The Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 3

2/14/2023

The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part III
(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

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

Getting beyond the tomato! Yes, I know. It’s hard. For me, a non-red pizza is a challenging thing, with the occasional exception of a white clam pizza.

But there are lots of people out there who like a white pizza or a green pizza. My ever-suffering pizza-widow wife among them. So maybe this part of Modernist Pizza can bring solace and inspiration.

Let the experiments begin! The Modernistas have worked up an alternative way of making béchamel. White sauces for pizza typically use flour as a thickener, “which can dilute the flavor and leave an unpleasant goopy texture in the baked pizza.”

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The Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 2

2/8/2023

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The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part II
(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

Now, about those canned tomatoes. Unsurprisingly, some strains of tomato have been developed to withstand the rigors of machine picking for canning. Says Modernist Pizza, “The thicker the flesh, the fewer seeds a tomato will have, and the seeds, along the jellylike membrane that envelops the seeds (called the parenchyma), are where the flavor resides.” Yay, parenchyma!

There’s also a comprehensive discussion of how tomatoes are canned. What’s good is tomatoes bred for processing are harvested at the full-ripe stage, which is their most flavorful. Less good is that some processors adjust flavor with additives, like sugar, salt or citric acid. The Modernistas prefer tomatoes without the additives.

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The Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 1

2/1/2023

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The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part I
(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

“To many, if it doesn’t have some kind of sauce on top, it’s probably not pizza.” Thus begins the chapter of Modernist Pizza that might seem innocuous. Only after you dive in is it clear just how much the global tomato crop means to life, the universe and pizza.

The first page of Volume 2, Chapter 8, “Sauce,” sets us up for the importance of tomatoes—while simultaneously dashing any requirement for tomatoes.

Sauces can be green or white, made of cream or cheese, egg, stock, or even soup. Yes, soup. And I admit, while I’ve never used soup for pizza, I have made pizzas with leftover gumbo and leftover etouffée. Soup-adjacent sauces, if you will. Seems my efforts fit right into the Modernist paradigm. (Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn and all that…)

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The Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 3

The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part III
(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

The Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 2

The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part II
(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

The Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 1

The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part I
(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

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​Saturday Afternoon Pizza Posts

The Homemade Pizza Blog At Free The Pizza

The Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 3

The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part III​(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

The Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 2

The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part II​(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

The Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 1

The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part I​(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

Author

Archives

Categories

Saturday Afternoon Pizza Posts

The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part III
(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part II
(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)

The Ongoing Modernist Pizza Review, Volume 2, Chapter 8, "Sauce," Part I
(To see the entire 50,000-word review, click here.)