 The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, ConclusionModernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 05/03/23: $294.99 People have I asked me whether they should buy Modernist Pizza. That seems like a loaded question: Whether I have an opinion on whether you should buy a $450, three-volume pizza “cookbook” that weighs 32 pounds and comes in a stainless-steel case with a bright red finish.
The answer is simple: Yes. If you can even ask the question, you are a candidate. If you are someone who doesn’t automatically say, “$450 for a cookbook? That’s insane!”, then you may well be the right person for this epic work on pizza: the history, current state of the art, techniques and recipes. The people to whom I’ve unequivocally recommended this book are very smart people who have two things in common: They are adventurers and they love pizza.
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 The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 3, Chapter 14, "Serving And Storage"Modernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 05/03/23: $294.99 “You’ve mixed and proofed, stretched and sauced, cheesed and baked. It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for, the moment where you’ve just pulled the pizza from the oven. What more can we tell you at this point? Just dig in, right?”
And so it begins: the end. The last chapter of Modernist Pizza. But knowing Mhyrvold & Migoya, you’re going to get the Modernistas’ take all the way through to serving and storing your pizza, which means (yes): They did experiments. How to vent steam from the bottom of the pizza is a conundrum. Steam makes the pizza soggy, so how do you prevent that?  The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 3, Chapter 13, "Flavor Themes"Modernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 05/03/23: $294.99 “But what do we mean by a flavor theme? It’s a combination of sauce, cheese and toppings that would work on virtually any style of pizza.” Thus begins the discussion of what to put on the top of your pizza.
My wife has been after me to write a book about pizza toppings. She feels like that’s something the marketplace is missing. I’m not sure whether I agree with that. But the Modernistas could certainly write it. I hope they will. They’ve done the research and have the recipes. And it’s all here in Volume 3, Chapter 13, “Flavor Themes.” I admit, I’m excited by this. (Yes, my life has become very small.)  The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 3, Chapter 12, "Iconic Recipes," Part 3 Modernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 03/08/23: $294.99 Move aside, Neapolitan pizza—folks are ready to start hurling the Chicago deep-dish! But the Modernistas remain unemotional and clear-eyed, of course. And they could not possibly be smarter about it. I think. (There will be mac and cheese involved…)
In the recipes section for deep-dish, Mhyrvold & Migoya get right to it: “Whether deep-dish is really a pizza or not is the subject of many heated debates (based largely on where you call home). Some feel strongly that it’s pizza while others feel just as strongly that deep-dish pizza is closer to a casserole.”  The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 3, Chapter 12, "Iconic Recipes," Part 2Modernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 03/08/23: $294.99 And so the section on Neapolitan pizza begins: “Neapolitan pizza has influenced every other style of pizza in the world, yet it shares very little with those styles in terms of appearance, texture and flavor.”
I’m not going to say, “Tell us something we don’t know.” Not everyone knows that—especially if they just opened the book, bypassing two volumes of sensible intel for the “action” of the recipes. (Note: Treating this 3-volume epic as a cookbook is a tragic mistake and a waste of money. There is so much more at work here.) Mhyrvold & Migoya outline key characteristics that do seem have already been sufficiently beaten throughout the book. But this IS the baking chapter, after all. And in the process of enduring such redundancy, we get all kinds of new stuff.  The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 3, Chapter 12, "Iconic Recipes," Part 1Modernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 03/08/23: $294.99 It looks like intense flavor: a pizza with big, caramelized bubbles and bits of pink salmon, salmon roe and green chives. Then, there’s an extreme closeup of olive oil drizzling from a copper cruet onto a red, white and bright green Margherita pizza ready for the oven, with chunks of fresh, fat, white bufala and a deep red sauce. Next, a steel factory conveyor covered with pans of steel parts, nuts and bolts, all surrounding a golden caramelized Detroit-style pan pizza.
Even before reaching the first page of the opening chapter in Volume 3, the Modernist Pizza photography is stunning--and in the Detroit case, maybe just a little wrong. Wrenches and bolts and pizza, oh my. If you're unaware of the legacy, Detroit pizza was invented in 1946. Since the available baking pans at the time were insufficient, Detroit pizza was baked in pans from an automotive supplier. The pans were originally intended for holding small parts on auto assembly lines. Once again, Modernist Pizza defies expectations. You’d think that Volume 3 of a three-volume set, especially with a title like Recipes, would be straightforward and without much to discuss. Oh, no. This photography is just a precursor of the ongoing Modernista intensity to come.  The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 11, "Baking Pizza," Part 2 Modernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 03/08/23: $294.99 And now, “Transforming Dough Into Pizza.” As mentioned previously, I’m a big fan of the “T” word. I believe that the transformation of simple ingredients into the joy that is pizza is part of the reason for the ongoing fascination with pizza.
Every time you make pizza, it’s like a little bit of magic happens. And the Modernista description here of what goes on inside a pizza during the bake is a kind of marvel of thermodynamics meeting biochemistry all for our delight and dining pleasure. That said, I’m faced with a head-scratcher in this section. The description of why a Neapolitan pizza doesn’t get crispy belies my own experience with a wood oven. They tell me that a Neapolitan pizza doesn’t get crispy because the 60- to 90-second bake time is so short.  The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 11, "Baking Pizza," Part 1Modernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 03/08/23: $294.99 While I’m not one to claim there are absolute truths in pizza, following is an absolute truth. The good news is, I didn’t write it. Nobody cares what I think. Ready?
“You’ll find that understanding the basic science of how baking works makes the practice of baking your pizza easier and more interesting. After all, turning dough into a successful pizza is the result of a series of steps: properly proofing the dough, stretching it to the right thickness and safely transferring it to a hot oven (hopefully one that’s well suited to your specific pizza style) to bake.” Wow. Somebody might want to explain this to the guys (and it’s always guys) who keep posting their so-called pizzas on social media. They’ll say something like, “I got this new outdoor oven, and it keeps burning the crust! I’ve thrown away like 10 of these things! What am I doing wrong?”  Do you know what the world’s most popular topping pizza is? No, you don’t. Because the world is a big, crazy place with no two nation’s pizzas alike. But here in the US, where we think of ourselves as the center of the world, the favorite pizza topping by far is pepperoni.
All the rage right now is the notorious cupping pepperoni. You see it all over social media: ongoing pizza porntography of strangers’ pizzas awash in fleshy red meat cups that have been sizzling in an oven and are brown around the edges and filled with rendered fat to the point where each individual pepporono (I’m pretty sure that’s not a word but it fits with my scant understanding Italian and Latin grammar regarding singular versus plural constructs and I’m going with it) is like a tiny hot tub filled with rendered grease colored red from the ingredients contained within the meaty mass of the cured sausage product. What is going on here? How does one encourage such glorious cupping behavior in our sliced cased meat products?  The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 10, "Toppings" Modernist Pizza Written by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya Published by The Cooking Lab; First edition, October 19, 2021 Hardcover: 1708 pages, 32.7 pounds, 13.78 x 10.24 x 15.94 inches List Price: $425.00 Amazon discount price as of 03/08/23: $294.99 Order of assembly. Distribution. Weight. Preparation. Payload. Are we making pizza or going to the moon? Well, if the pizza is good enough, maybe both. But the word on the first page of “Toppings” lets you know that there’s real science going on. The word is: "biteability."
“Even though it’s a made-up word, we’re pretty sure you know what we mean: The ability to bite cleanly into a slice without dragging off all the toppings. Important, right?” Don’t try to tell me Mhyrvold & Migoya don’t cover the important stuff. |
AuthorBlaine Parker is the award-winning author of the bestselling, unusual and amusing how-to pizza book, Free The Pizza. Also known as The Pizza Geek and "Hey, Pizza Man!", Blaine is fanatical about the idea that true, pro-quality pizza can be made at home. His home. Your home. Anyone's home. After 20 years of honing his craft and making pizza in standard consumer ovens across the nation, he's sharing what he's learned with home cooks like you. Are you ready to pizza? Archives
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