however, have not gone so far as to dunk it in a cappuccino as is customary).