Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Say for you Cincinnatus.

Thanks,

Paulie Gee

good luck paulie i have followed you on slice and flicker . the pictures of the pizzerias you visit are sensational. you are going to do great, i am looking forward to your opening. you can make a living and maintain the love of your craft. keep it simple and honest the public will get it .

One of the few benefits of living on LawnGuyland is we can get enough soil to grow basil the proper way.

@pizzablogger: I had to stare at GMAFB for a full thirty seconds before its meaning came to me. I've been out of Brooklyn too long.

Please don't mention me in the same breath as the foolish one in this case. When it comes to whispering into the yeast, he is in a league of his own.

Ciao,

Paulie Gee

Italian food has always been one of the more ingredient-driven cuisines, versus technique-driven cuisines like French and the various varieties of Chinese food. It's about starting with very high-quality ingredients and 'giving them respect.' Having high-quality ingredients that can stand on their own without much alteration can be hard for a business to do, and still sell enough pizza to stay in business.

I don't eat pizza much any more, and when I do I get just a very little bit of tomato sauce and one or two veggies, usually, not Margherita. For me, the most important and unique thing about any pizza is the crust, and that can never be 'boring,' just good or bad.

Re: toppings--I think there is a difference between getting one or two high-quality toppings, versus getting some kind of 'specialty' pie (like Hawaiian, artichoke, sausage and fennel, and so forth) because then you're throwing a completely different flavor profile into the mix.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think is the ideal cheese combo? It sounds like you're saying that, given the choice between a truly outstanding Italian-American slice, with provolone or some other cheeses in the 'mix' and the standard Margherita, you'd take the former. I think lots of people would agree with you on that choice.

I personally prefer a well made margherita - but i've had both good and bad from VPN places. The standard doesn't call for DOP tomatoes - and I have not found a difference with non-DOP (except for price). It's difficult to follow all of the rules to the letter (they have now even banned standard spiral mixers (i.e. hobart). I think the stuff that Motorino, Bianco and Paulie Gee with the Neapolitan style is great.

You know what I think is the worst part about pizza?? Selling "by the slice"...or "in which I find that pizza by the slice sucks". Why would someone want a slice of pizza from a shop...it is basically old pizza that is reheated. We do a lot of fairs/festivals with our mobile oven and everyone wants to buy just a slice. Why have a reheated old slice when you can have a fresh made pizza?

seriouspizza....I agree there is great non DOP stuff. The context of my post was why limit yourself to anything.....I agree good ole USA tomatoes (some ripe, "ugly" heirlooms or romas grown in a backyard with good soil kick serious butt) can be very good.

You're definitely pouring a flavor (or two) away when that sauce goes down the drain, which is exactly the point. I've peeled the top off of many, many cans and brands of DOPs and the liquid was worth using 3 or 4 times, maybe 5 or 6 at most. I don't prefer bitter or tinny notes in my sauce, but to each their own I guess. --K

That hydroponic basil is good shit.

--FP

Adam, I've just given this a quick read and have not read all the comments, but I feel this is as dead on a pizza post I've read in quite some time, and very timely at that.

The fact is either most of the ingredients used are either the same (often the flour) and the handling-technique and/or the ingredients themselves are of a decent, but not remarkable quality.

And why spend the extra time learning technique or searching out ultra high quality ingredients when the purchasing public will buy virtually any pizza, regardless of quality?

I've seen growing popularity in the use of, and advertisement of the use, of things like Molino Caputo Italian 00 flour, San Marzano tomatoes, etc. Any asshole can buy an ingredient, but it takes patience, attention and art to coax the flavors out of what is required to make a great margherita.

Sauce: If you are a pizzeria buying canned DOP rated San Marzano tomatoes and literally pouring them out of the can and using them as sauce.....you are lazy. You need to first find a quality brand which procures high quality tomatoes (not all tomatoes grown in a particular region are of the same quality!). The liquid they come packed in needs to be poured away, then you need to rinse the tomatoes....and rinse them again. By the time you are done pouring away and rinsing to get to the pure tomato essence, you've essentially "thrown away" a good 1/3 or so of what came in the can. You've got to correct for salt, realizing cans from one year may be more salty than cans from another year, etc, etc. As far as VPN, why just limit yourself to salt? Pepper, oregano, thyme and other herbs can be welcome additions to a good sauce at times, even if I like just salt most times.

Crust: The farina MC00 is actually MORE difficult to coax flavor out of compared to many flours -- it is not easy to get the full potential of this flour realized in a pizza. And as mentioned by many here ad naseum, I would rather eat a pizza made with ACME flour by a person who knows how to manipulate dough to acheive maximum flavor than eat crust made from the most pure "from the source Napoli" farina by a person who is only interested in advertising Italian or "authentic" ingredients and who makes a mediocre crust. A great crust can be made from many types of flour (often resulting in structural differences which may be pleasing)....why limit the possibilities?

Cheese: Has any pizza cheese been more standardized than fresh mozzarella? Adam, you are correct....mootz is mostly a textural component, but fior-di-latte is mostly made the same these days....with obtained curd instead of making it directly from raw milk. This method is more timely and while the flavor is not astronimically better, there is a difference. And raw milk from one farm will not taste the same as another. What is the fat content, what type of grass are the cows eating, etc, comes into play. Go out and visit dairy farms offering raw milk, taste the milk, look at the farm....get off your arse and strive for something excellent!!! Not to mention I firmly believe there is more taste in good quality bufala, but that's another issue.

Basil: Once you wash basil you literally kill some of the flavor...those surface oils are mas importante. Growing your own makes a difference.

Olive Oil (if used in lieu of grapeseed, flaxseed or other oil): It takes a very fresh and high quality olive oil to endure a high temperature oven and still deliver some flavors. Oils like Fillippo Berio, while not bad for normal cooking, does not make the grade for high quality pizza (sorry Dom).

Adam said:
"The best pizzas I had were from people who were unconcerned with meeting someone else's standard or even a perceived traditional-Neapolitan standard and who took their pies in different directions, whether they were Neapolitan-inspired or doin' their own thing."

Bingo 1000%....why contrain yourself to anyone or anything? I've argued strongly that what Chris Bianco is doing in Phoenix is likely more Italian in heart, spirit and soul, than any pizzeria in the country...and a LOT of what Bianco uses does not come from Italy.

God, I hate pizza demons. The more pizza I make the more I realize I have no idea WTF I am doing, or talking about, so what I'm saying means nothing. Thank god we have you, Adam!

Have you ever played opera to your basil plants or talked to your dough late in the evening? What an effing mess this all is! --K

Very well said my friend...I feel this post was probably a long time coming.

Here's what I don't get.

If very few pizzaioli can succeed with a Margherita (and I do agree, WikiAdam), then why do so many offer a plain cheese?

On a related note, I am nonplussed here in California by all the parlors that offer cheese, pepperoni or sausage -- any many, many iterations beyond that -- but cannot seem to carry basil in their kitchens?

Thoughts?

Thanks for this. Enlightening and refreshing. But not as much as a perfect Margherita.

AH-HA! I was right. You are suffering from Thai food syndrome as I implied in the Nostrana comment.

Let me explain -- and I'll apologize now for any intended or unintended dickishness. I have a friend who no matter where we go compares EVERYthing he eats to Thai food. Everymotherfingthing. Thai food is the ultimate expression of the balance of bold flavors, especially the dishes popularized in the US. Sweet, salty, sour, fiery mouth explosions. So I take this friend to, say, a place serving really good Catonese seafood and how is it going to compare when Catonese is about clean, simple flavors, for the most part? "It's good, but it's not Thai food good."

I'm not surprised Thai food (which I love, don't get me wrong) has ascended in this era. I'm a 30-something year old who grew up on MSG-laden, salty, sweet snacks loaded with simple, concentrated flavors. My friend -- the "It's not Thai food" friend -- grew up eating things like nachos that were made with Doritos smothered in melted sharp cheddar and ground beef enhanced with Lawry's seasoning packets. No wonder a piece of steamed fish seems boring.

And so does a margherita pizza. It's not Thai food. It's simple. It's clean. It's never going to have the concentrated explosions of flavor a pizza with a sausage or salami will have. The Neapolitan pies don't have the long-simmered sauces with lots of garlic and herbs that you find in many other pizzas.

I'm not saying these simple items are better, just different. Hey, I'm a product of my late 20th century American upbringing and constantly have to challenge my own palate. It's taken me a while to appreciate Catonese food and still I have to often admit I have an addiction to bold flavors. But unless we challenge this addiction, how can we appreciate something like a simple slice of home-cooked bread with a bit of butter?

I get what you're saying in the post and have often felt the same way. But I think to some extent we have to admit it's a sickness -- or at least a character flaw -- and constantly work to appreciate the subtleties of something like a margherita pizza.

Ah. Then I am filing this info away for a future "My Pizza Oven" interview. If you're interested in showing off your oven and your creations.