Are you tired of having conversations about pizza? Are you growing weary of eating surprisingly good homemade pizza because your pants are now straining at the waist? Every time the two of you travel together, are you having to say “No, I don’t want to try the three best pizzerias in this town tonight.” If so, you are living with a pizza geek. With that in mind, I can heartily recommend this as a holiday git: the 35-pound, three-volume ultimate masterwork of pizza, Modernist Pizza by Nathan Mhyrvold and Francisco Migoya. (And if you read all the way to the end of this missive, you will be able to find this extraordinarily heavy book at a heavily discounted price.)
The single word I can feel good about using to describe this gift is: Awesome. And no, that’s not the kind of hyperbolic “awesome” that some kid uses to describe the last time he nailed a Superman seat grab on his BMX bike. This is awesome in the literal sense of the word. When I unboxed my own copy of Modernist Pizza, I literally felt in awe. It’s one thing to see the photos of it online. It’s another to be unboxing it, and hefting all three volumes in their red steel case. You just know that there’s a journey ahead. It makes you wonder if you’re pizza warrior enough to begin with page one and make the odyssey, slay the hydra, and resist the tuneful charms of the Sirens all the way to page 1,708. I may be one of a handful of buyers who have read the entire book from beginning to end. I did it in order to write what became a 50,000-word review. I’ve written several books. In fact, Free The Pizza: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have is almost 33,000 words long. So 50,000 words is a book-length review. And I may yet publish it as a book. Maybe I should call it, I’ve Read All Of Modernist Pizza So You Don’t Have To. What does a home pizzamaker learn by reading Modernist Pizza? Everything. Yes, there are many, many techniques. Many, many recipes. But there’s also much more than mere how-to. There’s a comprehensive anthropology of pizza that meets the science of pizza. For instance:
And in case you were curious, there are tons of recipes. There are more recipes for more styles of pizza and more variations of those styles of pizza than you could imagine. The additional 412-page wire-bound kitchen manual is one of the heaviest cookbooks I own. It's also one of the sturdiest--not to mention that it's printed on some kind of technologically advanced, food-resistant paper. In its scope, the book is quite literally exhaustive. In fact, that word has even been used in the sales copy for Modernist Pizza: “This groundbreaking set is the culmination of exhaustive research, travel, and experiments to collect and advance the world’s knowledge of pizza.” And to think you can have it in your own home! Imagine the scintillating conversations to follow! I can’t tell you how many pizza trivia slices I’ve served because of this book. For instance:
No, you didn’t know any of those things. And you don’t care. And that’s fine. But here is one of the most significant benefits of Modernist Pizza: this book is humbling. No longer will whoever reads it believe they know it all. Modernist Pizza makes you realize just how small you are as a home pizzamaker in the worldwide scope of pizza. It forces you understand just how vast and complex pizza really is. It helps one realize how Italians (not just Neapolitans) immigrated to other countries and began making pizza styles you’ve never even imagined. Modernist Pizza shows that everything you think you know about pizza isn’t necessarily right. Ultimately, this massive book is a pizza lover’s journey around the world, across the United States, and into your own kitchen. Modernist Pizza is a gift of love for the pizza lover. Would you like to give Modernist Pizza for your pizza love at a discounted price? The book is normally $450 list price. But you can find it for under $300 if you click this link. If you give this gift, may you have an unusually Merry Christmas with your pizza love.
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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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