OK, let\u2019s play fill in the blank: A pizza is supposed to________.
Take your time with the answer because this is not a simple question. In fact you can think of it as the fundamental jumping off point for your own personal pizza quest, a sort of Zen koan that can move you towards pizza enlightenment. The late great pizza maker, Ed Ladou, described his pizza crust as an edible plate and his insight opened the floodgates of creativity for hundreds of pizza makers, some inspired and some eh, perhaps not so much. But let\u2019s take it a step further. If pizza crust is an edible plate, the pizza itself is much more. I believe that we should think of our pizza, how we construct it, and how we eat it as an edible Rorschach test. Most of us have heard of this test, a psychological tool used to evaluate a subject’s personality by analyzing perceptions about ink blots. Well, I think it is just as useful and a lot more fun to learn about people through the pizzas that they like and the pizzas that they make.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s get back to the original question. What was your first unfiltered response? Did you answer \u201cA pizza is supposed to be cooked in a wood burning oven\u201d? How about Dom DeMarco of DiFara\u2019s? He uses a Bakers Pride gas oven cranked up to nearly 600 degrees. How about: \u201cA pizza is supposed to be topped with San Marzano tomatoes\u201d right? Chris Bianco, one of our nations best pizza makers uses delicious California Tomatoes packed by Rob DiNapoli. Certainly, \u201cA Pizza is supposed be made with Italian 00 flour.\u201d \u00a0Except that when I asked the fantastic pizza makers at Volpetti in Rome they spoke lovingly of North American High Gluten Manitoba as their flour of choice.\u00a0 One thing we can all agree on is: \u201cA pizza is supposed to be extended by hand.\u201d \u00a0Well somebody forgot to tell Al Santillo and his family who, for 3 generations, have followed their bread baking tradition and made incredible pizza using an old dough sheeter.<\/p>\n
So, I think it is safe to say that for just about every \u201csupposed to\u201d there is an equally valid alternative response. Perhaps that means that our answers reveal more about us than they do about pizza itself. Let\u2019s compare our pizza quest with another popular obsession, automobiles.\u00a0 Some car enthusiasts will spend countless hours and huge sums of money to restore a vintage auto to showroom perfection. In a similar way, you may be drawn to pizza makers like Anthony Mangieri who insists that the only true expression of his art can be found in the four pizzas that he calls \u201ctrue Neapolitan pizza\u201d.\u00a0 Think of him as a preservationist.\u00a0 Other auto enthusiasts enjoy taking the same vintage autos and modernizing them. They are hot-rodders, linked to the past but customizing each creation with new innovations. A pizza maker like Roberto Caporuscio is doing just that in New York City, where his pies are clearly Neapolitan but include creations such as Noci e Zucchini, a delicious pizza made with smoked mozzarella, zucchini and cream of walnut. Surely this is not a pie that would have been made in Naples 50 years ago or even in Anthony Mangieri\u2019s pizzeria today. So what about those automobile fanatics that don\u2019t give a hoot about tradition and are driven by a desire to innovate? Well pizza fans have a few of those types too. These folks may be informed by what has come before, but they refuse to be enslaved by any standards but their own. In Italy the foremost name in this movement is Gabriele Bonci, Rome\u2019s rock star pizza maker. If you want to experience “No-Holds Barred” pizza making visit Pizzarium or at least check out Bonci\u2019s new book Il Gioco Della Pizza.<\/p>\n
Well then, are you a preservationist, a hot-rodder or an innovator?\u00a0 My hope is that at various points in your quest you will step deeply into each role, exploring what every facet of our art has to offer and, eventually, transcend labels, dogma, and rules to simply be at peace with the creation\u00a0 and sharing of your pizza with the people that you love. To do that it is important to shed the notion of what your pizza is \u201csupposed to be\u201d and open your heart to everything that your pizza can be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"