If you already know about Modernist Pizza and you're ready to buy it (or give it as a gift), click here to find it at the discounted price on Amazon. 
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Modernist Pizza is three hefty volumes in a stainless-steel case, plus a wire-bound kitchen book containing all recipes

​​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 04/17/24: $289.99

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​Welcome to our sprawling review of Modernist Pizza, the three-volume epic by The Cooking Lab's Nathan Mhyrvold and Francisco Migoya, all about the history and making of pizza.

As an amateur pizzamaker of 20 years, I am a geek with opinions. I also have ideas about making pizza that this book brings into question. There is no doubt that Modernist Pizza is a fantastic achievement. But is it for you? Perhaps. (Please know that this review is a work in progress. Reading Modernist Pizza is an epic journey. Reading this review is, well, a journey of sorts. It might require an adult beverage.)

​OVERVIEW

If you’re new to pizza making, and if you don’t have a comprehensive background in bread, you do not need this book.

​But you're curious, aren't you?

For a lot of people, buying this book without knowing anything is a little like starting out in photography with the most expensive camera you can buy: it’s a lot more than you need, and it might just confuse you enough to make you quit.

That doesn’t mean you aren’t the right person for this book. I know plenty of experienced, scientific A-types who would love this. There are also some hard-charging, big-business A-types out there who are perfect for this.

I doubt I’m the only person reading this book cover to cover to cover--but I bet I’m in a minority. I can see a lot of folks approaching this epic work as a reference guide to be opened to a specific page when seeking a specific answer. Not a lot of us will read Modernist Pizza ​just for fun. 

Here’s what does happen when you read all of it: you come away a more thoughtful and informed pizza geek. You gain a better understanding of the myths. You have a better comprehension of the emotional connections to pizza, both good and not so good. And you have a much greater grasp of the science of pizza even if (like me) science is not your strong suit.

Modernist Pizza is epic, an object of desire, possibly even of lust. It is a tour de force. It will look really cool sitting there on your cookbook shelf in its red stainless box. 

EDITORIAL NOTE: As of May 2023, the review is complete. This page remains a work in progress. All the text is here. We will be cleaning it up for consistency and editing it for skimmability. 
​

HERE'S A WORD I DO NOT USE LIGHTLY: "AWESOME."

When saying, "Awesome," there should be some genuine awe involved. And here we are at awesome: Modernist Pizza. It's from the fabulous folks at Modernist Cuisine in Seattle. I hesitated for months. It has a retail price of $425. Shipping weight is 36 pounds. It comes in a stainless-steel box. This book is a Responsibility. At least you don't have to feed it.

Nonetheless, with sweaty palms, I clicked the "buy" button. And here we are. It may have given the postman a hernia. And ultimately, I'm reading it so you don't have to. I'll be reporting on it in the coming weeks, but here's something you may not want to know: When it comes to pizza, it's possible that Everything You Know Is Wrong... ​

If you'd like to know more about Modernist Pizza (or perhaps acquire your own copy for somewhat less than the list price) click here. 

What's the bottom line? 

You can jump all the way to the bottom of the page to read the final review installment, which is a conclusion about whether this is a book one might wish to own. Or, you can click here to read the same text in the blog post in which it was originally published. 

Or, you can be a true obsessive (there aren't a lot of us) and read the entire 50,000 words of the review. In my spare time, it took me about 6 months to read Modernist Pizza in its entirety and write the review installments as blog posts. It should take you considerably less time to skim it all. (I know, I know. You probably don't have the fortitude.)

Cracking the spine of Modernist Pizza, Volume 1: History and Fundamentals, Chapter 1, "Pizza History"

​Word for the day: Apocrypha-- /əˈpäkrəfə/ noun, writings or reports not considered genuine.
 
The lesson of Modernist Pizza Chapter 1, "Pizza History," could be called: “Beware The Apocrypha,” of which there is much about pizza. The history of pizza is a complicated undertaking—in part because there is very little recorded history of pizza before the mid-1900s.
 
Pizza is largely undocumented in Italy. That is how there are persistent myths about its stature in Naples. Myths are just about all there is. And those myths have been exploded by the team at Modernist Cuisine.
 
Things historical improve somewhat after pizza’s migration to New York and New Haven. But those things you think you know about pizza’s surging popularity in the United States? They might also be wrong. (Do not credit the GIs who ostensibly experienced pizza in Italy during World War II—a time when there was often no flour available.)
 
Modernist Pizza opens with a history of pizza pursued with a diligence that is impressive. From its roots as a food of the poor, to its disparagement by famous people who visited Italy and found it gruesome, to its evolution into a trendy food item in post-war United States, the team at Modernist Cuisine did their work here. Despite all the remaining question marks, they’ve pieced together a chronicle of everyone’s favorite food and the various styles that evolved.
 
The archival photography is excellent, especially if you’re interested in historical New York City. From the birth of the nation of Italy through pizza migration to, and evolution in the big pizza cities (New York, New Haven, São Paolo and Buenos Aires among them), this is an epic story stemming from a great Neapolitan diaspora.
 
Of course, Americans have done all kinds of things to pizza. Yes, that includes chain restaurants and frozen product. But it also includes making it better, making it gourmet, making it more desirable in Italy. (Even prohibition plays a part in pizza. No history of pizza is complete without alcohol.)
 
Yes, this is just the first chapter of an epic and sprawling multi-volume set. In this chapter, it’s a history book impeccably researched and illustrated. And Chapter 1, “Pizza History,” is comprehensive. It also takes up a full quarter of the entire first volume.

Modernist Pizza on food snobbery, old-timer's disease, what is pizza, and victims of Culinary Stockholm Syndrome... (Volume 1: History and Fundamentals, Chapter 2, "World of Pizza," PART I)

​Stockholm syndrome: a condition in which hostages in captivity develop a psychological bond with their captors.

What does that have to do with pizza? We’ll be getting to that. It involves many beloved pizzas and their questionable veracity as a exemplars of the craft. It’s all part of Modernist Pizza’s Volume 1, Chapter 2 foray into the "World Of Pizza."
 
And when they say “world,” they mean it. You can get pizza in almost every country on earth. And they point out the couple of places where you just can’t. (Doesn't that contrarian inside you just want to go there and order a pizza?

The pizza crew from Modernist Cuisine went all over the world themselves, chasing pizza. They went with cameras, of course. That's part of what they do. And the resulting photography, from landscapes to pizzascapes, is phenomenal. (I've found myself reading and suddenly confronted with a photograph of pizza that makes me feel as if I've wasted my life. Some of the images are incredible.)

In the process of doing all this, the Modernistas were not just gorging on pizza. They were also being scientists. They were doing their best to develop what they refer to as a kind of “pizza taxonomy” for identifying and classifying what is a complex world of food.

Developing this taxonomy required things like determining what actually constitutes a style of pizza. And in that process, all roads lead not to Rome but to (where else?) Naples. If the pizza doesn’t have characteristics that clearly link back to the birthplace of pizza, it’s not pizza.

So now, you’re asking, “Dude, what about my favorite flammkuchen?!” Sorry. That particular flatbread, also known as “tart flambée,” is not pizza. Neither is your beloved Armenian lahmacun. (But man, when it’s topped with minced lamb, it sounds like it's fantastic!)

Do you enjoy scouring Sicilian bakeries for sfincione? It’s lovely—but it's not pizza. (This despite what we heard an Italian judge on a pizza competition TV show said about it recently.)

I’m not going to identify a certain Japanese "pizza" chef on that same show. But this chef was competing, and prepared pizza-wedge-shaped sheets of nori topped with rice and seafood--and called it pizza! Eegad! But the judges allowed it and loved it—and it’s surprising the contestants didn’t come to blows. Clearly nothing about it fit the Modernist taxonomy. But I digress.

In their science-driven effort to make us all feel intellectually satisfied about Pizza Truth, the mavens at Modernist have developed a list of parameters. They involve things like crumb range, rim range, and topping ratios. It’s mind boggling how much food is out there that wants to be pizza. 

Modernist Pizza also declares, “Provenance is not enough.” Just for example, there are a lot of lists declaring the best “Greek diner pizza.” Sorry. Greek diner pizza is not a style. It’s just pizza. 

And it’s hard to not love the Modernist explanatory metaphor for this: Thomas Keller’s famous California restaurant, French Laundry, is in Yountville. It also follows a specific culinary tradition. But they’re not making “Yountville-style cuisine.”

Here’s one of the big surprises: There is no Sicilian pizza. There is literally nothing in Sicily to be defined as such. There is also no consistent style of purported Sicilian pizza. As a case in point, they gladly show us 18 high-quality photographs of square pizzas claiming to be Sicilian. No two look the same beyond being a thick crust.

And this leads to demystifying the Sicilian pizza’s “gluey gel layer.” Ever wonder about that kinda wet, shiny layer atop the crust beneath the cheese? I have. And long before I knew anything about making pizza, I wondered why pizzerias were always baking these thick, pan pizzas in the same oven as the thin-crust pizzas that go right on the deck with no pan.

SURPRISE: They’re doing it wrong! That gluey gel layer is just uncooked dough. It's the product of baking a pan pizza in a too-hot oven. It’s removed from the oven before the top of the dough is fully baked. Otherwise, the bottom of the crust burns. Good pizza joints use another oven that’s not as hot and bake the thick-crust wannabe-Sicilian pizza all the way through.

And at the end of the day, the question remains: Why is it even called “Sicilian?” Nobody can source it with certainty.

In other assertions sure to cause fist fights:  

• Jersey tomato pie is not a style.

• “Bar pizza” or “tavern pizza” is not a style.

• “Roman-style pizza” is mass confusion: Is it thin, cracker crust, al taglio, pinsa romana, or just Roman-style Neapolitan pizza made by Romans?

And just by the way, pinsa Romana (if you've even heard of it) is often claimed to not be pizza. Instead, it’s a “pizza replacement” made with a proprietary flour. Modernist defines it as fitting the definition of pizza, but is not a style of pizza. 

Now, are you a Yankee who loves the New York slice-shop model? Get this: Pizza by the slice is virtually unheard of in major pizza cities like Naples, Chicago and São Paulo. The only other major pizza city besides New York that offers slice pizza is Buenos Aires. Who knew Buenos Aires loved pizza?!

Conversely, as slices go, the Roman-style al taglio pizza is almost never sold as a whole pie. Notable domestic exception here: Honey Parker and I interviewed the couplepreneurs behind Philadelphia’s Rione, a pizzeria which is mentioned in this chapter of Modernist Pizza. Rione is happy to sell whole pizzas and often do—especially during football season. If you’d like to hear the CoupleCo interview in which we eat entirely too much of their excellent pizza while talking to them, you can find part 1 here.

Anyway, there is no true Roman style pizza. Rome has a range of styles and lots of hype. Modernist finds calling a pizza “Roman style” unfair to Rome’s culinary tradition. So it goes. 

And in an effort to not be overwhelming, this concludes Part 1 of "World Of Pizza" conversation. It's rich and fascinating for such a short chapter. Part 2 will come around to haunt you next week--and we get around to explaining food snobbery, old-timers disease, more about what is pizza, and victims of Culinary Stockholm Syndrome...

If you'd like to see the entire epic, 30-something pounds of Modernist Pizza on Amazon, click here.

Modernist Pizza on food snobbery, old-timer's disease, what is pizza, and victims of Culinary Stockholm Syndrome... (Volume 1: History and Fundamentals, Chapter 2, "World of Pizza," PART II)

​When we left you last time, we promised to explain Culinary Stockholm Syndrome, among other things. And shortly, we’ll be doing exactly that—and we’ll be speaking of some important philosophy from the Modernist camp. We just have to do a little more business before getting there.
 
So, our last “World Of Pizza” observation is that there is no true “Roman style pizza.” Roman “style” actually covers range of styles and lots of hype. The Modernistas believe this is unfair to Rome’s rich culinary tradition. So it goes.
 
One of the interesting developments here in the land of Modernist Pizza is something that I believe explains a lot of vitriol. There’s a widespread and vocal hatred of Chicago deep-dish pizza exhibited by many. For me, Chicago deep-dish is simply uninteresting. I’ve certainly never said, “I could eat a doorstop right now, but there aren’t any nearby. Where’s the nearest Pizzeria Uno?
But the folks at Modernist take Chicago pizza seriously. Here’s the factoid about it that they deliver to us: Across the board, no matter what the pizzeria, Chicago pizza is undersalted. And I’m going to bet, in part, it’s this lack of salt that creates such animosity. You buy this heavy thing which defies pizza as you know it, and there’s something about it that just tastes wrong. You can’t put your finger on it, so you decry it as a casserole and not a pizza.
 
But it’s really just undersalted. How much better would the reception be if it were tastier? And this cultural phenomenon is nothing new. Apparently, the “awful” bread of Tuscany has been chronically undersalted going on 700 years. And the myths justifying it aside, nobody can explain why in a way that makes actual sense.
 
Here’s the frightening thing about Modernist Pizza: There were unpleasant things said about the pizza in New Haven. Yes, the legendary land of Sally’s and Pepe’s was some of the worst pizza they ate on their pizza world tour. I’ve eaten at Pepe’s once. I know people who are so staunchly committed to it that they’ve had pizza airlifted to them across the country, where they stash it in their freezer.
 
There’s a fantastic documentary about New Haven called Pizza: A Love Story. I recommend it highly. There are big stars and notable people as well as pizzeria owners and longtime aficionados of New Haven pizza. It’s streaming on Amazon and I highly recommend it. But it’s also open to interpretation as an example of a cult phenomenon. (Lyle Lovett loves it, and his appearance alone is worth the price of admission. This little film also gives me new appreciation for Michael Bolton—a performer who I saw so long ago, he was still playing heavy rock under the name Michael Boloton. And no, that extra “o” is not a typo. But I digress.)
 
And this leads us to one of the most important philosophical underpinnings of Modernist Pizza and the people who make it possible. They had to experience a crisis of introspection and debate about food snobbery. They recognize the intensely personal nature of food, and don’t believe they have any right to tell anyone they can’t like something.
 
That said, it leads us to a sad reality: “Some styles are so deeply flawed that even the best executed examples are terrible.” That is a direct quote from the book, and I believe it is a courageous statement to make. And it lead us to my favorite new concept, to wit…
 
Culinary Stockholm syndrome. In the context of our beloved pizza, they say, “If you grow up held hostage to bad food (specifically pizza) you might develop a taste for it and to the point that you love it and defend it against heretical fools like us who point out its flaws.”
 
Cue applause. It’s satisfying and reassuring to know that the Modernistas have a sense of perspective and humor about all this. (In my own writing, I’ve called myself a heretic, and I am clearly foolish beyond measure by comparison to these genuine geniuses. In fact, why are you even still here? Do you identify with your captor? Yay!)
 
They also mention an article from Vice.com called, “The pain and sorrow of learning that your beloved childhood pizza is trash.” In that article (which I had to look up so you don’t have to watch the train wreck yourself), writer Peter Rugg describes the “legendarily bad” pizza of the Quad Cities region of Iowa and Illinois. It’s made of a “dough with malt for sweetness, a spartan smear of spicy red sauce, one pound of crumbled pork sausage seasoned with fennel, and a chunked, regionally-made mozzarella. The cheese is shelved over the toppings thick as the rubber on an all-terrain tire.” Wow. I’ve had some bad pizza, but that sounds so epic that I’m not sure what to make of it. And it leads us to…
 
An Emperor’s new clothes quality to pizza culture. They’ve noted a couple of times in the book that nostalgia sells pizza. Just because something is being made the way your great grandfather made it doesn’t mean it’s good. The Modernist Pizza narrative tell us, for instance, that if you want the best pizza in Naples, you have to go to one owned by a living pizzaiolo.
 
It’s “the storytelling power of Old-school disease.” And here, they’ve deemed that Portland is the best pizza city. That’s “because there’s no Portland style pizza to muck it up. The best Detroit style pizza is not in Detroit.”
 
This is where we have to start looking at the known history of pizza for perspective. Yes, Modernist Pizza’s taxonomy says that despite what its detractors say, deep dish really is a pizza and not a casserole. “True Neapolitan pizza” as per the AVPN (the governing body of pizza in Naples) is an invention of the late 20th century. And many AVPN-sanctioned Naples pizzerias don’t even follow strict AVPN guidelines.
 
Is it wrong that some of the finest Neapolitan pizza is in Tokyo? I think not, but I also think it’s telling. I also think some knucklehead somewhere is screaming “Cultural appropriation!” Feh. But this fact does tell us that a) the Japanese are doing what they do so well with so many inventions from elsewhere: looking at it and improving on it. The finest Neapolitan pizza is half a world away from Naples—and of the two pizzerias that tied for world’s best pizzeria in a recent judgement by The Top 50 Pizza organization, one is in Naples and the other is in New York.
 
Believe what you want—but it’s possible that everything we know is wrong. That includes apocryphal pizza.
 
More Emperor’s new clothes: Italians are obsessed with digestion and the digestibility of pizza. This despite the fact there is zero scientific evidence supporting various claims made about what makes it so and not. Also…
 
AVPN demands true Neapolitan pizza have a soft crust. But research has shown that people prefer the crunch of a crisper crust. So...wherefore, AVPN?
 
Let’s not harp on this. The undeniable fact is that, at some level, pizza is what you want it to be. Modernist Pizza is not here to tell you that anything is wrong or right. It is here merely to offer facts and let you make decisions.
 
For me, a key decision was that I don’t like Neapolitan pizza as much as American style "NEOpolitan" pizza and artisan pizza. I made this decision long before I went to Naples, but that trip merely confirmed it. The more memorable pizzas I’ve had in Italy were much more like the best pizzas I’ve had in the States. And that’s the kind of pizza I aim for in Free The Pizza!
 
And in their objective effort to cover all pizzas for all people, you get to discover some pizzas you may never have heard of. There’s Pizza Gourmet, canotto pizza, kebab pizza, and the forementioned al taglio.
 
They even recognize chain pizza—not as a style, of course. They do recognize it as “a driver of commerce and innovation” and give it props for its willingness to adapt to local tastes. This latter nod is interesting. Several years ago, Honey Parker and I worked with a fellow who helped open Domino’s in India. It was a colossal failure—until they dumped the US menu and made pizzas that were recognizably Indian in their toppings.
 
Anyway, “World Of Pizza” is a big and important chapter for the pizza fan. And it paints an objective portrait to inform the variations of the science to follow. But first, it’s boots on the ground in Volume One, Chapter 3: “Pizza Travels.” And yes, they go everywhere that matters—even the Quad Cities for some “legendarily bad pizza…”

If you'd like to see the entire epic, 30-something pounds of Modernist Pizza on Amazon, click here. ​

​Traveling the world to eat the best pizza, getting paid for it AND collecting frequent flier miles? How do you get THAT gig? (Volume 1: History and Fundamentals, Chapter 3, "Pizza Travels," PART I)

In the pantheon of Modernist Cuisine cookbooks, it seems that Modernist Pizza is the first one with a travelogue. And an engaging, tasty, myth-busting travelogue it is.
 
In an effort to find the best pizzas on earth, the Modernistas hit what they refer to as the first-generation pizza cities: New York, New Haven, Naples, Buenos Aires and São Paolo. They also ventured to the style-related cities like Chicago, California and Rome. The visited a lot of pizzerias—yet the journey covered only about one one-thousandth of a percent of the world’s total pizza joints.

And once again, there is the potential for fistfights. But it’s hard to argue with such a team of smart people with mad skills making the trek so we don’t have to. Even though we kinda wish we could.
​
Did you know that pizza is one of the world’s most widely eaten foods? And most people eating it are getting it from a pizzeria.

Since it’s one of the most widely eaten foods, it stands to reason it’s one of the world’s most widely made foods. And most people who make it are learning by doing. There aren’t a lot of schools teaching pizza. So most people are learning from the people they work with—or they’re figuring it out the same way you do when you read my silly little book.

Research for “Pizza Travels” involved a lot of local guidebooks. They came up with a curated selection of pizza places to visit. And traveling there involved bringing camera gear—and lots of it. One can only imagine getting all those Pelican cases through customs when they’re covered with pizza sauce and stinking of garlic.

Some of the realities of pizza that we’re confronting here run the gamut:

• As discussed previously, Sicilian pizza doesn’t exist in the “real world”;

• A lot of pizzerias are sold less on pizza quality than on their story value;

• “The pathologies of ‘best’ pizza lists” is that most of them are just made up—you can usually tell if there’s no discussion of methodology; the list is merely culled from existing content;

• The problem of unregulated reader poll lists which lead to pizza popularity contests—you have no idea who voted.

One of the ways they vetted pizzerias in Italy was via The Gambero Rossi guide. Seems it’s like the Michelin guide to pizza. It contains reviews of 643 pizzerias, and Cambero Rossi reviewers visited to every single one of them.

When we become pizza fanatics, we learn all about the AVPN and its iron fist for all things Neapolitan pizza. Except that, the reality is that all of the AVPN-certified pizzerias in Naples are deviating from the rules in one way or another.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, some of the most famous Italian pizzaioli have been making pizza most of their lives. Some of them started when they were kids. One guy started making pizza at 18. Another one has been cooking since age 5. One Neapolitan pizzaiolo is even a professional musician who makes records of Neapolitan music from the 7th to 10th centuries.

There’s a fascinating range of pizzamakers and pizzeria surprises. One pizza guy who sounds like he started making pizza the way I did. He’s not a trained chef or pizzaioli. He just loves food and good quality. But unlike me, he went pro. His joint makes 1,000 pizzas a day.

The famous Naples pizzeria La Masardona has a line forming every morning for breakfast pizza fritta. That’s a pizza folded in half like a calzone and deep fried. (But no, it’s not a calzone. To be a calzone is must be baked.)

Another Naples pizzeria that uses two tons of dough daily. With that kind of volume, you’d think we’re talking about sacrificing quality for quantity. But it produces one of the best pizzas the Modernistas had on their expedition. Yes, quantity AND quality.

Trivia: The only top-ranked female pizzaiola in the Gambero Rosso is from Poland. Some staffers in these ranked pizzerias have training in Michelin star kitchens.

I admit, by the time I was halfway through reading this section, I was convinced I blew my one day in Naples. I have pizzeria remorse.

What’s interesting here is how the Italian pizzaioli who are “experimenting” with “unusual toppings” aren’t doing anything very different than you or I might—at least in theory. Obviously, they’re better at pizza and have a more refined palettes and better skills. But one topping here they’ve defined as “unusual” is shrimp.

I’ve been putting shrimp on pizza for years. People also think I‘m “crazy.” (Wow.) By that measure of unusual, I saw all kinds of “unusual toppings” on seafood pizzas in the south ofr France 30 years ago.

Seriously, think about what a pizza pêcheur or “fisherman’s pizza” is going to look like. Mussels, clams, langouste, squid—it doesn’t seem all that avant garde in a pizzeria that sits a hundred yards from a harbor filled with little, rustic old fisherman’s boats that go out with a couple of gnarly old guys In it every day before sunrise.

As for other so-called “unusual” toppings, I admit that there’s one reason I haven’t put foie gras on a pizza: It’s because I can’t find it here. The Mississippi Gulf Coast isn’t exactly a hotbed of gourmet comestibles. But there is shrimp galore, crab, oyster, crawfish—an “experimental” pizzaiolo would have a field day here. (Do the Italians have field days?)

Meanwhile, back in “Pizza Travels,” the northern Italians are doing some very edgy things. While we’re not talking molecular gastronomy (which is debatably an annoyance), there’s still some elevation going on here that makes you ask, “Is that really pizza?”

For instance, imagine a pizza dough that’s been steamed and is white like a Chinese bao. This pale white thing comes to your table topped sauced with a smoked oyster cream, and topped with beef tartare, bone marrow and caviar. Literally, some of these pizza places are acquiring patents and trademarks for unique things they’re doing. (Can you imagine patent trolling the pizza space? But I digress.)

One of the biggest surprises for Americans who have a hard time understanding favorite foods and greatness beyond their own borders will be Brazil. São Paolo suffers from pizza madness. The city has 6,000 pizzerias in a city of 21 million inhabitants. By contrast, New York City has only 1,600 pizzerias to its 8.5 million people. And a lot of the pizzamakers are actual Italians who are not afraid to deviate from their Italian norms to use local ingredients.

Is that not freaky enough? Get ready for this, oh habitual street pizza slice clutcher: many of São Paolo’s pizzerias are fancy, sit-down joints with high end service. You’re highly likely to eat pizza (dinner only) in a white-linen joint with impeccable table service.

In São Paolo you’ll find pizza is light on the sauce and heavy on the toppings. There are also dessert pizzas. Plus, São Paolo is an arty city, vibrant with explosions of color. This sensibility and flair carries through into their pizza culture.

And, of course, the bone of contention. Paulistanos will tell you that São Paolo is the pizza capital of the world. The Modernistas aren’t sure they agree with that level of ascendancy, but they do identify São Paolo as a high-quality pizza city.

São Paolo also has of share of traditional Neapolitan pizza. If you’re that person, it seems you can find your favored, floppy and wet Neapolitan style pizza there. And really, any kind of pizza. Getting a Chicago deep-dish jones in São Paolo? No problem. They’ve got it.

Here’s a puzzler: “golf sauce.” This is something that Brazilians put on their pizza? What is golf sauce? Hello, mayo and ketchup! The mayo & ketchup mixture is something that in my world as a juvenile was called “Russian dressing.” It appeared on salads on my our dinner table when I was a kid. When I moved to Utah, it became clear that Utahns are mad for “fry sauce,” which is (you guessed it) little more than mayo & ketchup.

SIDEBAR: What is the fixation on saucing pizza? It’s a thing here in the south (usually bottled French or Catalina dressing). It’s a thing in college towns. There’s a national subculture of ranch dressing dippers. Because hey—there’s not enough saturated fat in pizza to begin with. But…WHY? Especially in a white-linen dining culture like Sāo Paolo pizza? [End sidebar.]

Here comes the environmental angle. Ready? There’s a lot of biodiesel fuel in use in Sāo Paolo, yet air quality remains poor. The blame gets thrown at Sāo Paolo’s pizza habit. Those pizzerias  burn a lot of wood.

At this point is where I came to the unsurprising realization that Modernist Pizza pushes you out of your comfort zone. If you’re one of those people who likes to say, “That’s not pizza!”, their taxonomy will disagree. You’ll say, “That’s not a pizza restaurant!” But clearly, it sells something that’s pizza—despite it being a while linen joint with formal service or a fast-food joint selling a high end product.

From pickles on pizza to squid ink crust to Chinese dumpling dough, pizza might be many things you don’t want it to be. Too bad. If you’re that person. If not, if you’re open to pushing the boundaries on your personal definition, buying this book is cheaper than flying around the world to encounter all of these creations—and it is a stunning visual feast.

Here’s another shocker for the American pizza freak: Buenos Aires is mythologized like New York or New Haven. And in contrast to Sāo Paolo, theirs is a slice culture. The pizza joint proprietors are reportedly a lot more like New Yorkers in their demeanor—and even in their suspicion of anyone wanting to do what the Modernist Cuisiners are doing.

And now, in order to not overwhelm you, we’re going to take a breather. Next time, we’ll be back to continue our global pizza jaunt with layovers in Buenos Aires, Tokyo (big surprises there), New York and New Haven (which also brings its surprises, though maybe not the kind you were hoping for). 

If you'd like to see what Modernist Pizza looks like on Amazon, click here. ​

​Traveling the world to eat the best pizza, getting paid for it AND collecting frequent flier miles? How do you get THAT gig? (Volume 1: History and Fundamentals, Chapter 3, "Pizza Travels," PART II)

​When we left you last time, we’d been diving into pizza in São Paolo. As one of the world’s major pizza cities, it has a unique and vibrant pizza culture with a per-capita incidence of pizza restaurants that makes it outweigh the 900-pound pizza gorilla of New York City. As much of a shocker as that was, get ready for this little slice of pizza madness… 

The city of Buenos Aires is equally as mythologized as New York or New Haven. And in contrast to Sāo Paolo’s sit-down, fine-dining pizza culture, Buenos Aires is a slice culture like New York’s. The pizza joint proprietors are reportedly a lot more like New Yorkers in their demeanor—and even in their suspicion of anyone wanting to do what the Modernist Cuisiners are doing.
 
Pizza in Buenos Aires is eaten mostly while standing at a counter. The slices are thick and heavy and “smothered with cheese.” The Modernist crew actually decided that it is possible to have too much cheese. They referred to the slices there as “weighty” and said they’d like the volume “dialed back.” I admit, it does make me wonder whether there’s a cholesterol problem in Buenos Aires.

Fainá is a thing there in Buenos Aires. This is a polenta-like pancake made with chickpea flour that’s often stacked on top of a pizza to make pizza a caballo. (That’s “pizza on horseback” for all you non-Spanish-speaking civilians.)
 
And be ready to be triggered. Buenos Aires loves their pineapple on pizza. Go figure. In another odd and possibly triggering circumstance for a certain kind of person, there’s a Buenos Aires pizzeria named Hell’s Pizza. They serve pizzas named for Abe Lincoln, MLK, Hilary Clinton, and Herbert Hoover. Explain that, Americans. Moreover, can you name a single Argentinian political or historical figure? If you come up with anything, you probably come up with Juan Perón. What’s on that pizza, anyway? Organized violence with a side of dictatorial rule? But I digres…
 
In Buenos Aires, you apparently see see clear evolutions from Neapolitan pizza. But these are evolutions you’d be unlikely to see in the US. There’s something called canchera. They say that this pizza is so is so simple it’s a challenge to execute well. “There aren’t any fancy toppings to hide behind; it’s just sauce, oregano, olive oil, and dough.” They even show a photo from THE one place that does canchera as it should be done.
 
At 6:28 am over my coffee, I’m looking at the canchera photo and thinking, “Ooh, that looks great. I need to try that.” The place is Pizzeria Angelin, and its pizza canchera became famous after Angelin’s owner began baking piles of pizza ​canchera and selling them cold from a table outside soccer games. And yes, if you know your pizza history, that sounds exactly like how pizza used to be sold on the streets of Naples. And just by the way, for all you pizza historians who like to crow about the longevity of places like Lombardi’s or Pepe’s or Regina, Pizzeria Angelin was established 1938. In fact, Buenos Aires seems to have a lot of pizzerias dating to the 1930s. Pizza here is entrenched. But would you expect it to be entrenched in Tokyo?
 
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tokyo is a serious pizza city. There are chain pizzas with American style toppings. The more Japanese toppings are things like wasabi and daikon. The Tokyoites are apparently obsessed with “pizza toast,” which is exactly what it sounds like. And yes, let’s not forget: Tokyo also loves its Chicago deep dish.
 
In another unsurprising turn, Japanese chefs began going to Naples to learn pizza—and began winning awards in competition. AVPN now has a branch in Japan and has certified more than 80 pizzerias. Seems the Japanese have approached pizza with a typical zeal, discipline and philosophy.
 
There is no Tokyo-style pizza. But it seems they do have a unique marinara pizza. It goes light on the sauce and fresh garlic, and heavy on olive oil. The Modernistas say it’s one of the best marinara pizzas they had. And it had so much oil, in fact, that in the oven it became a fire hazard.
 
In a nod to sumo wrestlers, who toss salt into the ring before each match, Japanese pizzaioli toss salt into the oven before each pizza. The Modernist observation is that it flares up and provides “entertainment value.”
 
Here comes your next triggering pizza moment! (Sorry, no pineapple.) The pizzeria Savoy, which has nine locations, is known for it pizza topped with Japanese mayo and raw tuna. And the marinara pizza at Savory was so good, it inspired Modernist to include their own version of it in the recipe section.
 
The cross cultural cooperation between Italian pizzaioli and aspiring Japanese chefs is very much a story of earning respect, gaining trust and proving oneself. Sometimes. Other times, the Italians are not so cooperative with the Japanese. Neapolitan-style pizzaiolo Susumu Kakinuma was rebuffed by Italian pizzaioli. So, the way he learned was by eating Italian pizzas. Then, back in Tokyo, he began doing pizza his own way.
 
There’s something poetic about Susumu using a blend of Italian and Japanese tomatoes. He also uses a wood-fired oven—but not a traditional Italian oven. His pizzas sound very Japanese in their balance and the philosophy behind them. They’re described as “spare and lovely.” Modernist calls his place one of the two best pizzerias they visited in Tokyo.
 
If you’re the squeamish-about-sushi type, you’ll have a problem with The Kitchen Salvatore Cuomo Ginza’s pizza. It’s topped with Iwanori and nama shirasu (respectively, a green river algae and a tiny raw fish).  The chef owner behind the algae-and-tiny-raw-fish pie at The Kitchen Salvatore is Salvatore Cuomo. He was born of an Italian father and Japanese mother, and he is an Italian food icon in Japan with about 80 restaurants around Asia.
 
And the biggest surprise of a city in Modernist Pizza’s pizza travels? New York. The city that never sleeps surprised them, and they were not expecting that. 
 
As you’d expect, there was plenty of cheap commodity pizza at 99 cents s slice. As you might not expect, the historic pizzas were perhaps not as good as they were just historic.
 
They preferred the “modern pizzerias trying to act like they’re old school.” Among those were Best Pizza and Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop. They also found that the best New York pizzas were in Brooklyn—but the single best pizza of the New York leg was actually in Jersey City at Dan Richer’s Razza. (I’ve been reading Dan Richer’s book, The Joy Of Pizza. It should be called The Intensity Of Pizza. Dan Richer is fastidious and geeky like there’s no tomorrow.)
 
New York delivers a plethora of pizza. They had great Neapolitan style, artisan pizza, Detroit pan pizza, and ultra-thin crust pizza. What they say they never had much of? There was no “strikingly good, New York-style pizza.” And the quest for Sicilian pizza didn’t pan out. (Yes, I said that.) All the Sicilians had the dreaded gummy-gel layer. And there was no diversity of sauces.
 
The New York pizzaioli are collegial. (Well, “collegial” is my word. Maybe it’s too fancy, but I like the idea of collegian pizzaioli.) They hang out together, and they eat at each other’s joints. But they were also more cagey with the Modernist Cuisine crew, and not forthcoming about their recipes.
 
The old-school pizzeria winner seems to be Joe’s Pizza on Carmine Street in the Village. Pro tip: Don’t ask for toppings, or everyone in the joint will know you’re from out of town. Joe’s now has five locations in New York and one in Shanghai. Each location is run by a family member.
 
Williamsburg Pizza and Brooklyn Pizza Crew get big thumbs up. Proprietor Nino Coniglio has won Chopped, and is a Pizza Maker Of The Year at the big annual Pizza Expo in Vegas. Modernist thought is NY slices were legit.
 
Here now, a different kind of triggering moment. No, we’re once again not going all pineapple on ya here. You might find this at a different end of the eye-rolling spectrum. But here it comes: Modernist Pizza writes that at the vaunted Lucali, Mark Iacono “makes superb pizza at a candlelit marble table as diners watch in reverence ‘as if sitting in church…in the presence of a kind of sacrament’ The New York Times’s Sam Sifton wrote.”
 
Lucali has the quintessential oven theater. They’re using a gas oven, but it has compartment for wood. Customers like to see the flames.
 
Want to try and argue that pizza isn’t emotional? Good luck with that. And speaking of emotional, my long suffering wife will rue my use of the phrase here, but the pictures of some of the pizzas are (yes) drool-worthy.
 
Their choices for best pizza in NYC run the gamut. We’re talking Detroit style. There’s São Paolo style, but the joint calls it Roman style. There’s artisan pizza, and old-school New York style. There’s canotto-style Neapolitan (“cannotto” being Italian vernacular for an inflatable life raft). There’s great pizza that’s “somewhere between artisan and Rest-Of-Italy Neapolitan, with a little bit of New York vernacular thrown in by virtue of the fact that they focus on takeaway slices” a a joint called L’Industrie. (Why the French name? It was already on the sign and they couldn’t afford to change it.)
 
Overall, reading this chapter confronts one with a global, head-spinning constellation of pizza styles. Because of that, you might begin to understand why my advice to the pizza-making newbie is to pick one style of pizza you like, then focus on making that. Trying to make all kinds of pizza means you’re going to have a hard time ever getting good at any of it. And really, you might just get frustrated and quit.
 
This chapter blows a lot of holes in a lot of reputations that are more mythical than factual. There’s more evidence about the emotional power of pizza nostalgia. And this power might be more truthful to the reality of nostalgia’s Greek etymology. (If you’re a Mad Men fan, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about if you ever saw Don Draper’s pitch for the Kodak Carousel slide projector.) Nostalgia, in its literal translation, represents pain from an old wound.
 
And once again, this takes us to the conclusion of today’s pizza travels. We’ll be back with third and final installment about this epic chapter next time. And, as always, if you’d like to see this awesome 3-volume set in its 36-pound discounted glory at Amazon, click here. If you’d rather just have a quick, easy and fun guide to making great pizza in your home oven, you can see Free The Pizza! right here.

​Traveling the world to eat the best pizza, getting paid for it AND collecting frequent flier miles? How do you get THAT gig? (Volume 1: History and Fundamentals, Chapter 3, "Pizza Travels," PART III)

​Legendary pizza can lead to legendary disappointment. As Modernist Pizza notes in a specific case: a crust that is “Dry and dense, almost like hardtack,” “charred to the point of being burnt,” “very low on salt,” “lackluster sauce," "toppings tossed on haphazardly, and a paltry grating of Pecorino.”
 
Welcome back to Pizza Travels with the Modernist Pizza crew. When we saw you last time, we were reviewing Modernist Pizza's take on the challenges of nostalgia. Such challenges infect certain objects of New York-style pizza love. But perhaps nowhere did the Modernistas experience the dangerous challenges of nostalgia as they did in New Haven.
 
The list of shortcomings in the first paragraph above were leveled at some of the most beloved pizza in the United States: That of the legendary New Haven. Their research took them to all the big, important icons of New Haven pizza. And their report? Talk about a slap in the face with a wet slice.

This chapter left me wondering if maybe New Haven is like the pizza equivalent of the Chicago Cubs. That's because Modernist went on to say, “We see the love of pizza as something akin to the love a die-hard sports fan has for his or her favorite team. The passion is always there, whether they’re winning the World Series or deep into a losing streak.” And it’s also very clear they were aware of the peril in which they’re placing themselves…
 
“We’re pretty sure some are going to be outraged by our view.” But like Modernist says, they’ve “promised to tell it like it is, no matter what.”
 
Nonetheless, there’s also something fantastic about New Haven pizza. It may be the most historically authentic pizza anywhere. After all, the New Haven pizza culture was established by a specific demographic of the Italian diaspora.
 
At the turn of the 20th century, New Haven business was aggressively courting Neapolitan immigrants as laborers. Says Modernist Pizza, “The connection back to Naples is both strong and deep. We have come to believe that the pizza here may be the closest in style to the ancestral pizza sold on Naples’s cobblestone streets 150 years ago. Which is actually pretty cool.”
 
Here now, some more ridiculous pizza mythology. Apparently, some people are absolutely certain Frank Pepe invented pizza in New Haven. One can only imagine how bent out of shape those people are going to be about a Tokyo pizza topped with algae and raw fish. (If you missed that pizza, it’s discussed here.)
 
The Big Two Pizzerias in New Haven are Frank Pepe’s and Sally’s. But the Modernistas feel there is better pizza in New Haven. They mention one place whose name isn’t on everybody’s lips. They also list a couple that I’ve already heard about and am curious to try.
 
But if we want to get into pizza love and hate, there is probably no better fish-in-a-barrel location than Chicago. In Chicago, the Modernistas didn’t love Chicago pizza—whether thick or thin. As mentioned previously in these review installments, the chronically undersalted condition of Chicago pie is a big problem. They found the best pizzas in Chicago ended up being Neapolitan style, Detroit style, and the al taglio style at Bonci Pizzeria. (Gabriele Bonci is the Roman celebrity chef who started by-the-cut sheet-pan pies in Rome’s Pizzarium, and who was greatly championed by Anthony Bourdain.)
 
What they did seem to like about Chicago was the attitude. They found that the restaurateurs spoke highly of their competitors. This is apparently not common in the restaurant business.
 
And maybe the best quote about Chicago pizza: “So. Much. Sausage.” A deep dish pizza can have as much as two pounds of dough, two pounds of cheese, two pounds of sausage, plus cheese and other toppings. Woof!
 
There are two basic kinds of Chicago deep dish pizza. There’s UNO’s yellow, high-fat dough that they say seems inspired by biscuit dough. Then, there’s a white, pillowy, bread dough similar to what they found in Argentina.
 
Sadly: Gooey gel layers are common. But all is not lost. As mentioned, they loved Bonci Pizzeria. Other Chicago faves include: Spacca Napoli, a Neapolitan joint that does tribute pizzas to A16, a landmark San Francisco restaurant; and Lampi ala Mozza, a nod to Nancy Silverton of Mozza and La Brea Bakery fame.
 
The big mystery of the Chicago pizza scene is thin-crust bar-style or tavern-style pizzas—sauced to the edge, and often cat into party squares. Many different bars call it their own. And the Modernistas never found much pizza like this that was very good to eat.
 
SIDEBAR: At this stage in the game, I’m suddenly wondering how much time these global pizza seekers spent in hotel fitness centers during their travels. Heck, I’m doing New York pizza experiments several times a week, and I’m pudged up beyond reason. But I digress. Moving on!
 
Modernist Pizza next gives a nod to the weird Quad Cities pizza of Illinois and Iowa. It includes malt in the crust, a tomato sauce that’s made with cayenne pepper or chili flakes, and the toppings are all placed beneath the cheese. When the pizza arrives at your table, it has been cut into strips instead of triangular slices. The strips are floppy and difficult to handle. 
 
And then there’s Old Forge, Pennsylvania—self-proclaimed “pizza capital of the world.” 40% of the Old Forge population claims Italian heritage. And the white-bread, cafeteria-style pan pizza could not sound less Italian. But all the pizzerias are very congenial and they support each other.

“In the end, maybe the story of Old Forge isn’t so much about pizza as it is about a struggling small town creating a shared identity with the tools they had at their disposal.” Now, THAT seems so very Italian: the struggle and the cooperation. Additionally, hats off to Modernist Pizza for recognizing that culture matters, too. 
 
Detroit pizza. Yes, they went to Detroit. Ready? The best Detroit-style pizzas are in Los Angeles, Brooklyn and Chicago.
 
The next Modernist declaration: Portland is best pizza city in America if not the world. They suspect it’s because of a lack of pizza tradition. Portlandians have been free to experiment. The result is a few excellent pizzaioli who get very cheffy about things and support each other.
 
I’m so ready to head off to Portland. I was even before cracking this book. But Modernist Pizza’s descriptions of the pizzerias there are inspiring. They portray an eclectic Portland nature, to say the least. You also have to wonder how so many people can spend so much time doing so many unusual and complex things to such a simple food—but it seems they pull it off to great effect.
 
Ultimately, it seems that pizza is as much about the people who make it as the product itself. With that in mind, this volume of Modernist Pizza is about so many pizzas and so many people.
 
That’s also why it’s so satisfying finding this gem buried so deep within such a huge book: “We tried hundreds of pizzas while researching this book. Yet there’s one we all continued to talk about even months after our tasting tour was over. It wasn’t the fanciest pizza we tried; it wasn’t even the best. But everything about this place, and this particular pizza, felt so satisfying that it struck exactly the right chord for us. Shardell Dues, a firecracker who’s funny, genuine, and swears like a sailor, opened Red Sauce Pizza in 2015…If Red Sauce was in our neighborhood, we’d be there all the time.”
 
Just for fun, I went to find Shardell Dues online. Her pizzas look fantastic. They look like pizza, not so much like art as some do. They’re browned really nicely. They’re just irregular enough (nobody here is using calipers, apparently). They look like they taste great and are made with love.
 
Pizza really is about the people. Witness some of the things the Modernistas have said about places like Portland’s Sizzle Pie: “They weren’t pizzaioli; they were heavy-metal heads.” And “They envisioned a late-night joint that served stoner food, including pizza, waffles and nachos.”
 
You realize after reading the brief stories about these pizzerias that this massive volume is only scratching the surface. There are a hundred other books that could be done—one book about each of these pizzerias and the people who make them possible.
 
And by the way, their favorite New York Slice from across the country? It’s in Portland at Scottie’s Pizza Parlor.
 
Now, about the rest of the country… In California, they give a nod to San Francisco, where the pizza scene never really gelled the way it did in the northeast. Alice Waters gets her due, as does Tony Gemingnani. They also tip their hats to Los Angeles and Nancy Silverton and Wolfgang Puck for their clear and present contributions, as well as Justin DeLeon at Appolonia. Philly gets its due for three great pizzerias in Fishtown. Oh, and hello, Phoenix and Chris Bianco.
 
Modernist stopped in at Spago and had the famous pizza with house-cured smoked salmon, dill, creme fraiche, and salmon roe. They call it “the original cheffy pizza.” They also had a pizza with wild morels, asparagus and goat cheese. This is where it all started, folks. And you can thank the late Ed LaDou for making it so. (He went on to develop the menu at California Pizza Kitchen. His own little place, Caiote Cafe, is still turning out pizzas in Studio City. I admit that I ate there once at lunch, and was underwhelmed.)
 
Tony Gemignani: What is there to say? The first American to win the top prize at the World Pizza Cup in Naples. A total of 13 pizza championships. Named US Ambassador of Pizza by the city of Naples. He has 30 restaurants and his own (now defunct) International School of Pizza. His motto is “respect the craft.” He is legend.
 
Joe Beddia from Philly went to Japan and was floored by what he saw in the dedication of the pizzaioli. When Joe Beddia called Chris Bianco, the latter said, “Find your voice. Your pizza voice.” Joe Beddia did that in a funky little joint with no phone ordering, no seats, and a daily limit of 40 pizzas. He became the best pizza in America as per Bon Appetit. Then he closed it and opened a “grown up” restaurant.
 
Brooklyn native Chris Bianco began making mozzarella out of his apartment in Phoenix and selling it to restaurants. In one of the book’s best quotes, they say of Chris, “While the operation wasn’t exactly government approved, he figured, ‘How much time can you do for mozzarella?’” They also refer to it as “the underground cheese gig.”
 
Like so many other critics and pundits, the Modernistas call Bianco’s Pizza Rossa one of their favorite artisanal pizzas. The Rossa is a white pizza with Parmigiano Reggiano, rosemary, slivered red onions, and Arizona pistachios. There’s a reason social media is filled with home pizzamakers making their own versions of it. It seems to be the white pizza du jour.
 
I’m going to admit ignorance of the rest of the book at this stage, but: This may end up being my favorite chapter. It’s huge, it’s sprawling, it’s epic—much like the entirety of Modernist Pizza. But when you consider how much travel, jet lag and indigestion must have been involved, you can’t ignore the already significant contribution to pizza anthropology. And for most of us, this chapter alone is an extraordinary education about pizza and is worth the price of admission by itself.
 
Next time, we move on to Chapter 4, covering pizza dough ingredients. Who knew there was so much to consider relative to four simple components: water, flour, salt and yeast?

If you'd like to see more about Modernist Pizza, including its mass and equally hefty price tag, click here. ​

Worth More Than Its Weight In Flour, Water, Salt And Yeast (Volume 1, Chapter 4, "Pizza Dough Ingredients," Part I)  

 For the last few installments of the Modernist Pizza review, we’ve been traveling the world with the Modernistas. They’ve been eating pizza from New York to New Haven, Tokyo to Chicago, and pretty much anywhere else that pizza is a force.

Here’s where all that changes. Now, in Modernist Pizza, Volume 1, Chapter 4, "Pizza Dough Ingredients," we start getting into the hands-on, home-pizzamaker-relevant aspects of pizza. And it all starts with…

Pizza Dough Ingredients! Like so many of us, the folks at Modernist Cuisine are amazed that simple ingredients like water, flour, salt and yeast, and sometimes oil and/or sugar, can “yield crusts with incredibly divergent flavors and textures, from the chewy, wide-open rim of Neapolitan pizza to the crackerlike crispness of thin crust pizza.
​
I first started thinking about this myself when I began dabbling in Detroit-style pizza. I realized the dough recipe that I was using was not that much different from my regular, Neapolitan style dough.

Here are some of the most basic concepts that Modernist Pizza conveys to us about what goes into pizza dough. It’s so simple, you might find it complicated.

What is flour? Flour is proteins for structure, and sugar to feed the yeast.

Yeast drives fermentation. It produces gasses and alcohol that make dough rise and affect the quality of the crumb.

Salt is flavor. Salt affects gluten development and fermentation rate.

Water is the solvent for chemical reactions. Water also determines crust characteristics, as well as rapid rise of the dough in the oven.

You might be using oil, such as in New York-style or Neo-Neapolitan pizza. Oil can increase crust volume. It’s also used in crusts that are pre-baked, par-baked or reheated.

All these ingredients are so simple. Dough is so simple. Yes, it’s also so very challenging. To be clear (and this is my analysis, not Modernist’s), making pizza dough freaks people out.

If it’s so simple, why does pizza dough make people run screaming into the night? In my own, non-Modernist opinion, it exactly because it’s simple. It can seem like voodoo. These simple ingredients transform into something else that becomes the basis for a fantastic food.

Out of everything you can do in the kitchen, nothing seems quite as magical as pizza. And fortunately, Modernist Pizza is demystifying it for us all.


FLOUR

Once again, the Modernist photography is stunning. I’m saying this as I’m looking at extreme macro photography of wheat and a wheat kernel. THIS tiny little bastard is the thing that causes all of us so much trouble, yet it looks so rich and wholesome and good.

OK, get ready for this: There is no gluten in wheat flour. Gluten is developed when two components in the flour are hydrated. Those components are gliadin and glutenin. To quote from the source: “Until the proteins come into contact with water, there is no gluten.”

Here’s another tidbit about flour: The ever-mythical Caputo 00 pizza flour is indeed a good product. It’s certainly not necessary. But there is merit in it. However, for our purposes as home pizzamakers, several other flours will perform just fine at a lower price.

This leads to a thought I love: “There is a lot of mysticism surrounding flour.” Indeed. The social media metaphorical altar to various flours is extraordinary. That’s why we have Modernist Pizza.

The section of the book on “Demystifying Flour Labels” is a quick read. It’s also edifying in case you ever wondered what the heck is going on with flour.

“Flour By The Numbers” is brief, but more than you ever knew to look for or ask about in flour performance. And to their credit, the Modernistas tell us that their specs and tests are not the final word. The final word in flour performance is “the way flour behaves in your dough.”

There’s also a section of recommended flours. Of course, none of those flours are available in my area with any ease. That’s why it’s nice to see some more readily available products in their “good substitutes” section. Many of them I’ve never even heard of, and others are available in my supermarket (hello King Arthur Bread Flour!). Still other flours are available online at a reasonable price.

Some of these recommended flours are standard in professional baking. All Trumps from General Mills is a favorite for New York-style pizza—which is why you probably won’t ever find it in a bag smaller than 50 pounds. To paraphrase a friend of mine who’s a professional nut, “50-pound sack of flour makes a might big pizza!”

Ready for more about flour particle size than you ever expected? It’s in here. And the experiment they do regarding particle size is interesting if you’ve ever been taken by the idea that “Caputo 00 flour is the best because it’s such a fine grind that it absorbs water better!” The facts are telling vis a vis myth vs. reality.

Modernist Pizza sheds some light on the marketing vs. facts of “whole wheat” and “whole grain” labeling. Hint: the United States’ FDA has no legally binding definition. There is, however, “guidance.” Yay, Federal guidance!

There’s a tiny little section on rye flour. It gives you a world of detail on the challenges of using rye while making a case for its “distinctive flavor.”

There’s a somewhat larger section on gluten-free flours. It gives you a crash course on why gluten-free pizza crust is such a chemistry problem. It also promises recipes to come that produce gluten-free crust “similar to pizza made with wheat flour.” (I’m looking forward to that!)
 
WATER

“Water molecules never rest” is an early sentiment in the little section on water. The water section is also another place where they tee us up for the fact that pizza is unaffected by the water used.

If the water is ok to drink, it’s ok to make pizza. Nobody can tell whether the water came from New York. In short, “Don’t fetishize water.”

“While the type of water doesn’t matter, the hydration does.” There’s a lot of machismo out there in pizza social about dough hydration. In an “Experiment” section here, the Modernistas discuss “Determining the hydration levels in our master doughs.”

The ratio of flour to water in dough is expressed as a percentage. If you’ve used the dough recipe in my book, that’s a roughly 65% hydration depending on how you’ve measured your flour.

65% hydration seems like a decent place to start for homemade pizza. In their experiment, the Modernistas pushed the hydration anywhere from a low of 55% to a high of 110%. The pizzas they produced covered a range from great to not so good.

Have ever wondered about how so many pizza dough recipes could seem so close yet produce pizzas so different? If so, here’s where you start to get a peek into the minutiae that makes it all possible.

There’s a discussion of “Water Quality And Purity.” They explain how to attain the necessary quality and purity. Or, just buy bottled water and be done with it.

“Does Pure Water Make For Better Pizza?” Filtered? Distilled? Deionized? Does “high-quality” water make a better pizza? The 100-pizza experiment left the Modernistas preferring… Well, you’ll have to read it yourself. (But you can probably guess.) Again, some of the photography is very cool.
 
YEAST

Yeast is an interesting section, probably because it’s the living compotent that makes pizza. Since yeast has its own dynamism, and it imparts dynamics to the pizza dough and makes an essentially living thing, there’s a lot to talk about.

“While guidelines are simple for working with, say, a chicken breast or an egg, yeast is unusual in that it must be nurtured as well as controlled, coaxed into thriving but not allowed to run amok.”

This is an important part of the book for the home pizzamaker. The Modernistas are revealing the secret of control: “The point is to make the process and schedule work for you instead of the other way around.”

They’re explaining how to manage fermentation so you can make pizza on your schedule. (I’m not that sophisticated. In my book, I just tell you to plan ahead.)

Fresh yeast: highly perishable. At temps higher than 113 degrees, “the yeast cells essentially cannibalize themselves. The carnage begins when temperature-activated…”

From the annals of, “Hey, how about that?!” It seems Fleischman’s Active Dry Yeast was invented so WWII infantrymen could bake fresh bread in their camps. After the live yeast have been bred, the water is removed. The cells become dormant.

THEN, “The particles of dormant yeast are coated with a protective layer of dead yeast cells.” I already knew that when substituting active dry yeast for instant yeast, I had to increase the yeast by 25% because of dead cells. But I never knew why the cells were dead. And now…the dead yeast cells have been lifted from my eyes.

“Boosting the yeast’s gassing power” They geek out enough to explain calculations for substituting instant, active dry and fresh yeast based on water content of the yeast, “even though it’s such a small amount of water that it might not be worth the trouble.” These guys are all about precision even if it’s gratuitous.

BTW, in their experiments, instant yeast is the clear winner over active dry yeast. It mixes better and has more active cells and, “frankly, it mystifies us that active dry yeast stays on the market.”

It also seems that fresh yeast is a total mystery. There’s never any detail on the package regarding its age. As I was reading this, I thought, Well this is a crap shoot. It wasn’t long before the book calls fresh yeast a “leavening lottery ticket.” Their metaphor wins if for alliteration alone. (See what I did there?)

It doesn’t matter what yeast you use. There is no difference in the pizza you produce. “We can assure you of this: yeast is yeast is yeast.”

They even did an experiment. They made a functional pizza dough adding no additional yeast. (There is some yeast present in flour.) They did it, and they do not recommend it.

The swinging, swirling world of preferments! This is another area where, in social media, there’s much machismo. A levain, or sourdough starter, is considered to be the only “real” fermentation by a subset of pizza bakers.

The Modernistas reject that purist view. They let us know commercial yeast is just as legitimate. Just as yeast is yeast, fermentation is fermentation. The real difference is in the taste. Levain brings a distinctive flavor. Make the choice that is best for you and your schedule.

There’s a very clear and easy explanation of poolish. Just in case you were wondering. (I was. But I’m obsessive that way.)

Get ready for levain. What you might know as sourdough starter is a complex and heavily debated undertaking. The plusses are depth of flavor and (if you’re a pizzeria) caché. The downside is complication and setting up a spare room dedicated to the care and feeding of your new infant.

There are instructions on how to handle levain based on your taste preferences. Do you like it more tangy or less tangy? Bonus: Levain offers a new use for the wine fridge!

Modernist Pizza also doesn’t assume you have air conditioning or live in the same climate they do. Climate and air conditioning changes all kinds of things related to leavening pizza dough.

There are basic instructions for starting a levain with flour and water. I’ve done that and it’s kinda cool. I’ve also seen instructions for making sourdough using commercial yeast, and that always left me scratching my head. (If that’s how you’re going, why would you even bother?)

Most commercial yeasts are a single strain within the species. The flour and water levain made without commercial yeast added relies on wild yeast and LAB (lactic acid bacteria) for its fermentation.

In a wild yeast levain, there are several strains, which is where the distinctive flavor comes in. If you’re thinking that you don’t like sourdough bread because it’s too sour, know that you’ve probably not had true sourdough. (I’ve dabbled in wild yeast pizza dough, and it’s a totally different animal. So to speak.)

I admit to not being mature. When I hear the William Tell Overture, I think of the Lone Ranger.

And when I read the section title, “Stages Of Levain,” I think of comedian Larry Miller and his routine, “The 5 Stages Of Drinking.” And in both of them, alcohol is involved. Just, not so much alcohol with a levain.

In case you didn’t know, yeast eat sugar and excrete carbon dioxide and alcohol. That’s how we get pizza crust and bread, as well as beer and wine, among other things. When you’re making sourdough, a levain has stages described as young, mature, and ripe. Also, they describe the appearance, the sourness and the bubble activity for each stage, and the flavors it will impart to your pizza crust.

Levain is a fussy thing. The flavor can swing from one day to the next depending on your environment and how you store it.

I’ve always maintained that one of the reasons homemade beer and homemade pizza are both fascinating is they’re each living things made from dead, mundane ingredients. Levain takes it to the next level and surprises can abound.

All those different strains of yeast are battling it out for food in there. And varying environmental conditions in your space can end up favoring one strain over another. Consistent care and feeding are crucial for consistent performance. And here’s an interesting note: If a levain gets too hot, it starves.

And they’re being scientific about all this. So they did experiments to determine the best methods for you to follow should you decide to dabble in the sourdough culture. (Ha!)

They also do some sourdough myth busting in the section called “Weird Stuff In Starters.” Seems I can stop keeping little cans of pineapple juice around the house for when I want to make sourdough. I’ve also used aspen bark to help raise a levain because it’s a rich source of wild yeast. Again, more folly. The strains of yeast thereupon are different. Same with those blueberries or grapes or yogurt you’ve been told to use. The best wild yeasts for making levain are (surprise!) the ones that live on grain.

To get beyond geeky about this, they sterilized raisins. Then, they used them to see if it was microbes or sugar that made their levain ferment. Surprise! Raisins sterilized in a pressure cooker so no live yeast were present still made the levain bubble sooner.

You get tips on storing yeast that will make them unhappy but keep them alive. And if you’ve ever wanted to dehydrate your starter so you can store it dry, that’s also available to you.

There are instructions for what they call “Second Chance Levain.” Dead or discarded starter has a place in flavoring dough even if it lacks leavening power.

People get very attached to their levain. (As we all know, during COVID lockdown, people started making sourdough and giving names to their starters. With that kind of emotional connection in mind, imagine a professional chef who uses a heritage sourdough and how he or she feels about losing it.)

When a levain begins to struggle, there are ways to revive it—but sometimes you might as well just start again. It’s just yeast is yeast is yeast again, albeit a more sophisticated yeast than what comes out of a packet. “And if you have to do too much to your levain to revive it, there’s a good chance you’ve made a levain with a different composition of yeasts and bacteria anyway.” Ah, science.
 
SALT

The yeast killer! Whether salt helps or hurts depends on how much you’re using. Unsalted dough is “slack and sticky.” Oversalted dough is “unpleasant,” and “has dire consequences for yeast and fermentation.”

Salt has a lot to do with helping form a strong gluten network. It also keeps the yeast in line. Yes, Salt makes it harder for yeast to grow because of osmotic pressure on the yeast cells. But it also prevents them from going on “an epic feeding frenzy” that creates rapid fermentation and compromises the dough’s structure.

Want a fun Modernist Pizza quote about yeast? “Coarse salt sprinkled on food creates crunchy pockets and explosions of saltiness in a way that fine salt cannot.”

Colorful salts can have interesting flavors, but only when applied at the last minute. Baked into a pizza crust, the interesting flavors are “impossible to perceive.”

Surprise! The size and the shape of the crystals make a difference in taste. A flatter salt flake tastes saltier than a more cubic grain of salt.

It’s most important for salt to be dissolved in the dough. For that reason, they recommend fine salt—unlike so many baking instructions I’ve seen that recommend coarse-grain kosher salt.

There are challenges in measuring salt. In discussing these challenges, they point out that coarse salt does not pack a measuring spoon the same way that fine salt does. Fine grains pack that spoon like “well-played Tetris pieces.” Coarse salt is irregular and does not. There’s more air.

It’s the difference between “packing a moving truck full of boxes versus sofas.” Thus, the importance of weighing versus volume measurements.

And speaking of volume measurements: Did you know measuring spoons vary in volume from brand to brand? (I just tried testing that out with no clear result. I’m not so science.)

Fresh sea salt sounds romantic and nice, right? It contains mud and sentiment. See the macro photo on page 312 to see just how unromantic it really is.

There’s a table for converting various brands of salt from volume measurements into grams. It gives you an idea of the discrepancies involved. A teaspoon of plain, non-iodized Morton table salt is almost twice as heavy as the same amount of Diamond Crystal kosher salt.

How much salt should you use? About 2% to 2.5%. Neapolitan pizzerias, depending on the season, often vary their salt for what the Modernistas call “a flavor roller coaster.” They want to control fermentation. Modernist Pizzas asks, “Why not just vary the amount of yeast?” I ask, Um, duh?

That covers water, flour, salt and yeast. Next time, we’ll finish up with sugar, fats and oils, ways to improve your dough, and (drum roll!) pizza ovens! (They have opinions.)

Want to see more about Modernist Pizza in it's natural habitat on Amazon? Click here! But if you're just getting started on your pizza journey, don't injure yourself beneath the weight of it. Consider instead, Free The Pizza! (A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have).  ​

​Worth More Than Its Weight In Flour, Water, Salt And Yeast (Volume 1, Chapter 4, "Pizza Dough Ingredients," Part 2)

Welcome back to the epic Roller Coaster of Pizza Dough Ingredients. Last time, we were reviewing the Modernist Pizza discussion about water, flour, salt and yeast. In one short section of the chapter, this grand book pulls back the curtain on all kinds of mysteries related to basic pizza dough and the attendant water, flour, salt and yeast. They've covered the essentials. Next up, the incidentals…
 
SUGAR
 
Reading and quoting from Modernist Pizza is always interesting. They’re approaching pizza scientifically, but seem to be aware that this is not a college textbook. It’s hard to imagine anything like this appearing in a scholarly tome in any of my science classes:
 
“All organisms need sugar to survive, but yeast cells might have the biggest sweet tooth of all—it’s the only food they eat. Enzymes turn the starch in flour into an all-you-can-eat buffet of sugars, which the yeast cells metabolize into energy, alcohol and carbon dioxide, and the other byproducts of fermentation. The meal is a slow crawl that lasts hours—the concentration of sugar in the dough is limited by the pace of the enzymes.”
​
I’ve been making and reading about pizza for 20 years. That paragraph above is perhaps the single best description I’ve ever read about what happens between sugar and yeast in a pizza dough.
 
Sugars are also what make a pizza brown when it bakes. If you’ve spent any time dabbling in cooking, you’ve possibly conflated the two ideas of caramelization and the Maillard reaction. (I have.) So here’s the surprise: Modernist Pizza explains that they are not the same thing.
 
Caramelization happens by heating the sugars in a food. While the Maillard reaction requires sugars, it’s additionally an enzymatic process that involves amino acids. Modernist Pizza calls it, “The difference between a tuning fork and a symphony.” (They offer, as always, a succinct explanation to go with that.)
 
 
FATS AND OILS
 
Once again, for those of us who are not seasoned bakers, useful tidbits abound. For instance, lean breads are often crispy. Fatty breads? Not so crispy.
 
And when it comes to pizza, fat makes a difference. Fat can increase the volume of a baked pizza.
 
Since I’ve lately been taking a deep dive into New York pizza, this was interesting: “Pizzas that contain some oil do better when they’re re-heated.” And there you have just part of the secret of the mythical New York pizza.
 
We’re talking about a kind of pizza usually re-heated for purchase by the slice. It seems that most pizzas sold by the slice contain some oil. (That would include pizzas like Detroit style and Sicilian, as well as Roman-style al taglio, or pizza “by the cut.”)
 
Something else happens when you put oil into pizza dough. It makes doughs easier to handle and more extensible, or stretchable.
 
I know some newbie pizza geeks who get very deep into things like this. They’re usually curious people who do things like architecture or astrophysics, so they’re always asking “What if…?” And for them, they might want to know things like the effects on pizza dough related to the kind of fats used. What if you use a liquid fat like olive oil versus a solid fat like butter, or instead of butter, ghee, or…
 
Well, the fat section is only four pages long. It also has lots of photos. You’ve never seen so many photos of pizza crumb dedicated to a detail area like fat in pizza dough. Wow. If you're that kind of person, you can spend an hour just focusing on such minutiae. (I almost did.)
 
 
THE PIZZA DATABASE
 
I have an overly large collection of pizza books--for a normal person. The people of Modernist Cuisine are not normal. Accordingly, the Modernist Pizza pizza-cookbook collection makes me look like a wannabe. Their database is huge—and they include a photograph of their pile of pizza books.
 
They’ve clearly researched the literature that preceded them. That’s a good thing. There’s a respect for the past and for the craft. Tradition is good to know—both for following it when it’s a good idea, and for knowing when it’s a good idea to be an iconoclast and smash the idols.
 
The interesting result of researching all of these pizza cookbooks? The Modernistas have discovered that almost everyone has their own way of baking pizza. They found no absolute rules for any particular style.
 
They also felt like this lack of concurrence gave them a kind of permission: Modernist Pizza was now free to abandon tradition. They could essentially write their own rules. How American is that? (It’s hard to imagine the officials at The True Neapolitan Pizza Association in Naples reading this paragraph without choking on their limoncello.)
 
 
IMPROVING PIZZA DOUGH
 
If you're a home pizzamaker, you may have learned that Pizza Social is a dangerous place. When a pizza newbie goes to Facebook or Quora and asks, "How do I make my dough better?", the mob responds. The mob loves to give answers—often without ever actually knowing the real question. 
 
Modernist Pizza points out a useful tactic when you’re trying to make better dough. It helps to ask a simple question: What particular quality am I trying to improve? And understanding dough facilitates this process. For instance…
 
Did you know that pizza dough is both a viscous liquid and a solid? It is viscoelastic. Depending on the ratio of water to flour, it handles more like a liquid or like a solid.
 
Do you want to improve dough volume? Make it easier to shape, easier to handle? Improve its structure? Make the crust crispier or more brown? Here now, new possibilities...
 
In baking, there’s a category of “Purified ingredients” or (the more dubious sounding) “white powders.” These ingredients are natural if less common additives for controlling dough.

Bakers are often put off by white powders. But as Modernist Pizza points out, they’re not much different than flour, sugar or salt. They’re all derived from natural ingredients and provide control of dough behavior.
 
I have to admit that after making pizza for over a decade and reading various books, the great Tony Gemignani made me worry. I picked up his Pizza Bible--which is another epic pizza cookbook, though only one, less-daunting volume. Almost immediately, Tony was telling me to use diastatic malt.
 
“What the heck is diastatic malt,” you ask? Well, maybe you aren’t asking. But I was. I also didn’t really comprehend the answer from Tony’s book. (Perhaps I was less cogent and not so deep in this pizza hole, so: blissful ignorance and operator error?)
 
Now, the Modernistas are making a more comprehensive case for diastatic malt. I’m ready to hear and understand. What diastatic malt does is hydrolize starch into sugars. The yeast can then ferment those sugars. The result? A softer, stickier dough that, in the oven, gets brown faster. Hello, shorter baking times!
 
White powders are not to be feared. They’re just as processed as the rest of the ingredients we’re using. They’re not evil. There is no witchcraft afoot. (This may be more of a lesson for the professional reading this book. I don't know that many of us amateurs ever think about white powders--but now we can.)
 
 
IMPROVING DOUGH VOLUME
 
White powders can be good for turning up the volume. If you’re making thick crust pizza, is it going to be dense or airy? Dough improvers can help you make lighter, less dense crust.
 
Diastatic malt will work here, and so will purified amylase. Either helps make sure the yeast have enough food. With enough food, the yeast produce more gas.
 
If you’re having volume issues related to a weak gluten network, send in the white powders! Ascorbic acid or vital wheat gluten will help you here.
 
Another volume enhancer is the less well-known GENU pectin—which happens to be the best of the volume enhancers they tested. Can’t find it? Pure pectin, pumpkin powder, fruit purée or fruit jam are viable substitutes. 
 
Sometimes, volume of your dough is decreased by adding other ingredients. Rye, wheat germ or bran, ancient grains or gluten-free flours all contribute to decreased volume.
 
If you’re trying to come up with your own pizza dough blend, these kinds of things matter. This entire discussion may also be at a level of geek you’re never going to attain. Nonetheless, it still helps to understand what’s going on in there.
 
If just having this conversation makes you feel queasy, I get it. This goes way back to the challenge of weighing ingredients. Americans just don’t want to do it. I suspect that’s because all of this feels a little like science class, and it imparts a feeling of dread.
 
That feeling of dread should dissipate when you see the Modernist Pizza photography. They show the results of their experiments in improving the volume of bread-like pizzas. The proof is in the pictures, which make it all relatable and somewhat less mystifying. Reading Modernist Pizza is a revelation in so many ways you never anticipated. 
 
 
IMPROVING DOUGH HANDLING AND SHAPING
 
Want your dough stretchier? Increase hydration or add a conditioning agent—either of which can weaken gluten, but for different reasons. What to do? If you're a Modernista: Experiment!
 
The experiment here: Dough relaxers. They had such great luck experimenting with bromelain, they included it in some of their master recipes. It helped with stretching Neapolitan doughs, as well as pan pizzas that are difficult to stretch into the corners of the pan.
 
If you’re scratching your head over bromelain, think: Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer. It’s a white powder, it looks scary, but it’s not. It's made from the stems of pineapples. 
 
If you didn't know, the inside part of the pizza crust is called the crumb. (That’s a very bread-head technical term. There’s even a bread geek book by Peter Reinhart called Crust And Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers.) The crumb can be altered and made softer by using dough modifiers.
 
All told, this chapter of Modernist Pizza offers several simple yet potent paragraphs that tell you more than you ever imagined possible about the chemistry of improving your bread. And here’s a surprise: Bean flours work. But they’re not recommended by Modernist Pizza. That’s because (surprise!) they have “a strong, beany flavor.”
 
 
INCLUSIONS
 
No, this is not about being inclusive. Yes, it’s about adding fun things to your dough. Just about anything goes. Cooked or dried fruits, cured meats, dry cheeses, herbs, nuts, grains, seeds…? You name it.

However, they can be tricky. They also depend on your personal tastes. (I personally won’t be doing it anytime soon.) But here’s an overview of what Modernist Pizza tells us about inclusions.
 
There’s a comprehensive overview of grains. This includes a giant photo plate of relative grains shown 5.5 times their actual size. (Admit it: now you want to see the IMAX film adaptation of this book.)
 
How to prepare grains and seeds. This includes soaking, sprouting and cooking—and introduces a nifty sounding trick called pressure caramelization. They also discuss making porridge or purée.
 
You can also make flavored liquids for your dough. Purées and purée substitutes are on the table as well.
 
This is a great place to stop because next week, we enter the dragon. We’re going to be reviewing the Modernist Pizza conversation about the physics of dough and sauce, the dreaded gel layer problem and (here it comes) Pizza Ovens!
 
If you'd like to see Modernist Pizza at Amazon, including its only two-star review--which it got because of its weight (seriousy) , click here. 

What do you know about oven science and that viscoelastic we call pizza dough? (Volume 1, Chapter 5, "Pizza Ovens," Part 1)

​Last time, we reviewed Modernist Pizza’s pulling back of the curtain on mysteries related to dough ingredients. Today, we’re going to look at how their discussion of my personal favorite topic: The Pizza Oven!
 
The Modernistas give pizzaioli a lot of credit. They begin the oven section by discussing how intuition matters and must be honed. They tell us that most bakers understand instinctively that baking is an art form, but it is also a process that is physical, chemical and biological.
 
Presumably, they’re speaking more of pros than amateurs. Speaking as an amateur, I know that it’s easy for us to get out of our depth on pizza making and think we still know what we’re talking about. And that certainly extends to amateur oven knowledge.
​
ABOUT THOSE PIZZA OVENS...

Maybe you've noticed there’s a high level of amateur arrogance out there. It would be assuaged by those same amateurs reading Modernist Pizza in its entirety. They’d then know how much they don’t know. But that’s also asking a whole lot. And social media has never been about depth of knowledge as much as the volume level.
 
Being scientists, the Modernistas are obviously scientific about their analysis. They start with a simple yet scientific premise. The contend that the real conversation, when pizza bakers are talking about the finer points of pizza, is about this: Energy alters food.
 
Understanding basic physics and fundamentals of heat transfer “can greatly reduce failures and frustrations.” They also know from whence they speak. Apparently, the techniques in Modernist Pizza are pushing the limits of refinement “by trial and error.”
 
But again, they’re not always talking about amateurs here. For instance, it seems unlikely they’d be saying this to a casual home pizzamaker: “If you’re serious about making good pizza, an oven should be among your biggest investments (followed by temperature control and then a walk-in refrigerator).”
 
Fortunately, they also recognize that some of us are merely “enthusiasts.” We are not going to outfit our kitchens like pizzerias. That would be foolish. It’s daunting enough just plunking down the cover price of this book. (Not that I’m sorry to have spent it. Oh, no. On the contrary, I’m not even halfway through, and already it has been an education worth far more than the cover price.)
 
They also get into one of my personal favorite concepts about cooking. That’s because I’ve lived the repercussions of it. They get into the physics of oven heat, and how heat is really just the speed at which molecules are bumping into each other.
 
I lived this by moving from sea level to 8,000 feet elevation, which impacted everything from pizza to barbecue. Since there are fewer air molecules to bump into each other at speed up so high, things change. Low and slow barbecue takes much longer. And pizza can explode. (It’s a yeast thing. The bubbles become huge.)
 
Physicists talk about "reversible and irreversible reactions." I’m not a physicist. You probably aren’t either. But when we cook, we’re applying those reactions to making changes in food.
 
For instance: When protein molecules stick together or break apart. Sounds a little like a soap opera. But as per Modernist Pizza, it’s a significant part of pizza making. In this sport we’ve chosen, molecules both stick together and break apart during cooking.
 
This is about gelling the starch in the dough. This holds the gluten network together, creating bubbles that trap gas. The gelled starch holds bubbles together and forms a stable crust structure.
 
Additionally, there are differences between radiant heat and conductive heat. We get a basic discussion of heat flow, and a quick lesson in conduction vs. convection. (By the way, all ovens are convective. What’s special in a so-called “convection oven” is that you put a fan inside of it, thereby creating “forced convection.” The devil is in the details.)
 
We also get to dabble in thermal diffusivity. This is apparently what we often mistake for conduction. That’s because more conductive materials are more thermally diffusive.
 
And here’s a little tidbit: Did you know a lot of heat is given off by light that we can’t see? Color me radiantly gobsmacked (but you might not be able to see the color). Makes sense, though. You might go "Ah-ha!", as we’re going to talk about charcoal grilling in a moment.
 
Tidbits abound here. For instance, you're probably not surprised to learn that shiny materials reflect heat. The Modernistas did an experiment where they put a shiny, stainless-steel plate on the inside of the door of a deck oven. It lowered the baking time for a Neapolitan pizza from 2.5 minutes to 1.5 minutes. The pizza also baked evenly without turning it. (Are you listening, oven makers?)
 
Experiments in this chapter abound. They did experiments with the heating properties of “clean” vs. “dirty” wood-fired ovens. They performed experiments with cookware and the heat emission of shiny vs. black pans.
 
And let’s not forget the physics of a wood oven. As you may have already guessed, in a wood oven, “Pizza doesn’t see flame when it’s baking; it sees the indirect result of the oven surface being hot. This is well known to people who make gas grills. Gas grills also cause indirect heat by heating metal screens or plates with gas flame.”
 
Black surfaces absorb more heat, but also radiate it away. A clean over floor gets much hotter than a black oven floor.
 
“The physics of heat in wood-fired and has-fired pizza ovens” is a sub section here. Did you know the flame has little to do with heat? It creates light, but has little to do with radiation for heat transfer. (There’s that “light we can’t see” MO in action.)
 
And in a wood-fired oven, the embers are the primary heat source. I'm guessing that for anyone who understands how to use a charcoal grill, this shouldn’t seem very surprising. We never start cooking until the flames have abated, and the coals have ashed over. We can't see the light, but those coals are now at their hottest.  
 
You may have noticed that high heat is an obsession amongst pizza “enthusiasts.” So it’s an interesting note when Modernist Pizza tells us this: The flame in a gas oven is hotter than the flame in a wood oven—and it also doesn’t matter. The heat that bakes the pizza is radiant. The absorbed heat in the floor and walls of the oven are what bake the pizza.
 
Speaking as an owner of various ovens over 20 years, my position is that wood is a hassle. And now learning that gas gets hotter than wood, I’m again asking: Why are we so obsessed with wood fire? (The Freudian explanation for men and controlling fire notwithstanding.)
 
The Modernistas also performed experiments with radiative shielding. They made a mirrored shield for covering parts of a pizza as it baked. The results were confirmed in both wood and electric ovens: Radiated heat is the heat that really matters. Without radiated heat, the baking was insufficient. 
 
There’s also some infrared thermal photography (I'm sure I have the name of the technology wrong) about where heat comes from in various types of ovens. There are two-page spreads for deck ovens, wood-fired ovens and gas ovens. Seeing the thermodynamic properties is enlightening—especially in a wood-fired dome oven.  
 
When I owned a wood-fired dome oven, people would always look at it and say, “This must keep the kitchen really warm!” Not really. I’d have to explain that an oven is about containing the heat, not expelling it. And now, I could also explain that instead of emitting hot air, cold air is being sucked in through the oven door, it’s being heated, and then it’s being expelled through the door again and out the top of the dome.
 
Have you ever wondered about all these open-door dome ovens in Pizzaland? And why doesn’t it affect baking? It’s because the pizza bakes with radiant heat from the walls and the conductive heat from the oven floor. And now ya know!
 
And just for a moment, I’m going to jump to the end. There’s a section on choosing a pizza oven. They discuss all kinds of oven styles, including some that you’ve probably never heard of. They list portable outdoor pizza ovens as one of the choices. Home ovens, too.
 
They then do a very analytical breakdown of recommended ovens by the type of pizza you want to make. Can you guess which oven never appears in their recommendations? That’s right: The wildly popular outdoor pizza oven never appears, either as a recommended oven or as a compromise oven.
 
The home oven appears over half a dozen times as a compromise oven. It’s even a recommended oven in a couple of types of pizza. I feel a little bit of vindication for my oft-stated position that the best pizza oven for the amateur is the home oven. Anyway, moving on…

The next time, it will be a new year, and we'll be looking at how Modernist Pizza deals with the complex physics of pizza dough and sauce, as well as The Pizzaiolo Equation. All that next time on Free The Pizza reviews Modernist Pizza for you! Until then, Happy New Year!

To see Modernist Pizza in its discounted habitat on Amazon, click here. If you've never before baked a pizza, you can find the much simpler and sillier Free The Pizza right here. 

What do you know about oven science and that viscoelastic we call pizza dough? (Volume 1, Chapter 5, "Pizza Ovens," Part 2)

​Modernist Pizza gives a comprehensive and scientific look at oven behavior in Chapter 5. What’s interesting is the recommendations for ovens, which are all about the type of oven relative to the style of pizza. And the things they don't say seem equally as telling as the things they do say. (If you missed that earlier part of the review, you can find it here.)
 
But once you’ve got a pizza oven hot and you put a raw pizza inside, what actually goes on in there? This is where the Modernistas offer one of the more enlightening explanations of pizza physics for the layman
THE PHYSICS OF DOUGH AND SAUCE
 
Modernist Pizza now starts getting into the behavior of dough in an oven. They explain the gelatinization of starch, the unraveling and coagulation of proteins, and other chemical changes being created in the dough. This is where a hot oven begins giving us crust.
 
Convection is believed to be the main force here, not conduction. They actually give us a little tour of heat going through a pizza crust. (More photos and diagrams!) And this might be the first time since high school science class that you’ll find yourself thinking about joules. (If you don’t remember, a joule is a unit of energy. Best that I leave it right there. To say more would reveal my ineptitude with matters of science.)
 
The inside of a baking pizza is a little steam factory. When the water inside the dough reaches 212 degrees, “steam starts to blow out of the fissures, large and small, that formed in the crust.” When the crust dries out and reaches 350 to 400, “it creates the browning zone where the Maillard reactions take place.”
 
That quoted passage above is so simple, yet it explains so much about an excellent pizza crust. The fact that the passage is accompanied by macro photography of a pizza cross section with a diagram is so good. It’s like each tiny section of this massive work is a complete lesson that unlocks some other mystery of pizza.
 
And the intel just keeps getting better. For instance, “Water vapor leaves the pizza through the fissures in the crust, like lava out of tiny volcanoes.” Or put very simply, it’s about “Bringing the dough to a boil.”
 
There’s a lot happening inside an oven that we never consider. First, conduction happens between the steel or stone and the dough. “Second, infrared rays stream off the oven walls and heating elements, injecting heat into the dough by radiation.” Then, there’s the natural convection that’s pushing warm air over and around the dough. Thermodynamic madness!
 
You already know that dough is full of water. What you may not consider is that from the moment the dough goes into your oven as a pizza, that water is evaporating.
 
That pizza is sweating. The sweat is cooling it down.
 
Perhaps you’ve had this experience. I have. When I open the oven door during the bake, there’s a big blast of humid air. If I’m wearing my glasses, the lenses fog right up. For a moment, I’m blind. That’s the moisture that’s been leaving the pizza and hanging around inside the oven.
 
After the dough boils sufficiently, the crust begins drying. We start getting all that nice brown of a Maillard reaction.
 
Next up, Modernist Pizza takes us into what happens when the sauce bakes. It goes through a series of chemical changes. You end up with a higher viscosity sauce than when you started.
 
In the oven, the sauce is being cooked from above. Essentially, the sauce is being broiled.
 
They also offer a simple test for how a sauce is going to behave in the oven. You’ll quickly learn whether you need to adjust the sauce’s thickness. And the test does not involve assembling and baking an entire pizza.
 
The Modernistas also discuss the myth about why pizza stays flat and doesn’t bubble up in the middle. People have long insisted it’s the weight of the toppings. The Modernist Cuisine experiments prove otherwise, and then explain the real reason. Their experiment includes an unsauced pizza, aluminum foil, aluminum plate, black foil and aquarium sand. Mmm, tasty!
 
Naturally, you’ve always wondered what would happen if you had dark toppings on your pizza. So they figured it out for us. They baked a pizza on one half with regular, white béchamel sauce, and on the other half used a béchamel sauce that had been colored black. Get ready for some pizza fun! (Hint: The black bechamel absorbs more heat, so think about bubbles...)
 
 
THE GEL LAYER PROBLEM
 
Yes, the Modernistas address The Big Problems for us. You know that uncooked layer of gelatinized dough that happens, especially on thick-crust pizzas? It can be combatted. They experimented on 120 pizzas to help solve this problem for you.
 
You want to see something fascinating? Look at their macro photo of a marinara pizza cross section. The gel layer looks like a layer of non-existent melted cheese.
 
 
THE PIZZAIOLO EQUATION
 
Dough + Sauce + Cheese + Toppings = Pizza
 
One of the reminders you see periodically through this book is it’s not just for you and me, the enthusiastic amateurs. It’s also for the pros. And that's made clear when they say things like, “Pizzaioli have a lot to juggle on a day-to-day basis. From menu development to training their staff to monitoring the quality of the pizzas they serve their guests. At a minimum, they have to contend with the different cooking rates of the dough, the sauce, and the cheese in the pizza. And that doesn’t even take into account the different toppings that they are likely to include, which add another wrinkle to the already complex process of baking a pizza.”
 
I’m so glad I don’t run a pizzeria. Yet I’m still fascinated by the minutiae of how pizza works, and for the first time I’m getting a peek behind the curtain of pizza science. Things I was figuring out on my own now have an actual explanation for why they work.

Now, we need to take a glimpse at the very end of this chapter. In Part 1 of this chapter review, I jumped ahead to talk about the outdoor pizza oven, which does not appear anywhere in their recommended ovens. The other things that are good to know (if you're a geek) is that the discussion includes ovens you've never heard of. The relative merits of wood fire, gas and electric all come into play.

And perhaps the single most important page for you and me: Improving Pizza Baked In A Home Oven. Yes, the page you've been waiting for. And you're going to find there are no real surprises.

Here's what I will also confess: I'm a little surprised at their diplomacy of singing the praises of the outdoor pizza oven for cooking pizza in "the great outdoors." This in spite of the genre not being recommended for any particular kind of pizza. 

There are also a few more arcane pizza ovens you've never heard of. Some of them range from very expensive to outrageously so. But my personal favorite part of the oven conversation regards the oven that evokes chain pizzerias. 

The impinger oven, also referred to as a conveyor oven by some of us, is the kind of thing you see in Domino's. A pizza goes in one end raw, goes through a tunnel, and comes out the other end fully baked. What I find fascinating and isn't mentioned here is that there's a subculture of impinger oven hackers.

Yes, there are guys who are making artisan pizza in a machine that looks like it came from Domino's. And while Modernist Pizza doesn't mention them specifically, they do extol the virtues of impinger oven technology. As I like to say, beware oven chauvinism. It is often a trap. 
 
One of my favorite parts of this chapter is a two-page spread that's a kind of anatomy diagram of a NY pizza and what happens to it while it bakes. If you wonder why the huge format of these volumes, consider a spread like this one. You just can’t do it in a normal book format. This is coffee table material. It’s an epic book for an epic treatment of deceptively complex topic.

We've come to the end of Volume 1, so it's time to prepare for Volume 2: Techniques and Ingredients. In the meantime, if you want to know more about possibly owning a copy of Modernist Pizza, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

In the epic pursuit of Modernist Pizza, all roads lead to the best pizza dough recipes for your homemade pie (Volume 2, Chapter 6, "Making Pizza Dough," Part I) 

​After reviewing all of Modernist Pizza Volume 1, History and Fundamentals, Chapters 1-5, we continue the review with Volume 2, Techniques and Ingredients, Chapter 6: “Making Pizza Dough.”
 
This is going to interest a gaggle of pizza geeks. The keyword phrase “pizza dough recipes” has a monthly Google search volume of almost 246,000. And it’s interesting that there’s such a quest for pizza dough recipes when you consider the following observation from Modernist Pizza:
 
“Most pizza doughs are made more or less the same way but pizza’s diversity shines in the final outcomes, ranging from ultrathin, crisp and cracker-like to something that is almost as thick as a piece of bread.” It’s one of the things I find fascinating about pizza dough: so little difference between recipes. So much difference between resulting pizzas. And there’s a reason for that…
​
Modernist says, “Regardless of the dough’s thickness one of the most important attributes of any pizza is its crust…” People like to say that getting the dough right is the lynchpin. (I have a different take, but that’s a different screed for a different day.)
 
The also say that they met many pizzaioli who are still working on the dough, even after decades in the business. This is the other thing about pizza that fascinates me: the people who make it remain endlessly fascinated.
 
But possibly the best Modernist Pizza observation about pizza dough? “Don’t worry if your earliest attempts aren’t perfectly round… In the end, each pizza is a learning experience that will make you a better pizza maker.” 100% agree.
 
After 20 years of doing this, I’m still learning. It would be impossible to not be learning, what with reading this epically beefy book about pizza delights and disciplines. And for some reason, like so many others, I remain in pursuit of pizza. (Hence, my seven-part series about the pursuit of pizza perfection.) But I digress…
 
Naming the parts of the pizza is where it starts. By now, this is unsurprising and welcome. With Microsoft’s former CTO at the helm of Modernist Cuisine and as co-author of this book, a technical overview of even the simple pizza is fitting. It would be difficult to launch into a chapter about making a pizza if there’s no common denominator with regard to pizza orientation. We need the vernacular and the visuals.
 
When discussing the quality characteristics of pizza, Modernist Pizza acknowledges that there are different pizzas with different qualities. These qualities are not universal across styles of pizza. But there are universal negatives. Like the dreaded gum line. A gummy, unbaked gel layer beneath the sauce is a flaw. Period.
 
For me, this seems a little like wine tasting. Most people know nothing about wine. They start to learn about wine tasting, and they start to become critical—possibly even of wines they used to like. The same can happen with pizza.
 
The trick here is to know the difference between what’s objectively high quality and what subjectively you really like. The Modernistas don’t want to tell you what to like. But they’re telling you what the accepted aesthetic is. And they recognize there are things that they see objectively as flaws that are lovingly embraced by many, even professional food critics.
 
Modernist Pizza also shows us their recommended pizza tools. A guy can spend the mortgage payment buying all of those recommended tools. I’ve actually owned some of the more unusual items, back when I had a wood oven. But for the most part, all of these tools are a good idea—and many of them a luxury for the casual pizza maker.
 
(On the recommendation of the book, I recently bought my first spoodle. Yes, that sounds wrong. That word is a mashup of “spoon” and “ladle.” Still not sure how I feel about the spoodle. Did I waste nine bucks?)
 
PLANNING TO MAKE PIZZA. This is a big deal. While it’s easy to do, newbies can act like it’s an oppressive task. But it all matters, and it also depends on the kind of pizza you’re making.
 
And it’s not just the days leading up to pizza, when the yeast is doing its act in there. It’s also about the hours leading up to pizza, and when you need to start heating the oven and letting the dough rest outside of the fridge.
 
Weights and measures. Types and time. What pizza are you making and when are you making it? All these things factor into creating a timeline for pizza.
 
I’ve always been very loose about these things. The Modernistas are not. I also admit that there has been more than one time when I’ve started making pizza for a group, all of my dough and toppings are ready to go—and suddenly I’ve realized I don’t have any sauce. We are all susceptible. Planning matters. I’ve always believed this, but Modernist Pizza makes me look like a slacker.
 
And here’s the place where so many newbies are oddly indignant: Fermentation. I’ve literally seen reviews of pizza books where readers complain that “I don’t have three days to wait for this!”
 
Why the hell not? It’s not like you have to skip work or your son’s bar mitzvah to stand there watching the closed refrigerator for 72 hours. But as they say here, “You cannot rush fermentation without drastic effects on quality.”
 
Still, the book also recognizes that there can be a legitimate rush. That’s why “We include recipes for emergency versions of our master doughs that can suffice when you’re short on time, but there are undeniable trade-offs in flavor.”
 
Here now, fascinating trivia of the day: the reason that cold-proofed doughs (the kind that most of us make) take a long time to come up to room temp for shaping and baking. “This takes longer than you’d think because fermented dough is a foam, so it’s a good insulator.” Hello again, foam!
 
The “manage your dough scheduling” section speaks to exactly the kind of thing I attempted to avoid in my first book. As they portray it here, it’s a daunting task—but it seems more about professional standards and practices than casual home pizza maker decorum. I don’t disagree with it. But it’s exactly the kind of thing that makes Modernist Pizza a bad idea for a total beginner who just wants to try making pizza.
 
For the beginner, this book could feel like being thrown into the deep-end of the pool. That said, I did recommend Modernist Pizza to a man with a PhD in medicine. It was perfect for him. So newbie-ism is relative.
 
In a nod to how important timing is, the Modernistas tell us: “In pizzerias that do not cold proof, you can be sure that the pizzas served at 6 PM will not be the same as those served at 11 PM. In a hot pizzeria, the change could be drastic.”
 
At home, the laws of physics do not change. But I assert that the pizza maker’s responsibilities and liabilities change greatly. I’m making pizza for fun. And if it’s not 100% consistent, well, I might be frustrated. My guests will probably forgive me. And next time, I might work on being a better dough scheduler.
 
But yes, there are pizza doughs that can be made and are ready to bake in a couple of hours. Want advice on emergency doughs and how to temper them with a microwave? (Yes, a microwave. Sound dicey? Seems it’s not always easy…)
 
And for the mathematically baffled like yours truly? This chapter offers a good, clear explanation of baker’s percentages.
 
MIXING
 
Force it! The Mixing section helps us understand what is actually going on when mixing ingredients. It seems the thing that allows a gluten network to form is not the kneading, but the hydration. Kneading forces the flour to hydrate and that is what causes a gluten network develop.
 
Pizza makers passionately endorse their respective methods of mixing. What’s important is not the method, but if it works well for you. During COVID lockdown, after years of using a stand mixer, I went back to kneading by hand. It works well, so I haven’t returned to the stand mixer—though Modernist says mixers are recommended. I may have to try. (FOOTNOTE: Since writing this, I have tried. I still hate the stand mixer. Perhaps therapy.)
 
Mixing dough is an exercise in “Intensity vs. Time.” And if you’ve ever made no-knead bread, this matter of flour hydration starts to make sense. It also starts to make sense why I (as an experienced amateur) prefer hand mixing and a 72-hour ferment. What my process lacks in physical intensity is made up for with time. Say Mhyrvold & Migoya, “The more time you allow, the less energetic the stirring can be.”
 
“What happens inside pizza dough.” Spread open the book, my friend, and behold! This double-truck spread provides enormous timeline diagrams of what happens to starch, yeast and gluten inside your pizza dough. I’m either fascinated enough or dumb enough that I could spend an entire day studying this.
 
THE SCIENCE OF HOW BUBBLES ARE BORN. Here’s a little head-trip for ya: “Although air is never listed in recipes, it’s a crucial ingredient.” Air is what makes all those bubbles. These bubbles matter.
 
It seems that researchers in the 1940s concluded (and it was later confirmed) that air bubbles created during mixing are essential to a proper crumb structure. In a single page of text here, you learn more about the science of bubble development than you ever imagined possible.
 
This is where Modernist Pizza starts to examine the science of why gluten-free pizza is so difficult. In essence, gluten is the building blocks of pizza. Without gluten, you’re building something that isn’t pizza at all, but must be made to function like pizza.
 
Mixing matters because “nearly every element of the mixing process can affect gluten’s development and the corresponding strength of the dough.” I know someone who’s been having problems with his pizza dough tearing. For this reason, I was curious to read the section in “Gluten Development” that discusses low, medium and full gluten development. I now have ideas. (A dangerous thing.) Maybe these tips will help him.
 
Are you of the belief that your pizza dough must always pass the windowpane test? Here’s a surprise: not all doughs want that. And this little section very efficiently talks about each stage and where it’s appropriate.
 
And now, DDT! (Not the chemical agent for controlling mosquitoes.) In this chapter’s Desired Dough Temperature section, the first sentence sets you up for success (or failure): “Controlling dough temperature is one of the prerequisites for great baking, and temperature affects the outcome at several stages of the pizza-making process.”
 
And to prove it, they did (surprise) an experiment! The book makes a big deal out of Desired Dough Temperature (DDT) and the quality of pizza. And there’s so much discussion out there in the land about the imperatives of temperature control during the mixing process, the Modernistas decided to find out the truth of it all.
 
Good news, home pizzamaker: “Our conclusion is that hitting the DDT on the nose isn’t important for most pizza makers in homes, restaurants, and small commercial operations.” They go onto say that any deficiencies in temperature control can be mitigated by extending bulk fermentation time.
 
People have a hard time understanding why I insist on a 72-hour ferment (though not always bulk). I do it because the pizza tastes better, and because it can help assuage a word of hurt. And herein lies some justification. Yay!
 
But what about autolyse, you ask? Yes, a headscratcher for everyone, young and old. And if you’ve been interested in autolyse, it doesn’t take long for Modernist Pizza to talk you out of it. If you don’t know what autolyse is, it’s taking the time required for allowing the flour and the water to get busy before adding salt and yeast (and anything else that might be going in there).
 
The word comes from the biology term “autolysis.” It refers to the “self-digestion that cells undergo as they die and are dismantled by the enzymes inside them.” (Sounds like a tiny sci-fi horror movie!) The idea is that water and flour sitting together for an extended period before mixing will soften the starches and proteins in the dough.
 
I’ve been dabbling in autolyse, and now I may just stop. The book says that while it works for some pizza doughs, they found “there was practically no benefit for doughs mixed to full gluten development—which is most of our thin- and medium-crust doughs.”
 
Nonetheless, there are times where they do use autolyse, and offer detailed instructions for the order of mixing ingredients. As for me, I admit that I’ve used autolyse and can’t say with 100% certainty that it matters.
 
The chapter moves on to machine mixing, and here I admit epiphany. Never have I considered that “The goal for any mixer is to emulate how the human hand mixes and which machine does that best depends on the pizzamaker’s preferences.” Ironic that many of us prefer to do it by hand, yet a machine is recommended, and the machine is trying to best emulate us.
 
The book discusses the common mixer types--stand, spiral and planetary, as well as twin-arm, fork mixer and food processor. There is, as always, comprehensive and concise information about how best to use the mixer. In their discussion, I often found myself thinking, Yep, I’ve had that problem.
 
And speaking of problems, there’s a page of “Common Mixing Problems.” Complete with photos, of course—and solutions for doughs you thought you’d destroyed.
 
But the big fun is in the “Experiment.” Of course, it comes complete with comparative cross-section photos of pizzas: “Does The Mixer Make A Difference?” SPOILER ALERT: Yes it does.
 
The mixing how-to section offers steps for various methods: the van Over method (for mixing dough in a food processor); a double hydration method for very wet doughs, which don’t mix well in most mixers; and a mixing methodology for an interesting dough they call “Compleat Wheat.” (Just a little Modernist geek humor there, I’m guessing. “Compleat” is an archaic spelling of “complete,” and since it parallels the spelling of “wheat,” it’s another but of pizza-geek editorial funnin’.)
 
If you’ve ever had whole-wheat pizza, it’s not such a great experience. The Modernistas tell us that’s because of how whole wheat flour is milled—which is great for extending shelf life, and not so great for making pizza.
 
In their discussion, it boils down to a hydration challenge. If you don’t know, when white flour is milled, the wheat bran and germ are removed. For whole wheat flour, the extracted germ is toasted for shelf life (otherwise it goes rancid quickly), and then the bran and germ are combined back into the white flour.
 
I admit it: I love that Mhyrvold & Migoya give us a recipe for whole-wheat pizza dough that does not use whole-wheat flour. Instead, they provide us a method for mixing white bread flour, germ, and bran. This method mitigates the hydration challenge. The result in their photo looks excellent. This recipe goes on my short list of new things to try.
 
There’s also a tee-up for mixing “Your Daily Pizza.” This is a riff on an “undemanding daily baking routine created by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë Francois” in their book Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day.
 
Modernist Pizza adapts the technique in that book for pizza dough. The resulting dough can live in your fridge for up to two weeks so you can literally have a daily pizza. Another one for my short list…
 
And now, the part of the chapter that all Pizza Freeps have been waiting for: Hand Mixing! Three whole pages complete with photos.
 
Of course, they start by saying, “To be clear, we’re not proponents of mixing dough by hand. We prefer machine mixing because most pizza doughs need to be mixed to full gluten development, and letting machines do the work makes sense for both home cooks and pros. We recommend to mix by hand only if you don’t have an electric mixer, although mixing a few batches of dough by hand will give you a feel for how the dough comes together at different points in the mixing process.”
 
I have an electric mixer and this book is making me feel guilty for not using it. However, I heartily endorse their suggestion of trying out mixing by hand to understand what happens in the dough.
 
They also acknowledge that your willingness to knead by hand is related to your willingness to be doing things like getting sticky. If you’re only minimally willing, they provide a no-knead method based on the great Jim Lahey’s method for no-knead pizza dough.
 
If you’ve seen Chef’s Table: Pizza on Netflix, you may have seen Franco Pepe. He is in the province of Caserta, Italy, mixing the dough by hand in a wooden tub for his world-famous pizza. Very romantic and mystique laden, perhaps. But as scientists, the Modernistas are quite clear: There is zero benefit to mixing in a wooden tub, known as a madia. “There’s no special sorcery…There is just skill.”
 
Next time: Bulk Fermentation and Proofing! Are you so excited you can feel it in the tips of your toes? I am…

Want to know more about possibly owning a copy of Modernist Pizza? You can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

In the epic pursuit of Modernist Pizza, all roads lead to the best pizza dough recipes for your homemade pie (Volume 2, Chapter 6, "Making Pizza Dough," Part II) 

​Ever wondered why some pizza doughs call for a bulk fermentation and others don’t? Strap in and hang on! It’s another wild ride inside Modernist Pizza.
 
The Modernistas recommend bulk fermentation for their bread-like pizza doughs. They also have an outlier Neapolitan recipe that includes bulk fermentation, which is not a traditional approach.
 
I use and recommend a bulk fermentation for my own pizza dough. It was inspired by Peter Reinhart’s Neapolitan dough recipe in American Pie. So, maybe outliers abound—but it seems you’re really only going to get full scoop on the science from Modernist Cuisine. That’s probably because, well, lots of people just don’t want lots of science. But you and I do, right?
​
In Volume 2's first chapter, you’re getting the dough nitty gritty and lots of it. You’ll get a quick explanation of the benefits of bulk fermentation and the factors that affect it, along with a couple of bulk fermentation strategies.
 
When making dough balls, if you’ve ever wondered about the most efficient way to divide up your dough, it’s here. (Put your scale on the left, all you righties!) There are basics for dividing the dough—and even instructions on how to accomplish evenly divided dough balls without a scale--this despite the fact that, ”At Modernist Cuisine, we are decidedly pro-scale.” 
 
(SIDEBAR: In my silly little book, I do not encourage newbies to use a scale. People have such a gag reflex to weighing ingredients. My goal is to eliminate roadblocks standing between the newbie and their pizza. There is plenty of time for scales later on, once the pizzamaker has seen the pizza.)
 
The section about preshaping dough comes with a useful simile. I’m a sucker for a good metaphor that helps illustrate anything even remotely scientific: “Pre-shaping dough is a bit like making a bed. It’s not just a matter of getting things in the right place; you want to get the tension right, too. Tension is what maintains the shape through final proofing. Just as with sheets tucked around a mattress, the tension comes from pulling the dough tight and folding in the corners.”
 
One of the great mysteries about pizza dough is probably its consistency. I suspect a lot of casual bread and pizza makers think about dough as a lump of clay. But wet clay is just fine-grain particles and moisture.
 
Pizza dough has a network of gluten strands that are strong and elastic. That presents all kinds of challenges with regard to shaping balls of dough and making pizzas. That gluten is a beast, and it’s the reason why we get pizza. (It’s also the reason why gluten-free pizza is pizza in name only. Gluten is what makes pizza possible.)
 
Modernist Pizza is quite good at explaining how to make this gluten beast behave for our culinary fun (and profit, if that’s your endgame). Granted, unless you’re a pro making dozens of dough balls at a time, you probably won’t get a lot of mileage out of their FIFO (first in, first out) method of orderly dough ball shaping. It’s another half a page of a huge book that might make you glad you don’t have a pizzeria. 
 
If very wet dough is your bag (as for al taglio pizza), preshaping it can be a messy hassle. Did you know that that this is where you might want to consider running down to Home Depot investing in a plaster knife? (Cooking show, meet home improvement show!)
 
And I admit that, after 20 years of making pizza, the section on “How To Preshape A Dough Ball” is a revelation. That includes the section on “How To Divide And Preshape Using A Plaster Knife.”

Thank you, too, Modernist Cuisine, for addressing “Common Preshaping Problems.” They’re detailed clearly and the section offers (yay!) solutions. 
 
There’s a discussion of the options for proofing containers. Some of it is more than the home cook might care to think about it, but there are some universal tips and warnings. And the proofing container discussion includes comprehensive coverage of various baking pans that may be used for the final pizza. (Many pan pizzas are proofed in the pans used to bake them.)
 
Say hello to “The Science Of How Bubbles Grow In Dough”! This is a quick lesson in how those ever-important bubbles happen, how they’re formed, and how they’re affected by the dough proofing process and, later on, baking.
 
It’s also nice to see how the pros live even if you’re not going to be one. The section about proofing in professional-style proofing cabinets may not be the most relevant for you and me. But it is offset by a section discussing the challenges facing the home cook who lacks such resources—and who may not even have the temperature control that comes with air conditioning. 
 
And yes, the Modernistas performed proofing experiments. For the kind of pizza most of us want to make (like artisan style or New York), cold proofing is strongly recommended. The benefit is flavor development. The results of the experiment for warm-proofed dough indicate just how dicey a proposition it is.

Timing is everything for warm-proofing dough. Cold proofed dough is more forgiving. It can work well with proofing anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. Warm-proofing is showing problems in the final product with a mere one-hour difference in the process. 
 
“Calling Proof.” Yes, this could boil down to yelling, “It’s ready to bake!” Calling proof is about determining that your dough has done what it must do. And “doubling in size,” as so many recipes tell us to look for, is not a true measure of whether a dough is ready. And do you even know what constitutes "double" just by looking at a ball of dough and not actually measuring it and doing calculations? 
 
Calling proof takes experience. It requires understanding fermentation. It means knowing what a dough should feel like. And as part of calling proof, there is no single tool that can help you. But here’s where non-science and non-tools come into play: The Fingertip Test! 
 
No machine can replicate the human computer here. Using your finger, press the dough for 2 seconds and release it. The resulting indentation should spring back—but slowly. Mhyrvold and Migoya tell us it works “reasonably well because it integrates several different factors that change during proofing, including the water content of the dough, its gluten development, bubble integrity, and the amount of captured gas.”
 
If the indentation doesn’t spring back at all? That means you’ve overproofed. Is that dough now garbage? 
 
Fear not! Modernist Pizza's "Dough CPR" is your friend. Overproofed dough can lead to a “pale, flat pizza that smells like an old beer.” Ick? But the Modernistas found they could revive an over-proofed dough up to 10 times and still make a good pizza.
 
And the process is so very simple! All it requires (like so much else with pizza making) is a touch of the skill they teach in Modernist Pizza, and a lot of patience (which you must supply yourself). 
 
Next time: Chapter 7, “Pizza Recipes”! All the major pizza styles will be represented, along with the Modernist Pizza spin on a whole spectrum of pizza. 

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

Cross-Crusting, Dough Problems, And Enough Recipes To Make Your Head Fly Off (The Pizza Dough Recipes Chapter)

​Is Cross-Crusting a deviant pizza behavior? What would happen if you used the “wrong” dough for the type of pizza you wanted? Would you be ostracized? Hell no! This is science! 

Welcome to the review of Chapter 7, “Pizza Dough Recipes,” in Volume 2 of Modernist Pizza. This is the one you've been waiting for. Or not. Depends on who you are and how much you care. Some folks will lose their minds. It's DOUGH!​
​
So what does happen if you want to make a certain type of pizza with a different style of dough? Let’s say you want to make New York-style pizza with Neapolitan-style dough? Or thin-crust pizza with the dough for Detroit-style pan pizza?
 
This is the chapter that talks about a “transgression” that I’ve been making for a couple of years: Using a Neapolitan-style dough in a home oven, which is not hot enough to make traditional Neapolitan-style pizza. What is wrong with that? Am I committing a crime against pizze—especially when I suggest doing it in my own silly little book?
 
To answer such questions, the first thing that happens if you’re the Modernistas is: Experiments! They found a lot of their doughs to be interchangeable with good results. Some don’t work. Like, the thick-crust doughs didn’t make great thin-crust pizzas. Brazilian thin-crust dough made a lousy focaccia, apparently. But I feel vindicated: when they did the experiment that replicated my personal method of Neapolitan-style dough baked at lower temps, it yielded something I’ve known for years: it was “crispier, but it’s still delicious.” Yay!
 
There are, of course, photos. We’re talking three and a half pages of photographic evidence of the results of cross-crusted pizzas. It’s only 5am as I’m reading Modernost Pizza and writing this note, and I’m suddenly jonesing for pizza.
 
Oh, and there are also a couple of photos of their cross-crusting failures. Just in case you ever wondered what a focaccia baked with Brazil-style thin-crust dough might look like, it’s here. 
 
The next section is one that’s going to thrill serious dough heads. It’s Modernist Pizza’s “Our Variations.” Mhyrvold and Migoya briefly explain their pizza dough variations—13 of them, in fact. An uneven baker’s dozen. How fitting! And as brief as each description is, you find that they are economical and informative, as always.
 
And let’s follow that with another short section that has a lot of gravity for a certain, sad segment of the pizza-loving population: “Gluten-free Pizza Testing.” If you don’t understand why no gluten is a pizza problem, here’s Mhyrvold and Migoya’s simple explanation: “After all, gluten is the critical component that allows the dough to trap gas effectively and gives the crumb its texture.”
 
Take away the gluten, and you take away the complex construction of bread. When we’re talking about pizza, that means there’s nothing there to hold a pizza together. You get a hard baked slurry with tomato and cheese. Maybe. I just made up that part, but I’ll go with it for now.
 
In reading the gluten-free section, I’m struck by the familiarity of challenges. I’ve tried with no great success to replicate pizza in a gluten-free edition. I feel a little better about that when reading this book. The challenges illuminated by the Modernistas highlight just how difficult the task of gluten-free pizza is. And if a team with such vast resources as these pros find it challenging, it’s certainly not a task for us mere mortals to solve. But I admit that I’m looking forward to trying their gluten-free flour formulation to see what the heck happens. 
 
Quick! Fast dough! As far as I’m concerned, there’s no such thing. I just don’t bother trying. My fastest dough is either a 24-our cold ferment—or else store-bought. And while the “When You’re In A Hurry Section” says I’m wrong, it might as well say I’m right. Fast dough is an unfortunate lesson in compromise. Modernist Pizza doesn’t say it quite so brazenly. But they say enough.
 
There’s a section of “Common Dough Problems” that will be familiar to many readers. There are also photos and solutions. The “What Dough To Pick?” section advises what dough you might want based on such statements as “I’m in a hurry” or “I’m new to dough,” or (my personal favorite) “I’m modernist.” (Not exactly sure that means beyond embracing a philosophy of cooking that involves a better pizza by trying different things.” But if so, I think I’m modernist with a lower-case “m.” I’m just not as good or as hardcore as these guys.)
 
Then come The Recipes. I subscribe to a philosophy of a simple pizza manual for the pizza beginner. I give background and then instructions for one type of pizza. My own silly little book guides the newbie from zero to pizza in a very short time. But in Modernist Pizza? That does not happen here. This is the other end of the spectrum. It will overwhelm the newbie. The expert will be thrilled. There will be much rejoicing. For others, there will be tears and rocking in a corner.  
 
For an example of the possible overwhelm, the first recipe is the Master Recipe for thin-crust pizza. There are comprehensive instructions covering two and a half pages. That’s in part because it includes machine-mixing options for six different styles of electric mixer. Then, there are two different “ingredient variations.” That’s followed by another Master Recipe for Brazilian thin-crust pizza, and three ingredient variations on that. Two styles of pizza and we already have seven recipes. See where we’re going here? 
 
And yes: photographs are involved. And as with all Modernist photography, the images are exceptional. Here, that includes possibly the most gorgeous Chicago-style deep-dish pizza ever. It’s topped with (among other things) flowers. And besides the three ingredient variations for that Chicago-style deep-dish pizza’s dough, there’s also a “submaster recipe” adapted from Pizzeria Uno. Then, there are four ingredient variations on Neapolitan dough, including the Modernist version, a poolish dough, a dough containing rye, the AVPN version of the dough, and an emergency dough. 
 
The New York-style recipes are interesting. There are seven total variations, including two submasters. Two of those latter recipes are for the famed and apparently inexplicable Quad-Cities style pizza of Iowa and Illinois. And there are two more submaster recipes for fans of the Modernistas’ least favorite pizza, New Haven-style “apizza” (pronounced “ah-beets,” from a Neapolitan colloquial pronunciation for pizza). A note on the apizza recipe: It’s a bit different than the recipe that Peter Reinhart suggests for apizza. His is a neo-Neapolitan dough containing sugar and oil. The Modernist Pizza recipe contains neither. Wherefore the dichotomy? No idea. 
 
And in a case of potential overwhelm, get ready. After presenting recipes for 10 master doughs and dozens of variants, there are 18 additional pages of further possible variations on those doughs, ranging from levain-raised options to flavored variations to no-knead versions, just to name a few.
 
This borders on mind boggling. That said, I’m fascinated. For example, while I’ve never loved the pizza that results from no-knead dough, I’m now curious about where these variations can lead for Neapolitan and New York-style. 
 
There are also recipes for purées that can be added to the doughs. They cover purées of sunchoke, grilled corn, pressure-caramelized shiitake mushroom, and pressure-caramelized cauliflower. (Pressure caramelization? I guess my pressure cooker’s not just for lamb shanks any more…)
 
Next up in Chapter 8: Why we put sauce on pizza, and other answers related to the great questions of life, the universe and pizza.
 
If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 1

​“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…)
​
Mhyrvold & Migoya also point out that even the almighty office of pizza law, the AVPN, doesn’t limit the pizza to red sauces. (But the red sauce, of course, must be San Marzano tomatoes…)
 
The first section of the chapter is “Why We Put Sauce On Pizza.” Mhyrvold & Migoya point out that the sauce usually has two main purposes: to add moisture to a dish, or to contribute flavor. But here, Modernist Pizza lets us know that in pizza making, sauce has additional functions. (The science of pizza continues…)
 
Sauce protects the center of the pizza, and keeps it flat. It actually acts as a heat sink so the center of the pizza can’t get above 212 degrees. If that happens, all the water evaporates. Sauce also protects delicate toppings from the heat of the oven.
 
They also mention something here that is in Tony Gemignani’s 10 Commandments Of Pizza: putting cold sauce on a pizza is a bad plan. It creates problems, among them: the dreaded gum line.
 
Here’s a good one. Apparently, the AVPN proclaims that thou shalt not sauce a pizza while it’s upon the peel. The powers-that-be want you to sauce it and then slide it onto the peel. But Mhyrvold and Migoya tell us that the top pizzaioli of Naples disagree. “Ultimately, it depends on your comfort level and expertise.” That said, The Modernistas prefer saucing the pizza while it’s on the work table, then transferring the pizza to the peel. It gives you more time to work without the danger of the pizza sticking to the peel.
 
And fans of Trenton style tomato pie will be glad to hear that the “cheese first and then sauce” paradigm is the Modernistas’ preferred method of application. The reasoning is simple: It’s less likely to result in a gel layer. (Science!)
 
And why is Detroit style pizza always sauced after baking? Because putting sauce on a thick-crust pizza can inhibit heat radiation to the center of the crust. In other words, it won't bake through.
 
These tips and more! And practical to boot. For instance, did you know that saucing technique matters more than you might imagine? (How’s your spoodle technique? I'm sure hoping they talk about that later.) They performed experiments where they were saucing things in different orders than usual. That even included mixing cheese and sauce together on a New York pizza. “Not only did it fail to improve the melt, it resulted in an unappetizing pink color.”
 
Oh, no! More science! Sauce amount recommendations they offer are based on <gasp!> weight of the sauce relative to the weight of the dough. Scales!
 
The section on “Common Sauce Problems” addresses things like burnt sauce on the finished pizza, a tomato sauce that’s leaching water, and too much sauce which can lead to the dreaded gum line (AKA the gel layer).
 
And no chapter about sauce would be complete (at least not in the uber-comprehensive world of Mhyrvold & Migoya) without conversation about its history and a timeline. That timeline begins in 1519 when Spaniards came to the New World. The Aztecs called the tomato plant xitomatl, and it’s suspected they’d been cultivating the wild plant since 500 BCE.
 
The timeline tracks the tomato’s progress through the centuries. It covers the early mentions in cookbooks and in health-food lore up to the 1930s. That’s when it was discovered that gassing tomatoes meant they could be picked before fully ripe. (Canned tomatoes are far more likely to be ripe tomatoes than the “fresh” ones in your supermarket produce section.) We get to follow tomatoes all the way to the most recent development, the Tasti-Lee tomato in 2010.
 
SIDEBAR: I had to Google the Tasti-Lee. The company website declares, “Tasti-Lee® brand tomatoes have been bred to stay on the vine until fully ripened by Mother Nature, yet remain firm all the way to the store shelf & your kitchen counter!” I don’t know how much like a true garden-fresh tomato it tastes, but I’m willing to try.
 
The Modernistas says, “There’s little question that in-season tomatoes ripen to full red-ripe under the hot sun taste the best, but in most parts of the world, canned tomatoes are going to taste better than fresh ones.” Therein lies one of the sad truths about tomatoes. It also means my pantry has lots of canned tomatoes in it. (I’ve come it the conclusion that, counterintuitively, many canned and frozen products are often better than so-called “fresh” options because they’re picked or caught and packed or frozen at the height of their freshness. Seems The Modernist stance is backing me up on this. Maybe. Don't want to get too self-aggrandizing here.)
 
Unsurprisingly for writers so science minded, there’s a discussion of pH and the ideal acidity for tomatoes. There’s also mention of the degree-of-sweetness measurement by degrees Brix. (Got your refractometer handy?)
 
Are you tired of clever people telling you very haughtily that a tomato is a fruit? Hang on: “Botanically speaking, tomato is a berry consisting of seeds within a fleshy pericarp developed from an ovary. It’s technically a fruit, but gastronomically it’s treated as a vegetable.” It’s said here without pride or irony because this is Modernist Pizza at work. This is also the springboard for discussing the anatomy of a tomato. One page, four paragraphs, and a giant photo of the Roma tomato cross section pointing out the key parts of its anatomy. Brilliant!
 
There is interesting trivia about what you think you’re eating versus what’s really being served vis à vis the tomato. The ever-popular Roma tomato is almost never actually a Roma tomato. But have you ever heard about the Heinz 5608 or the Woodbridge BQ 273? (Thank you, Processing Tomato Advisory Board!)
 
Then, there’s the fetish surrounding San Marzano tomatoes. Yep. Guilty. I’m a fetishist. I’ve recommended DOP San Marzano tomatoes to people with the reservation that they’re expensive. But buyer beware! The market is crowded with tomatoes called San Marzano that are not produced in the region or even in Italy.
 
In the US, the problem has apparently seen fraudulent labeling and even fraudulent pizzas (!), and seizure by police. (Who are the pizza police, anyway? And where were they when all that fake San Marzano pineapple came around?) And when the US brought charges against producers here who were labeling their cans falsely, evidence included DNA testing. This is a big deal.
 
But leave it to the Modernistas to be clear-eyed about all this: “Here’s another shocker: you can make a good pizza with other tomato varieties! There are so many kinds of tomatoes, it’s shortsighted to think there’s only one kind that work.”
 
San Marzano tomatoes are popular for their taste, among other things. I know I love the way they taste. There are also people who probably think I commit crimes of sauce against them. (I cook them down with seasonings instead of using them straight from the can—which is great for Neapolitan pizza baked at 800 degrees, just by the way. Unreduced, wet sauce is not so good for pizza baked in a 550-degree home oven.) But the important thing is: my regular advice has been proven solid. If you buy the tomatoes with the San Maranos with the DOP seal, you are getting the real deal. Trust no other.
 
Interestingly, the Modernistas speak very little of the fetish itself. I was looking forward to a little more snark. (Not that this book has much of that.) There really just is not a lot of judgment here in Modernist PIzza.

Next time: get ready for the glory of the canned tomato. We'll also question the deadly nightshade family. And let's take a peek at the legacy left by the Queen of The Italian Tomatoes who might not have been Italian but was a hot tomato in her own right...

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 2

​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. 
​
​And did you know that tomatoes used in purées, sauces and pastes are not typically peeled whole? Who knew?! Or even cared, but it’s here. And at some point, it matters. There’s all kinds of tomato trivia here that’s really interesting, yet is unlikely to make great water cooler conversation. But hey, if you’re reading Modernist Pizza, you already know you’re a geek with limited water-cooler appeal.
 
Important note: pizzaioli even in Naples (where freshness rules) prefer canned whole tomatoes. There are several reasons. Consistency and quality are chief among them. Tomato maturity is key to its quality, even more so than the variety of tomato, and canning is part of preserving that. Flavor, texture, pH, viscosity—so many factors are affected by when the tomato is picked.
 
“Are nightshades really bad for you?” Yes, that’s a section here. When I was a little kid, I used to be fascinated by the idea that a) there was a plant called Deadly Nightshade, and b) people used to think tomatoes were poisonous. Little did I know that the nightshade family would be such a part of my life, and that my favorite vegetable was part of that family. That’s the main reason I find this tiny little section of the book so fascinating. And I’m a lousy enough a botany student that I didn’t realize that the nightshade family also includes potatoes.
 
Alas, the nightshade question remains open. The text dances around the answer to whether they’re really bad for you. We assume the answer is no, they’re not bad for you. But instead of a direct answer, they avoid answering by way of mentioning the benefits of a varied diet of fruits and vegetables. (Wait. What?)
 
Now, about that tomato canning process... Temperature control in canning is important. There are two types of canning: cold break processing and hot break processing. Each affects the tomato differently. The former works well for Neapolitan-style tomatoes, “Which is aiming for that fresh tomato flavor.” The latter process results in a thicker product with a deeper color. (Based on color alone, I now wonder if the New Jersey tomatoes I’ve been using for New York-style pizza come from this more common process.) And the bonus in this section is a photographic flow chart of how tomatoes are canned. Whee!
 
Revelation: Did you ever wonder why there are diced tomatoes? Guess what: It’s so you can see the shape! “If you don’t care about the shape, use crushed tomatoes.” Well, there ya go. Also, crushed and ground tomatoes are essentially the same thing. Tomato purée is a much different product, and has been cooked further after the seeds and peels are removed, and the product is strained. Purée is often the base of the sauce for some pizzaioli. We also learn about how paste and sauce are made, with the latter resulting in a wide variety of products.
 
The section called “Our Favorite Canned Tomatoes” might be unsurprising. Three of the six faves are San Marzanos. Another favorite is Bianco DiNapoli, a product developed by Chris Bianco of Pizzeria Bianco in partnership with Rob DiNapoli. (OPINIONATED SIDEBAR: Rob DiNapoli is a California tomato processor whose grandfather started in the tomato canning business in 1939, and their tomatoes are quite good.) The two additional favorites of the Modernistas are a brand of Italian pomodorini (small tomatoes), which are enormously expensive. (Online, I found a jar just under 2 pounds for $25.00. I want to try them, just on someone else’s dime.)
 
There’s the tale of Tillie Lewis, who is recognized as the Queen of Italian Tomatoes. Hers is a typically American rags to riches story about popularizing the “lowly canned tomato” on the American culinary landscape in the 1930s. A Jewish girl from Brooklyn meets an Italian tomato canner and makes good in California growing tomatoes from Italian seeds.
 
There’s a table for common can sizes, so you can scale your sauce production without having leftovers. (That’s probably more important if you’re serving 300 pizzas a night.) Also, there’s a helpful tip on “Solving The Marinara Sauce Dilemma,” so you don’t end up with a soupy pizza, which is a common problem. We even get tips for putting “Raw Tomatoes On Pizza” in an effort to avoid a wet pizza with a gel layer.
 
And finally, there’s a “Parametric Recipe” for a tomato sauce from canned tomatoes. It’s presented with options for crushing the tomatoes by hand, or using a food mill, or (my personal go-to) an immersion blender.
 
Next up: the seven sauces! This table of sauce formulae is followed by the procedure for making each of them. And this leads into a veritable sauce festival, beginning with tomatoes (more than a dozen styles with variations), including sauces that are roasted and fermented. There’s also a table of 18 different ways for “Improving Tomato Sauce” with ingredients ranging from sweet to savory to umami. (I admit, while the anchovy paste is unsurprising, I never considered adding A.1. Steak Sauce to pizza sauce.) There’s a fantastic high-speed photograph of a Roma tomato exploding pizza sauce. And there’s a vast table of “Mix-And-Match Tomato Sauce,” detailing the flavor profiles of various tomatoes and how to process and combine them.
 
From there, the move on to pesto. “The combinations of herbs, nuts, and oil that you can blend together are virtually endless.” There’s a table of seven different pesto sauces and the required ingredients. There are instructions for not only how to make a pesto in a food processor, but how to stabilize a pesto to keep the oil from separating.
 
In the pizza porn department, there’s yet another full-page, drool-worthy photo of a pizza--this one a marinara sbagliata. It's made with a San Marzano sauce and an oregano pesto. I now feel an overpowering need to make this pizza myself, as I doubt that anybody here in town (or anywhere in the United States) is going to make it for me.
 
“Thickening Sauces” explains not only how but why. There are, of course, vibrant photos of what to look for. In case you ever wondered how to measure your sauce viscosity, there are tips on how to use a Bostwick Consistometer. (Really.)
 
And then, the fun begins… Stay tuned for everything from an alternative bechamel to immersion blender hollandaise, and (yes) sabayon.
 
If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

From jamming it in a can to saucing it up, hello tomato (and beyond)! Part 3

​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.”
​
They played with roux-thickened soups and tried alternative thickening agents. Get ready to meet low-acyl gellan gum. (You have no idea how much iOS auto-correct hated that phrase. Windows autocorrect was more tolerant. Modernist Pizza co-author and former Miscrosoft CTO Nathan Mhyrvold might enjoy that.) I think a good question to be asking is, as an amateur, how interested are you in becoming quite so Modernist? I went to Amazon to price low-acyl gellan gum. A two-ounce package for 30 bucks? For that much money, I can make several pizzas and have leftovers. (I know, I know. I’m a geek. Watch me start buying low-acyl gellan gum.)
 
Mhyrvold & Migoya also adapted their classic Neapolitan pizza sauce for use on New York pizza dough. Since a New York dough is baked at a lower temp than a Neapolitan pizza, the traditional sauce will not work well. But thickening the sauce with xanthan gum made it viable.
 
(SIDEBAR: Seeing xanthan gum on a list of ingredients can be off putting. What the heck is it? It’s actually just a stabilizer and emulsifier made from simple sugars using a fermentation process. The name is derived from the species of bacteria used in the fermentation: Xanthomonas campestris. Because it’s not found in nature, people find it off-putting. But xanthan gum is made from things found in nature. And when you get right down to it, pizza is not found in nature, either.)
 
There’s advice on dispersing thickeners. If you’ve ever made a gravy using cornstarch, you know the importance of avoiding lumps. And in another interesting experiment, the Modernistas tried thickening sauces using the secret ingredient in sugar-free pancake syrup: cellulose gums.
 
If I were going to find fault with Modernist Pizza (which is difficult to do), I would say that it involves introducing ingredients common to commercial food processing. I have no problem with them, but they are alien to the consumer kitchen. And while this book is written for pros as well as amateurs, it seems like a brief discussion of these additives would be smart. Their names are off-putting, they’re not normally found in the local supermarket, and they hint at commercial voodoo for the home baker. I’d like to have seen a half page of discussion related to what they are and how they’re used, similar to the discussion of white powders back in Volume 1 when they were discussing dough. A small criticism for sure. (I don’t want to come off as some kind of acritical Modernist fan boy.)
 
“Adapting pasta sauces and soups for pizza” covers territory some of us already dabble in. Just by winging it, I’ve certainly adapted gumbo, etouffée, and vodka sauce to pizza with roaring success. (Who doesn’t like cream and vodka together on their pizza?) The included chart of ways to adapt everything from stocks to curries to jams and purées is quick, simple and sensible. It’s nice to not be winging it quite so much and having a reference based on test-kitchen experimentation.
 
And adapting purchased soups for pizza? It seems so wrong until it doesn’t. Mhyrvold & Migoya give us some simple rationale regarding sauce: “When you think about it, any sauce—any edible liquid, really—can potentially be adapted as a pizza sauce if it satisfies two conditions: the consistency is right for baking and the flavor is strong enough.”
 
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone into the kitchen and thought, “When you think about it…” It has served me well. And the Modernistas have raised the bar on my pathetic little efforts. Have you ever thought about making a New York style pizza using Campbell’s cream of corn soup as a sauce? Now’s the time!
 
The dairy-based sauces are coming into their own these days. We’re seeing more white pizzas out there. And Modernist Pizza looks at the science of how they work before giving tips related to a) heavy cream as a sauce, and b) thick store-bought dairy sauces. Following this are recipes for béchamel, Modernist Béchamel (made with low-acyl gellan gum), then sauces made with garlic and chives, cheese, and mascarpone.
 
And hello, “Outside-Of-The-Box Pizza Sauce.” This is an overview of using all kinds of things as sauce, from heated vinaigrette to clam chowder, and what must be done to adapt them. Then, once again: Hello, photos! There are 28 pizzas, from a New York pizza with chicken jus sauce to a Neapolitan pizza with cream of corn soup, fresh mozzarella and basil, to a Detroit-style pizza with vindaloo and brick cheese.
 
It’s nice to know I’m not alone in thinking about wacky pizza options. I do it. People scoff. I feel vindicated.
 
Bring on the emulsion-based sauces, please! We get an illuminating explanation of emulsion in everyday life: “Many of the foods you see every day are emulsions: hotdogs and Mountain Dew, chocolate and ice cream, mayonnaise and milk. Each of these foods contains a fat mix with a water-based solution in such a way that the two mingle without separating.” After some of the simple science of emulsion, we get more succinct and simple advice for using them, as well as the possible pitfalls.
 
Interestingly, the Modernistas use a sabayon sauce to protect seafood on pizza while baking. If you’re unfamiliar, sabayon is traditionally egg yolks, sugar and wine (normally Marsala). Ironically, the Modernistas never mention that sabayon is French, but the sauce is believed to have originated in Italy where it’s known as zabaglione. That arcane detail aside, they do tell us the sabayon acts as a barrier to keep the seafood from overcooking. And in a note that makes me cringe just a little, they note that chefs like Wolfgang Puck and Matt Hyland often use aioli or ranch dressing to top off their finished pizzas.
 
I live in a place where bottled dressings are a common fixture on the table in pizza joints. I’ve bemoaned the idea that a decent pizza needs to be slathered in salad dressing. Sadly, there is a culinary case for it: “Emulsion-based sauces add richness as well as an acidity that balances the flavors in the pizzas that they make.”
 
And get ready for the sauces! There are 29 recipes for sauces that are emulsion-based, as well as based in soups, stocks and pizza sauces. Options range from sous-vide hollandaise to ultrastable beurre blanc, from mayonnaise to eggless aioli, from puttanesca to barbecue sauces, from carbonara to cacio e pepe. It makes your head spin--but with possibilities if you’re that kind of person. If you’re still yelling about pineapple on pizza, this may not be the book for you.
 
Get ready, because Chapter 9 is coming. And it’s about everybody’s favorite, ostensibly addictive substance: Cheese!

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. ​

Modernist Pizza pulls back the curtain on the mysteries of cheese and what it means to your flat little world of pizza-making, Part 1

Does the phrase “ooey-gooey” make you want to turn the page? Maybe it’s just me. But the Modernistas went there. It’s at the very beginning of Volume 2, Chapter 9, the chapter on Cheese.

They first acknowledge that the only cheese-less pizza most people expect is Pizza Marinara. They then say that people generally expect cheese. And finally, they reference the many advertising images of “ooey-gooey cheese.” Ack.
 
I guess this confirms that while Mhyrvold & Migoya are science-based thinkers, they also live in the real world. Personally, I’ve tried to avoid the phrase “ooey-gooey” for my entire career as a writer. This might be the first time I’ve ever even committed it to print. That said, I have not tried to avoid cheese in any way. And this is a head-first dive into cheesy delights. 
​
Modernist Pizza begins by explaining the various ways to classify cheese. There’s the source of the milk, so pick your ruminant, ranging from cows to camels. There’s the scale of hardness, ranging from soft cheese to very hard cheese. “Cheeses can also be differentiated in terms of the coagulating agent used (rennet or acid) and their microflora.” There’s the internal mold, surface mold, surface yeasts and bacteria—the classification methods seem as endless as the microorganisms making it all possible.
 
But they assure us that, at the end of the cheese day, cheeses are all more alike than they are different. Cheese is comparable to bread or wine, and microorganisms are part of the deal.
 
Where pizza is concerned, though, the most vital classification may be when you add a particular cheese to the pizza: before baking or after. There are very clear rules about what cheese should go on the pizza when, with limited exceptions. Some cheese will melt and disappear completely. And some cheese can be applied before or after baking.
 
And cheese is such a vast topic, the Modernistas do something here they’ve not done previously in Modernist Pizza. They admit they are far from comprehensive about cheese. There are entire books devoted to individual varieties of cheese. The only cheeses about to be covered here are those suited to pizza. To this, I say, Thank you. (Based on this intel, one could guess any possible Modernist Cheese might be 10 volumes, weigh 113 pounds, come in a stainless steel case finished to look like a surface-mold rind from a runny brie, and still be considered incomplete.)
 
The big question here: What is milk? That depends. If you’re talking about milk from the supermarket, it’s mainly milk from Holstein cows. That’s because Holsteins produce milk really well. And the Modernistas compare this monoculture to a world of wine populated only by Chardonnay. (Heaven forbid it be an overtly oaked Chardonnay equivalent of milk. Blech.)
 
As we know and they illustrate, there are many other kinds of milk—including ones that are better suited to making cheeses. (I once made a fresh mozzarella from supermarket milk. It was quite bland. Perhaps Holstein milk is the reason. That, and the milk was pasteurized, which is also an issue in cheese making.) The book gives us a basic discussion of the component parts of milk vis à vis water and solids (about 87% to 13%), and the available fat, protein and carbs. As always, there’s just enough intel to help us understand the basics, but not so much that we’re ever going to know enough to run out and make cheese. They again avoid overwhelm while still feeling comprehensive.
 
Mhyrvold & Migoya also glance at the miracle of cheese. “It’s fascinating to think that on a single pizza you can have cheese that’s a day old or less and cheese that’s years old, both made from the same ingredient.” And why is cheese so much more expensive than milk? Let’s revisit that water-to-solids ratio of 87:13. The book’s accompanying photos show relative and minimal quantities of cheese available from a liter of milk. Milk to cheese presents a ratio that rivals the sap-to-maple-syrup production ratio of 40:1. Phew.  
 
Modernist Pizza offers us an examination of the differences between raw and pasteurized milk that is (of course) moderately scientific. It seems human pathogens can end up in raw milk. It doesn’t take much. And, “Without pasteurization, the bacteria can thrive and spread.” But, cheeses made from raw milk aren’t as problematic as raw milk itself because cheese is aged. Bacteria typically do not survive the aging process.
 
Next comes “Cheese Making.” The pose the question, “How does milk, a liquid, transform into cheese, a solid? And how does the flavor go from plain and slightly sweet to nutty, pungent, earthy, tangy, and all those other different flavors you find in the white world of cheese?” Rest assured, you’re going to get a concise and comprehensive explanation where they include all the fat, so to speak, as fat and its relative ratio to protein is where the flavor lives.
 
Making cheese requires heating the milk. Then, it’s acidified. A coagulant gets involved (like rennet), curds are formed and then manipulated, and whey is drained off. Then comes aging.
 
And we get to learn the French term “affinage.”  Yay! Sounds sexy, and it is. Depending on who you are. Affinage is the cultivation of beneficial molds, yeasts and bacteria. And the variations are endless.
 
As Modernist Pizza is so good at doing, there’s a quick explanation of the cheese-making process. This includes a flow chart representing all possible variables along the way. At the end of the line is a choice: making a cheddar (a cheese that’s pressed and aged), a pasta filata (a cheese that’s stretched, shaped and brined), or a ricotta, which requires collecting and forming floating curds. The book highlights the processes for cheddaring and pasta filata (literally, a “formed paste”) since those two are the most relevant to pizza making.
 
“Milk left to sit out will be invaded by microorganisms.” Ah, a cheery thought. Thus begins the section on cultures. If I had been invaded by more beneficial microorganisms at a young age, would I have more culture? Perhaps that’s a different book.
 
Here, we’re talking about cultures like lactic acid bacteria, or LAB, that promote ripening of cheese and developing cheese acidity. There are thousands of strains of LAB, each created with a specific purpose in mind. We learn the basics of coagulation or curdling; the part played by pH; the difference between homofermantative and heterofermentative cultures; and thermophilic versus mesophilic cultures. (Yes, they’re all explained—and just enough. No more.)
 
Want to know how to use a pH meter? Yep, there are basic instructions for that. (Or you can use pH testing paper, which is less expensive but also less accurate.)
 
There’s an ever-so-brief history of rennet. You may know that rennet was discovered in sheep intestines. But today, most rennet is vegetable based. (Learning that latter fact, I’m enjoying the irony that most rennet is vegan, yet you couldn’t possibly use rennet to make vegan cheese.)
 
Now, about those buffalo… You probably know about mozzarella di bufala (buffalo mozzarella) as the gold standard of cheese for Neapolitan pizza. It has twice as much fat as cow-milk mozzarella. There are also ongoing developments in testing for fakes. Yes, counterfeiting this cheese is a common practice—namely, making it with cow’s milk and labeling it as buffalo. As with San Marzano tomatoes, always look for the DOP logo. The Modernistas, however, decided to try and see if they could make their own buffalo-quality mozzarella using cow’s milk. They say “The results are delicious.” Color me unsurprised.
 
Next up, a table of “Cheese Classification By Texture And Moisture Content.” All of the usual suspects are here, from very hard cheeses to soft cheeses. Included is low-moisture mozzarella, “also called American mozzarella, pizza cheese, and part-skim mozzarella.” Not to be confused, of course, with the fabled American Cheese, that much-maligned (perhaps unreasonably so) soft cheese, which is processed, and has a moisture content of 43.2% and a fat content of 24.46 percent. (These gentlemen leave no stone unturned in their mission to help us understand EVERYTHING that influences our pizza making.)
 
Now, about “Preparing Your Cheese.” As always, a section like this inspires me to ask, “Am I doing it wrong?” Fortunately, no. It seems. But only insofar as concerns the very limited range of cheeses I use on pizza. And there are all kinds of instructions here for preparing everything, up to and including surface-mold ripened and smear-ripened cheeses.

(I know you might be getting queasy here. Be glad you’re not reading Michael Pollan’s writing on cheese funk and the “eroticism of disgust” in his book, Cooked.) These particular soft, ripe cheeses are “hard to handle and stick to everything.” (Sounds similar to fiberglass cloth freshly coated with polyester resin, but it doesn’t smell nearly as good, never mind the taste.) With cheese control in mind, here’s another use for your wine fridge: temperature control with hard-to-handle cheeses. The book also offers tips for draining fresh mozzarella, and preparing soft cheese and blue cheeses. And don’t bother slicing processed cheeses. Just more mess. Buy them pre-sliced or in strands.
 
Ever wondered about Provel cheese? Never heard of Provel cheese? It’s the standard cheese for St. Louis pizza. It doesn’t stretch and it’s an acquired taste. According to Mhyrvold & Migoya, it’s been called things like “waxy” and “melted plastic from the ‘80s.” It was introduced in the 1940s by a grocer, and it became a hit when Imo’s Pizza began putting it on their cracker-thin crust. The St. Louis pizza, a regional pizza variation, was born. Imo’s now has more than 100 stores in the Midwest. And true to his professionalism and lack of pizza prejudice, even pizza god Tony “Respect The Craft” Gemignani offers Provel at Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco.
 
The “Equipment For Cheese Preparation” section doesn’t yield a lot of surprises. That is, unless you’re still surprised by how much intel Mhyrvold & Migoya can offer on something as simple as a box grater or a food processor. But there is at least one surprise: Their favorite tool for cutting balls of fresh mozzarella is a French-fry cutter.
 
And now, the march of the anti-caking agents. I admit that without ever doing any personal testing, I’ve long advocated for grating your own cheese. The party line is this: pre-shredded cheeses contain anti-caking agents that can prevent them from melting properly. And it’s true—until it’s not.
 
Hello, experiments! The Modernistas did tests on pre-shredded mozzarella so you and I don’t have to. They found that pre-shredded product coated with cornstarch led to an inferior result. However, mozzarella dusted with cellulose resulted in a melt similar to mozzarella without any anti-caking agent. As a result, they give us instructions for shredding and performing anti-caking ops on our own cheese. I admit, I might consider doing it—except that on Amazon, a two-pound bag of microcrystalline cellulose sounds like a lifetime supply and at 24 bucks, I might just not worry about it. I’m not running a restaurant.
 
SIDEBAR: For the record, as previously stated, I’ve not done tests. But I have had pizza with cheese that was clearly coated in an undesirable anti-caking agent. You can tell because you’ve got a pizza covered in cheese that has not melted from its original, pre-shredded shape. These pizzas are always subpar. Of course, we eat them anyway. Because hey—pizza.
 
You’ll also be relieved to know that shred size does not affect coverage and melting. That is, “as long as you’re controlling weight and baking conditions.” Mozzarella behaves like mozzarella no matter how finely you shred it.
 
The “Applying Cheese To Your Pizza” section is several unsurprising paragraphs of good, solid advice. What’s unusual is that there’s a strong opinion on asymmetrical pizzas and inconsistent distribution of cheeses. Mhyrvold & Migoya literally put voice to their “pet peeve.”
 
Next up, the importance of portioning. There's the <gasp!> vegan cheeses. A fascinating history of mozzarella, and can you really freeze your cheese? This and more in the ongoing review of Modernist Pizza…
 
If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

Modernist Pizza pulls back the curtain on the mysteries of cheese and what it means to your flat little world of pizza-making, Part 2

Welcome to “The Importance Of Portioning.” Sounds thrilling, right? Or maybe not. But what is laudable is that Mhyrvold & Migoya seem to always be aware of how their audience is made up of a range of pizzamakers, from pros to hobbyists.
 
“If you’re making pizza at home, do you need to have precise portions of toppings? Not really, as long as you don’t overdo it. Follow our common sense steps in the chapter starting on page 3:3 and you’ll be fine. If you own a pizzeria, though, it’s a different story.”
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Most of us can just skip ahead! But if you’re working in a pizzeria, there are various suggestions on how to avoid cost overruns and customer disappointment—but all methods seem just a bit flawed. The Modernistas make suggestions, while seeming to understand that no one method is ideal. (Portioning by weight and storing portions in plastic containers seems to be the highest friction but most consistent method.)
 
The “Choosing your own cheese adventure” section opens with one of the truest sentences they’ve written: “We know cheese helps make pizza delicious and provides textual interest that adds to the pleasure.” It is possible to get so deep into talking about pizza that it’s easy to forget that at the end of the day, it’s still about pleasure.
 
The pizza pleasure dome! And it’s all covered here in the cheese adventure section: cheeses that can be added during or after baking; as the main cheese layer; cheeses that are flavorful but don’t melt well; that can be added before or after baking; that can double as sauce; that perform well in high-temperature ovens; that are used for flavor; and browning cheeses that can be added in any combination. Two pages, a lot of it photography, yet more useful than you might imagine between the succinct text and the high-quality photos as visual aid.
 
Viscosity, flowability, stretchability? “The Functional Qualities Of Melted Cheese” is, once again, a section that’s insightful and concise. But how much time did they have to spend melting different cheeses to decide what they’d be saying here? These men (and women, presumably) are tireless testers.
 
“Common Cheese Problems” has photographs that will look very familiar if you’ve spent any time at all around cheese. Got mold? Does that mean you throw it all away? Yes, it does—or no, it doesn’t. It depends. Clumping? Sticky slices? Sweaty cheese? It’s all here.
 
Aw, man. Vegan cheeses? Yes, another American Food industrial complex oxymoronic product. I will not spout off here about the choice of going vegan, then attempting to replace your food with faint imitations of traditional, unethical food products. But you will be glad to know that the SoyInfo Center (there is such a place and its website looks like 20 years ago) has published a 567-page book on cheese-like products made from fermented tofu—a food which has been around since at least the 16th century.
 
Here’s a surprising tidbit if only because it shouldn’t be surprising and we never saw it coming. One of the earliest vegan cheese products was created by that famed health-food fanatic, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Kellogg’s vegan cheese was made from peanuts. And also unsurprisingly, that ever-vegetarian flock, the Seventh Day Adventists have been responsible for producing various cheese products from tofu.
 
Plant-based cheese-like substances have improved. But the challenge largely remains their melting behavior. And unsurprisingly—Modernist experiments! They tested 10 brands and 22 cheeses over three basic styles of pizza.
 
The result? Cheeses behaving badly! There were problems you’d never imagine (grainy and slimy faux fromage with notes of coconut, anyone?). That said, the Modernistas ended up with some faves, and give us a chart of recommended products.
 
After surviving vegan cheese, we get a taste of catupiry cheese. Right: What? It’s a Brazilian product. Think: “American cheese and Miracle Whip.” It’s a processed cheese, and I’m going to guess Mhyrold & Migoya mention is noy just to be comprehensive, but because they actually liked it. This cheese is big in Brazil, and this is indeed a world-pizza book.
 
“The Consequences Of Freezing Cheese” is something I so want to give to a roommate I had 40 years ago. We’d split the groceries, but she would put all of the cheese we all shared into the freezer. (Proving again my belief that we do kitchen things our mothers did whether they make sense or not.) Freezing the cheese made me nuts, but nobody was willing to challenge her on it. With several weeks of experimentation, the Modernistas tell us that “freezing cheese is a way of prolonging its shelf life, but it comes at a price.” If only I had a Modernist Cuisine Time Machine.
 
The section on Modified Atmosphere Packaging For Cheese can be quite useful. That is, if you’re trying to extend the storage life of cheese and you have access to the equipment. If not, we’ll, you can read it and weep or be envious.
 
Here now, “MOZZARELLA”! That’s the section. And it’s loaded. “The very first mentions of pizza in Naples actually do not talk about cheese at all. Pizza in the late 1700s and early 1800s was more often topped with tomato or small fish; the first reference to cheese pizza dates to 1824. It’s safe to say that since then mozzarella has become the most popular cheese used on pizza.”
 
And thus begins possibly the most significant part of the cheese conversation within Modernist Pizza. After a concise discussion about the history of mozzarella, we get a look at “Mozzarella Through The Ages,” a pictorial timeline dating from CA. 50 CE, through the 12the century, the 1500s, 1700s and 1800s to the 20the century. We get a street-level peek at the USA’s oldest cheese store, which is in New York’s Little Italy, and finally, there’s a 1996 with a photo of Mozzarella di bufala in a plastic bag, protected by a DOP designation. (The cheese, not the bag. Presumably.)
 
There’s discussion of using fresh mozzarella on pizza; making mozzarella, baking mozzarella, storing mozzarella, separating whey from fat in fresh mozzarella, ready-to-bake fresh mozzarella, the effects of aging on mozzarella, a look at aged vs. fresh mozzarella, and finally, recipes for your own mozzarella! It’s a mozzarella extravaganza!
 
Of majorly trivial mozzarella note: “1824, the first description of savory pizza, baked with oil, lard, mozzarella, and cacciocavallo was found in the play Le Ridicole Operazioni, o sia Pulcinella Vendicato. You don’t need to know much Italian to assume that means The Ridiculous Operation, or Pulcinella Avenged. Not sure what the play has to do with cheese, but I bet it’s ridiculous.
 
Here comes the march of “The Options For Using Fresh Mozzarella On Pizza.” You’ll learn all kinds of things about finessing this most-fabled of fresh cheeses, including some notes I wish I’d had when I made my own foray into making mozz. (Seems it would’ve tasted better had I brined it for a few days.) And there are instructions for mozzarella curd—even though they don’t make the curd sound appealing. (Interesting choice.)
 
Judging from the Making Mozzarella section, you’re better off stretching curd. Brining is a good idea, but balling it up doesn’t matter. That’s just a traditional method. And if you’re ripping apart a ball of cheese, what did the ball ever bring to the party?  (My silly words, not their analysis.) Interestingly, there’s an American pizzeria phenomenon where pizzerias buy the curd and stretch the cheese themselves. It’s simpler than making the cheese from scratch, and curd lasts longer than the cheese.
 
Either way, there is once again plenty of smart advice here that never appeared in my internet searches for making fresh mozzarella. Once again, a clear demonstration that the web is your frenemy when it comes to cooking, especially regarding highly specialized tasks.
 
There’s also another “experiment” section about baking fresh mozzarella at low temperatures. Seems there’s a whole lot of misinformation about that. And being the relentless testers they are, the Modernistas set the record straight. You’ll now know how and when you can use that cheese with abandon!
 
Storing and using fresh mozzarella is always a challenge. Here now, common sense tips on how to do both. What’s great, again, is the “we wonder if” dynamic of the tips in Modernist Pizza. They didn’t just repeat common wisdom. They challenged it and found out for themselves. Granted, saying that you can drain fresh mozzarella with a vacuum sealer and meat pads is “fantastic.” (Their word for the result.) But does it sound out of reach?
 
Well, go to Amazon. You can get a vacuum sealer for 30 bucks. (It works for sealing other foods, don’t forget. I used to work with somebody whose who often reached into her purse and pulled out joints in Seal-A-Meal packets. I don’t smoke dope, but I did find it amusing.) Then, a box of 60 absorbent meat pads can be had from Amazon for 16 bucks. That’s less than 50 dollars, and you’ve got a “professional” moisture removal system for fresh mozzarella. Modernist thinking!
 
We get to see “The Effects Of Aging On Mozzarella.” Lots of great photos. Then comes a welcome discourse on aged vs fresh mozzarella.
 
Insert moment of food geek hilarity here. Ready? “When you sample freshly made cheese at a mozzarella factory in Italy, the fresh mozzarella can have a squeaky feel when you bite into it (the sound when you eat is kind of like sneakers on a basketball court).” OK, this is hilarious only if you’ve eaten fresh cheese curd, because that is EXACTLY what it sounds like.
 
Otherwise, this section expands our insight into fresh mozzarella di bufala. It offers insights, and closes with a suggestion: “We encourage you to give it a try and decide for yourself.” This is one of the single wisest directions for pizza making. “Experts” can give you “instructions.” But much of this is about what you do and how you like the result.
 
The balance of the chapter is recipes for mozzarella. There’s even a recipe for charcoal fior di latte mozzarella, which is puzzling. Who wants black cheese? Apparently, someone does. And it’s covered in the next volume in “The Dark Side Of Neapolitan Pizza.”
 
There’s also a Modernist Goat’s Milk Mozzarella. You can make burrata. And the section of Frankencheeses is uniquely Modernist Pizza. “We wondered if we could manipulate these finishing cheeses, using modern techniques and equipment to come up with a protocol for improving their melting qualities. Could we make certain cheeses melt as well as mozzarella? We hope to gain the flexibility of adding these cheeses at any point during baking.” If you go here, get ready to start playing with emulsifiers. There are higher fat cheeses, infused cheeses, and ricotta recipes.
 
Get ready for the next installment, when we begin playing with “Toppings” in Chapter 10.
 
If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. ​

​Are you flinging toppings at your pizza in the most humane way possible? (Toppings, Part 1)

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.
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And right away, they make it pretty clear that we’re going to be covering all possibilities related to topping a pizza. My personal preference is for a composed pizza with evenly sized and distributed pieces of whatever’s happening on top. I’d like to think they’d appreciate that. But let’s see if I can disappoint them.
 
“The Science Of Pizza Toppings” is a section that comes as  surprise. They run through a litany of topping problems and how those problems affect the eating experience. They also refer to biteability again, and contrast it with eatability. “For example, you can technically bite through a soupy pizza, but the overall eatability isn’t great. The amount of toppings and how messy they are will also impacted eatability.”
 
They also point out that “the best way to fix a problem is to avoid it in the first place.” And they give us a problem/solution chart that voters toppings that drag, are tough, burn, are excessive, and fall off. Yay, charts.
 
And yay, payload! It’s probably a guy thing. I don’t know a lot of women who will find amusement in a section entitled “Topping Payload.” The also Modernistas explain it right away. “Payload is a term used in aviation and aerospace to describe the amount of stuff a vehicle can carry given the amount of fuel it has. In other words, payload is the capacity to carry the weight without compromising flight functions. We think the term also applies to pizza. How much stuff can I put on before all the toppings spill off or the slice buckles under its own weight.”
 
There a brief discussion of the mechanics of topping weight. There’s with some stunning illustrative photography of different topping problems, from “poor distribution” to “wet toppings.” The photo for overtopped is bordering on comical. The only way you can know it’s pizza is from context. It looks like the cheese monster that ate Cincinnati.
 
And being Mhyrvold & Migoya, they’ve given us a chart of actual, recommended topping weights. Each of the eight styles of pizza get an ideal weight for, respectively, sauce, cheese, weight of toppings added before and after baking, and total payload.
 
They also admit to some subjectivity in the chart. And there’s a warning to keep in mind the flavor intensity of the ingredient. “If you topped a small, thin crust pizza with 135 g of arugula, after baking, it would engulf the pizza, and 135g of anchovies would overwhelm the other flavors on the pizza.”
 
In the section “Topping Application,” they’ve used one of my personal favorite dicta. I take that as a sign that this really is the single most important rule in topping a pizza: “Less is often more when it comes to toppings.” As mentioned earlier, I’m a fan of a well-composed pizza. I always have been. And while they don’t use that phrasing specifically, they do say, “ if you apply them evenly, you can probably get away with applying less. If you are sloppy with the topping application, you’ll tend to apply more.” Do not be a sloppy pizzaolo!
 
“When To Apply Toppings.” Yes, timing matters. There’s one sentence that really helps illustrate the significance of this matter: “For instance, some cured meats are best added at the end of a bake rather than the start. If you bake a high-end Serrano ham or duck prosciutto on your pizza, you’ll wind up with an identifiable leathery, salty crisp.”
 
Timing matters, as does whether the topping is raw or cooked before applying. And some things you may not have anticipated are brought to the fore, e.g. there are cured meats that are best applied after baking. And is it better to slice your pizza before adding toppings? Maybe it is, if you’re adding slices of mortadella…
 
And there’s even a quick note about food safety issues you’re probably not worrying about at home. Will you poison your guests? (They don’t do that. I do. And so far, no.) WHAT?
 
The tips regarding applying toppings halfway through baking or after baking are quite useful. And there’s a bonus tip for me personally. I love an egg on a pizza, and I often screw it up. They offer salient tips. The insight here is useful.
 
“The Ubiquitous Shakers That Let You Customize Your Slice.” Didn’t see this one coming, but should I be surprised? This is perhaps THE authoritative text about pizza. And the Modernistas will thoughtfully school us in all aspects of the craft—right down to the challenges of shaking crushed red peppers or Parmesan on our pizza. And get ready to be disillusioned: “When it comes to the Parmesan, Shakers, we are sorry to inform you that the cheese is not, and has never been, Parmigiano-Reggiano. Rather, it’s Parmesan, a very different cheese..” There are even a few words to let you know more about dried oregano than you ever imagined possible.
 
Here’s another fun section: “Matching Textures With Bite Strategy.” I’m already imagining the football-play diagram that goes with this strategy. “Have you ever tucked into a sandwich and had all the fillings drag out with the first bite? That’s poor sandwich design. This culinary tragedy can also happen with pizza, and for the same reason: there was something on it that was too tough for your teeth to cut through clearly. As you pull the pizza away from your mouth, everything connected to that impenetrable piece of topping comes along with it. It will land on your chin, chest, plate, the floor, or all of the above. If it happens to be molten hot cheese, your misfortune is compounded.”
 
Somebody enjoyed writing that. And we get tips to avoid such misfortunes. For instance, be sure to prepare your toppings so that they have the desired biteability on the finished baked pizza.”
 
The rest of the chapter is given to the Modernist Pizza toppings database (yes, they really have one—remember, Nathan Mhyrvold was CTO of Microsoft), common pizza toppings around the world, and a plethora of toppings and preparations. There’s fruits and vegetables and the common problems associated with them. That’s followed by a two-page chart of fruit and vegetable preparations.
 
There’s pre-cooking techniques for those fruits and veggies. (While I’ve been roasting some veggies for awhile now, I never thought about using some of these insanely simple tips.) There’s sautéing and steaming, charring, sous vide, (are we getting too intense here?), confit, (maybe we are), and deep frying.
 
It’s worth noting, perhaps, that the pizza database was compiled from recipes in 370 books from around the world. They used the data to model characteristics and standards for ingredients. And they went deep. They have graphs. And the pile of the books they worked from (there’s a photo) dwarfs any notion of a pizza-book collection that I have. And I’m not even a slacker. (Look, I even own Modernist Pizza!) The chart of fruit and vegetable preparations is also comprehensive and useful.
 
I admit, I will never bother with deep frying anything to put on a pizza. But the extreme closeup photo of deep-fried baby artichokes on a pizza is drool-worthy. I don’t want to make it. I want someone to make it for me. And I don’t even care so much for artichokes. (I find them too rich and texturally unappealing—and I suspect that deep frying changes that.)
 
The photo of the “Artisan pizza with heavy cream, ricotta, Swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, braised trotters, sweated, onion, potato confit, and garlic confit” gets a guy thinking. There are recipes for rosti potatoes, as well as frico. (That’s cheese crisps if you’ve not yet entered the world of Detroit pizza, which is prized for its frico edges.) Pressure caremlizing also enters into the picture.
 
And for all us carnivores, next up: Meats! The discussion is leant mainly to cured meats, as they’re more common on pizza. There’s a chat on how to prepare everything from bacon to blood sausage, prosciutto to pastrami, Serrano ham to Spam.
 
I admit to a touch of confusion regarding this warning: sliced cured meats can burn, if exposed, while baking; to avoid this, coat the meat with a melting cheese, like mozzarella, placing it on the dough after it is baked halfway.” Forgetting that I first read “exposed” as “explode” (and who wants the threat of exploding meats?), I’m still just a little puzzled about covering meats with cheese. Perhaps it’s a case by case situation. I don’t see covering a sliced cured meat like pepperoni.
 
And it wouldn’t be Modernist Pizza without a history of the pepperoni. (Blame Hormel for setting the standard.) And there’s another experiment: “Why Does Pepperoni Curl?” Yes, you’ll be surprised by not just the results, but even some of the questions they asked.
 
There’s a huge, extreme close-up and tantalizing photo of a pepperoni and sausage pizza  as we launch into the section on Italian sausage. And finally, and unsurprisingly at the end of the chapter, “Finishing Your Pizza.”  The talk here is of sauces, oils, condiments, and there’s even commentary on “The State Of Olive Oil.”
 
Roll up your sleeves and get your fire on. Next up in Modernist Pizza: Baking!

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

Hello, savory sausage slice tendering tiny puddles of delicious grease: time now for the attack of the cupping pepperoni... (Toppings, Part 2)

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 easy answer is: Buy a package of pepperoni that says “cupping pepperoni” on the label and go home. Thank you and goodnight!
 
Here now, a very brief and equally incomplete slice of the pepperoni story that contains more than you ever wanted to know. It begins not in Italy, but the United States. Pepperoni is not an Italian invention, contrary to what many think. Go to Italy and order a pepperoni pizza, and you’re going to get a pizza topped with red bell peppers. The word "pepperoni" is a borrowing of the Italian word peperoni, which is how Italians identify red bell peppers.
 
It doesn’t matter whether the Italian red bell pepper wishes to identify as an American cured sausage product. Sorry, that’s just the way it goes. Their language and their rules in their country. Plus, Italians also seem to have an aversion to American-style pepperoni, despite all the greasy gustatorial goodness it brings to pizza. The Modernist Pizza folks apparently talked to Italian pizzaioli when they were in Italy. Said pizzaioli resisted all efforts at pepperoni persuasion. The cheffy people that the Modernistas are, they pointed out all the spicy fatty delights to no avail.
 
It’s not clear who invented pepperoni, but it is quite clear that Hormel Foods was the power behind popularizing the product. It also seems the distinctive red color of their pepperoni is related to the cherry powder that is included to make it red. Meat, meet marketing!
 
According to data collected nefariously through tracking our use of pizza ordering apps (a clear and present threat to personal privacy in favor of national security if there ever was one), 36% of all pizzas are ordered with pepperoni. Americans love their long, spicy cased meats. [Insert Freudian cigar joke here.]
 
But the bigger question is wherefore cupping pepperoni? Why did it suddenly become all the rage and get home pizza people and casual consumers alike all agog over the little grease-pool creatures on their pizza? I blame it on social media and smartphone cameras. Because…
 
It’s not a new thing. It’s old school. The reason pepperoni cups is simple: natural collagen casing, which holds the sausage together. When it’s cooked, the casing contracts. The sausage slice cups upward because it is attracted to the dominant heat source. The pizza beneath the pepperoni is not as hot as the top of the oven above it.
 
The Modernistas actually did an experiment. (They do a lot of those, which is one reason the book is over 1,000 pages long and weighs 33 pounds.) They wanted to see what happened to cupping pepperoni if the dominant heat source was beneath it, and guess what: it cupped the other direction! Science! I’m trying to imagine the need for a pizza covered in little, dome-shaped pepperoni bumps and the marketing effort behind that one. Surely, Domino’s can figure out one more way to market novel applications of bread, cheese and salty cased meat products. It’s what they do. (Next up: Untied garlic knots stuffed with un-cupped pepperoni slices!)
 
As you know, fat is flavor. So is salt. Put them together in a greasy little puddle in the bottom of a meaty slice of sausage and multiply by the dozens, and voila: International incident! A cultural appropriation of pizza proportions that makes Americans go mad and Italians shake their heads.
 
Now, none of this means you have to go looking for a pepperoni that’s labeled as a cupping product. It just means that you have to determine if there’s a collagen casing. How do you do that? I have no idea.
 
I just went to my own larder, where there are four unopened cased meat products. Only one of them mentions the casing, and that’s an artisan brand of dry chorizo. Presumably they are proud of their “natural casing” and include it on the ingredients list. There’s a brand of pepperoni in my fridge that cups quite nicely. None of the labeling says “cupping” or mentions the casing. In the absence of detailed labeling or marketing language, it seems we’re left to our own pepperoni devices.
 
Recently, I departed from my standard “pepperoni alternative” stance to make a pepperoni pizza. I happen to like looking at alternatives for all kinds of things pizza, which is how I’ve ended up making pizzas like the deconstructed clam chowder pizza or the crowd-pleasing etouffée pizza. But one day, I was just in that mood where only a New York style pepperoni pizza slice would do.
 
The local market had Hormel, which I have a bias against. This is a position born of ad-hoc taste tests. I would frequently have Hormel product and the generic Kroger store brand in one place, and I would ask people to do a blind taste test. 100% of the time, my subjects chose the Kroger store brand as tasting superior to the big national name. So, Hormel is my pepperoni of last resort.
 
The store also had a brand I’d never heard of, bearing a German brand name. What could Germans possibly know about making faux-talian cased meat products? Certainly as much as Americans. The Germans are the kings of the wurst kind. I figured, Hey, let’s find out. Of course, close reading of the label showed the German heritage was only as deep as the corporate conglomerate culture of our friendly pork purveyors at Smithfield. So heritage is clearly just business and irrelevant.
 
Interestingly, these pepperoni slices were thicker than the competition. I’m going to take a leap of pepperoni logic and infer that since Americans have a habit of overdoing their pizza toppings, the Hormel product is sliced thinner to make exercises in excess a less greasy endeavor. But this non-Teutonic German-named pepperoni was good. It curled up nicely and cupped an appropriate amount of grease and the edges browned and life sehr gut!
 
It made me appreciate pepperoni again. A little background on my madness here. My pepperoni alternative stance came from asking why we’re we so married to one meat like this. Isn’t there something better? I stumbled on Spanish-style chorizo, and have tasted about half a dozen different brands. And while they don’t seem to do the cupping thing, they have a better flavor. And they often have a lower fat content, so the pizza is less greasy. No, it’s not dramatic. But it’s the subtle differences that start to help you develop your own pizza paradigm.
 
There something in Korean culture called “tongue taste” and “hand taste.” Tongue taste is the basic flavors of whatever you’re eating. Much subtler is hand taste, which imparted by the cook who prepared what you’re eating. It’s the defining difference beyond the basics.
 
Pizza example: If you look at pizza by Chris Bianco (Pizzeria Bianco) side-by-side with pizza by Nancy Silverton (Mozza), they look very similar. They have similar ingredients. Water, four, salt, yeast, tomato and cheese. But they are two clearly different animals.  Their tongue tastes are similar. But the respective hand taste of Silverton and Bianco are distinctive. They’re both great. But each has a unique taste profile.
 
How did we get to Korea from the US via Italy? Perhaps I need to rein in the digressions. But all this to say, pepperoni is a big part of pizza love for the American palate. Part of being your own pizzamaker is deciding how you’re going to address a staple ingredient like pepperoni.
 
Cupping pepperoni is a fad with some sound reasons for its popularity. But what will you do with it? How will you handle your pepperoni? Learn what makes you happy and don’t feel beholden to the mob. 

Still waiting to start your homemade pizza journey? The silly little homemade pizza guide, Free The Pizza! (A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have), is ready and waiting to lead you astray. ​

In baking pizza, are you denying absolute truths that prevent you from attaining Pizza Nirvana? (Part 1)

​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?”
His accompanying photo is a surprisingly round but deeply scorched pizza-like object. In an effort to be diagnostic, some intrepid soul asks, “What dough recipe are you using?” And the guys posts a photo of an empty Boboli wrapper.
 
Yes, it happens. And that guy is probably not the guy who should be reading Modernist Pizza. At least, not yet. But he does need some kind of book, and he needs to understand some basic science. (And if you’re already a far better pizza maker than that guy, maybe Modernist Pizza is for you.)
 
Anyway, the big quote above about understanding the basic science is the opening of the final chapter in Modernist Pizza Volume 2, Chapter 10, “Baking.” The chapter also arrives showcasing one of my favorite words associated with pizza. It’s the “T” word: Transformation.
 
I believe that transformation has a lot to do with the fascination of pizza making. Very quickly in this chapter, Mhyrvold & Migoya tell us, “When you bake a pizza, heat energy moves from the oven into the dough mixture, transforming it.” That latter sentence seems a deceptively simple statement. It's about what I suspect is one reason why pizzaioli become obsessive. The ongoing refrain you can hear from pizza pros is that making pizza never gets old.
 
Saying that “heat energy moves from the oven into the dough mixture, transforming it” is also deceptively simple. That’s because so much happens inside a pizza. And later on is a concise explanation of the complex transformation that occurs inside dough as it become crust. It makes me wonder if this is not the kind of thing that keeps potters, glass blowers, sculptors and other transformative craftspeople fascinated by the things they do. But enough of my metaphysical hypothesizing. Let’s get to the baking!
 
Refraining one of the thermodynamic truths about pizza, Mhyrvold & Migoya remind us that thin-crust pizzas are baked primarily with infrared light. This is especially true in the case of wood-burning ovens. In wood-burning ovens, the heat is asymmetric. Typically, it’s very high. Attaining an evenly baked pizza requires an alert and dexterous pizza maker ready to pay a lot of attention. The top of the pizza is baked almost entirely by radiant heat. Air temp in the oven does not factor in as much as in other ovens—including the home oven. (All of the oven characteristics mentioned herein are covered in this chapter, and at greater length in Volume 1.)
 
Lower temp ovens, like deck ovens, are more reliant on air temp. The heat that bakes the pizza is primarily conductive heat. This is true whether the pizza is directly on the oven floor or in a pan. “The top is baked by radiation (broiled, if you will)—this is true for all types of ovens except combo, home and convection ovens. This means that when you cook in a home oven, you have a problem and you need to improvise.”
 
This is why your choice of oven is pivotal. It determines what kind of pizza you’ll make and what kind of dough you’ll require. The Modernistas call our home ovens “just plain difficult to work around.” But in a typical moment of Modernista-esque whimsy, they tell us “Not to worry, though. Your pizza isn’t going to jump out of the oven in protest if you don’t have the right kind. A little bit of finessing and hacking will make your results even better than expected.” Having made pizza in ovens of all kinds, I can vouch for the veracity of this statement. Though there have been a couple of times where I wish the pizza had fought back at me. At least a little.
 
This chapter also offers callbacks to the earlier, Volume 1 chapter on pizza ovens. That chapter is where a lot of the various oven technologies are explained, and are detailed with infrared photography. In this chapter, they’re going to explain techniques for making pizza in those various kinds of ovens.
 
And most significant for us lowly pizza hobbyists, they throw us this bone: “We’ll show you ways to make the most out of the oven you have. We strongly believe that a good pizzaiolo can make delicious pizza in any oven.” (Pizza-oven chauvinists, take note! They are NOT telling anybody they should be using an Ooni. So there.)
 
On yet another personal note, I have to admit that after reading this chapter, I am less virtuous than the Modernistas might be when it comes to Pizza Social. I don’t have a lot of patience for the hubris, arrogance and strutting of some of my fellow amateurs. For example, take pizza-peel machismo. You can’t believe the amount of sweeping absolutism and general derision the Animals of Pizza Social exercise over the choice of a baker’s peel.
 
One example is the notion that if you’re not using a perforated metal peel exclusively, you’re doing it wrong. Or that Neapolitan is the only worthy pizza. Or that wood fire provides the only BTU of value. I’d love for those absolutist generalizers to take a dive into Modernist Pizza. They’d get to see just how much of what they deem “the one and only way” to do something is not merely one way to do it—it is possibly the inferior way to do it. And this evidence is coming from talented pros who’ve studied, tested, tasted and have no ego in the game. (To once again quote Mr. American Pie, Peter Reinhart, the only flavor rule is flavor rules.)
 
The contents of this chapter are primarily methods and tips for baking pizza in various kinds of ovens, as well as on grills and in a deep fryer. First up is a section of especial interest to the newbie: “Transferring Your Dough.” While it’s a piece of cake to deal with pan pizza (which is proofed in the same pan that it’ll be baked in and requires no peel), getting a round pizza into the oven is a special kind of challenge.
 
And once again, Mhyrvold & Migoya being who they are, they are free from judgment. The first pizza transfer device they mention is the much maligned pizza screen. “Depending on your perspective, using a screen is either a godsend or it’s cheating.” I personally feel like screens (and parchment paper, which are mentioned later in the chapter) are the training wheels of pizza making.
 
In my own jaundiced view, the more you use pizza training wheels, the less likely you'll ever feel the exhilaration of riding the motorcycle of slinging pies like a grown-up pizzaiolo. I encourage avoidance of screens and parchment at all costs unless there’s a good technical reason to use them. But the Modernistas don’t. They have no such emotional investment in all this. Use the screen if it feels good. And if you want the bottom of your pizza to look like it came from Domino’s (your faithful critic’s snarky comment, not theirs).
 
Next up in this section: Peels! Yay, peels! In my humble estimation, the peel is one of the few kitchen implements we can buy that makes us feel like something big is about to happen. That said, it’s worth heeding the Modernist Pizza insight  on using a peel: “This simple operation will take some finesse.” Boy howdy!
 
Anyway, they frown upon my preferred launching peel (wood). They believe that for people like me, tradition is more important than efficiency. I’m still scratching my head over that one. It’s just easier to get the pizza off a wooden peel. And just about every commercial pizzeria I’ve been in, they’re launching from wood and retrieving with metal. (I don’t believe for a second that the Sbarro franchise at Salt Lake City International Airport sees their wood/metal preferences as in any way related to tradition.)
 
But, like so many of the militant chauvinists out there in Pizza Social, the sensible and scientific Mhyrvold & Migoya prefer the perforated metal peel above all others—despite the fact that you can’t really dress the raw pizza onboard. You must first assemble the raw pizza, then either pull it onto the peel, or else slide the peel beneath it. How is that more efficient than a pizza dressed on a wooden peel? Moreover, in the lore of food-safety practices, using the same peel on both raw and cooked pies increases chances of cross-contamination. So, within this epic and fantastic encyclopizzia, (yes, I really just invented that word), this wood vs. perforated metal is one of the few head scratchers for me. So it goes.
 
My favorite dinky little part here is the brief discussion of “improvised peels.” They say, “Most flat, thin surfaces can work as an improvised peel, so long as they’re large enough to fit the whole pizza.” They mention the ever-popular upside-down sheet pan. (I’ve never liked this method personally—though a cookie sheet with no lip might bring me around.) But my favorite of their improvs is the “piece of sturdy cardboard.” Ironically, I once improvised a peel using the lid from an old pizza box. Following the discussion of peels are pictorial demonstrations of the five methods for loading a pizza.
 
Thus we conclude part one of the baking chapter review. We finish the chapter next time by reviewing their discussions around the dreaded gel layers, specific oven methods, common cooking problems, the long awaited tips for “Improving The Performance Of A Non-Pizza Oven,” and further examination of the vaunted Transformation!

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. ​

In baking pizza, are you denying absolute truths that prevent you from attaining Pizza Nirvana? (Part 2)

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. 
​
For over a decade, I was making neo-Neapolitan pizza at the same temps as Neapolitan pizza, and the crust was always crispy. In fact, when I could get the oven to 900 degrees (this was a big, wood-fired dome), the pizza was transformed even more, and was crispier. So, unless sugar and oil in the dough changes the transformation at higher temps, I’m puzzled by this explanation. Oh, well. Another minor gripe in the grand scheme that is Modernist Pizza.
 
It’s hard to not like their section on “Gel Layer Formation." It portrays the sauce and cheese as unwitting co-conspirators. It’s nice to know that men of science aren’t beyond a little anthropomorphic prose.
 
“Pizza Baking Methods” tees up a lengthy and comprehensive section about getting optimal performance out of everything from a wood oven to a home oven to an impinger oven. An impinger oven is one of those conveyor belt devices you see in places like Domino’s. A belt carries a pizza on a screen through an oven that blows hot air top and bottom. (There are some true oven geeks who are hacking impinger ovens to crank out artisan pizza, proving once again that it’s not about the oven, it’s about what you do with it that counts.)
 
Mhyrvold & Migoya ask, “Does any one factor matter when baking pizza?” They go into standard deviation equations under controlled conditions. It’s enough that you might stop reading the full description and finally cut to the chase: Variation happens and you can mitigate it with experience. And they conclude by saying, “We think this is probably why there are some amazingly complicated dough recipes, but it’s very hard to believe these things actually matter.”
 
“Done Versus Overdone” acknowledges the subjectivity of what is a “done” pizza based on the pizza maker involved. That said, they express their preference for a crispy crust that should not be burnt (à la New Haven pizza). And there’s a two-page spread of gradient photo done-ness diagrams. They show pizzas from each of Modernist Pizza’s nine master dough recipes. Each photo shows a single pizza sectioned as underdone, properly baked, and overbaked.
 
“Common Pizza Baking Problems” offers a helpful problem/solution table for various issues—illustrative photography included. The problems range from a soupy center and a gummy crumb to burnt, caked flour and undermelted cheese.
 
The steps for baking in various oven types is enlightening. Reading the section on how to prepare a wood-fired pizza oven, it’s nice to know that I was doing it right when I owned such an oven. Same with the how-to-bake part.
 
Best section title in this chapter: “Peel Gymnastics.” This is where they demonstrate how to work a peel in a wood oven, especially with regard to turning the pizza. Remember, we’re talking about a pizza that bakes in about a minute, and requires constant attention to ensure it bakes evenly.
 
In the “benefits of a gas-fired pizza oven” section, they make a convincing case for a gas oven over wood. (I can speak to the PIA factor of the wood oven, though wood is indeed much sexier.) And now, let’s skim the impinger oven section to (ta-dah!) the home oven.
 
The section on “Improving The Performance Of A Non-Pizza Oven” is comprehensive. But it all boils down to one simple problem: Home ovens are not designed for this. You require thermal mass, which these ovens lack. Nobody who’s already making pizza with any degree of success will be surprised by this, but you might be surprised by some of the tweaks.
 
There are also instructions for cooking a pizza on the stovetop. I started doing something like this about a decade ago, though I think my method is better: After the stove top, I slide the skillet beneath the broiler. However, the Modernist Pizza method is far superior if you don’t have a broiler handy. Either way, speaking from experience, this method can yield a surprisingly good pizza.
 
What's surprising is the inclusion of instructions for a Breville Pizzaiolo Pizza Oven. But since this oven is a fan favorite amongst pizzaioli for making test pizzas at home, and Breville has had trouble keeping them in stock (it's a popular item), addressing it probably makes sense. Personally, I’m challenged by the idea of a $900 countertop oven that makes one 12-inch pizza at a time and takes up precious counter space. But hey, it’s a reference standard, so the Modernistas are making pizza in it.
 
There are instructions for pizza making on charcoal grills and gas grills. There’s a section of instructions for what I call the tiny, cruel outdoor ovens. And there’s fried pizza in a standard deep fryer. I admit to being fried-pizza curious, but not enough to make it myself. I’ll just have to wait until it’s on a menu somewhere. I’m more likely to fry in a “shallow fryer,” for which there’s also a section. There’s intel on pre-baking and par-baking pizzas. And strategies for how to make pizza for a crowd. (They recommend making pizzas that are square and reheat well.)
 
Next week, on to volume 3, recipes, and chapter 12, iconic recipes. This next volume, which you might expect to be just another recipe book, is going to defy those expectations and maybe your sensibilities as well...

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. ​

VOLUME 3 - RECIPES

​The volume of recipes opens by defying your expectations of what a recipe book can be (Iconic Recipes, Part 1)

​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.
​
And I admit, it seems like the height of egoism for an author to name a section of his “Iconic Recipes” chapter “Our Iconic Recipes.” Who says, "Our work is iconic?" It’s also easy to argue that they mean that these are their versions of these iconic recipes. That’s clearly what’s being discussed in the text. It just seems odd that a pair as intense and detailed as Mhyrvold & Migoya let this slip—unless someone there was just having fun. That’s possible, too.
 
The Modernistas quickly let us know what we’re in for with this chapter, and I’m already fascinated by the idea of a category called “pizza cousins.” I’m assuming that it doesn’t refer to English Muffin pizzas or Mexican pizzas made on flour tortillas. (I call those things PLO, or Pizza-Like Objects. Not sure what Mhyrvold & Migoya call them.)
 
My first tingle of excitement in this chapter comes with the promise that “We’ll also give you some of our favorite flavor combinations in the Flavor Themes chapter.” In my experience, understanding flavor is key to innovating on your own and inventing new pizzas that you’ve never before heard of. (Yet, if you Google your exciting new pizza idea after making it, you’ll find half a million results and hundreds of recipes for that very same pizza. Such is life in the Google lane.)
 
I take real reassurance in the promise that they will tell us how to eyeball topping amounts instead of using a scale. There’s so much scale chauvinism among the pizza cognoscenti, and the scale isn’t a silver bullet for anything. Looking at a pizza and knowing it is sufficiently topped should be the yardstick for whether it’s ready to launch, not the number on a scale.
 
In other words, they’re showing us how to do it like a pizzeria does it. But if you’re a precision freak, they also have alternate intel for you. They’re also careful to let us know that “the predecessor of all pizzas originated in Naples in the 18th century. This is likely the pizza that was introduced to the United States and swept the nation before it was adapted for the US market and spread around the globe. For some, Neapolitan pizza is the gold standard by which all other pizzas are measured.” Mhyrvold & Migoya never tell us it IS the gold standard. Your pizza preference matters, Neapolitan or otherwise.
 
I admit that even the introduction here makes me feel a little disappointed in myself. Over the years, I’ve certainly said, “What would happen if…” I’ve speculated at length about making pizza in a waffle iron or as a quiche. Well, on both counts, Mhyrvold & Migoya apparently said, “What if” and followed it with “Let’s try.” They’re delivering all kinds of cockeyed recipes to make the purist throw down his peel and curse the Modernistas to a place in pizza hell for realizing that crazy idea first.
 
“There are moments where you have to practice and pay full attention.” This quote comes from the section called, “Crucial moments in making pizza.” This section, which is short, is chock full of important tips. And one of my favorite passages in the entire book so far: “When you care about the craft, you’ll never think that you’re done learning.” This is all accompanied by photo guides to crucial steps for various kinds of pizza.
 
Oh, yes: More tables. The first table in this chapter is assembly and baking times for major styles of pizza.
 
What follows next is a kind of high-end primer on making all the iconic pizzas. It begins with thin crust, and allows for the fact that (like almost everything else with pizza) there is a lack of consistency in how “thin” thin crust really is. Nonetheless, they identify key characteristics and how to attain them. They also identify a couple of problems and solutions. Then, how to shape thin-crust pizza using a rolling pin, a sheeter, or your hands.
 
And it wouldn’t be Modernist Pizza without a photograph of a micrometer measuring how thin an actual thin crust pizza is. That’s because they wanted to see how thin they could go. If you’re interested, they ended up with “an ultra-crispy pizza that seems impossibly thin.” They then offer steps to achieve such a pizza at home or work.
 
And yes, there is more detail about using a dough press than you ever wanted to know. That is, unless you’re a working pro desiring to produce thin-crust pizza, and then you might be pleasantly surprised. There’s also a visual guide to thin crust pizza.
 
And, if you’ve never seen one before, there’s the first in the mind-boggling exploded photographs of the layers in a pizza, this one a thin-crust pizza. It might sound like a gimmick. But when you realize the photo is surrounded by commentary explaining the virtues of each layer’s construction, you realize there’s a method to the Mhyrvold madness. (Besides being a former tech exec as well as a chef, Nathan Mhyrvold is also an extraordinary photographer. His stunning technique can leave you wondering how the heck. And I’m sure that all it takes is desire fueled by a bottomless budget. If only we could all enjoy such luxury.)
 
And just by the way, though “a thin-crust pizza slice might look flimsy, the crust is firm, crisp, and can hold a plank, so it is strong enough to hold a surprising amount of toppings.” So there ya go. Following that is a recipe for sausage and cheese thin crust pizza, as well as a pepperoni variant. There’s a chart of baking times depending upon the oven being used. There s a chart of options for baking gluten-free thin-crust.
 
Then, from out of nowhere, “The Machine’s Role In Making Pizza.” It’s a quick tale of all the machines that are used in pizzerias to deliver consistency at a lower price point. Mixers for dough, dough presses, even automatic saucing machines. But you’ll be glad to know that as far as these guys are concerned, no machine can replace the finesse of a skilled pizzaiolo at the oven.
 
Next up is St. Louis-style pizza. That’s followed by a “topping variation” recipe for Alsatian tarte flambée, both of which are thin-crust; a Brazilian thin-crust calabresa pizza; Brazilian Margherita; another exploded view of the layers, this time a Brazilian thin-crust; recipes for a shrimp and hearts of palm pizza, and a chicken and Catupiry pizza with olives (Catupiry is apparently a mayonnaise-like cream cheese that Brazilians love and the Modernistas don’t—but hey, they’re nothing if not democratic about all this); and, there's an “innovative variation” on thin-crust pizza called pillow pizza, including the dough recipe for what is essentially a pita bread filled with pizza toppings.
 
This basic model of iconic style assembly and variations is going to follow us into all styles and sub-variants. It’s also teeing-up a surprising and an occasionally bizarre pizza schooling in next week’s part two of this review. Among the surprises, including a pixelated pizza, a quizza, and (yes) a black-on-black pizza.

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. ​

​The volume of recipes opens by defying your expectations of what a recipe book can be (Iconic Recipes, Part 2)

​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.
For instance, this section offers instructions for the “Neapolitan slap.” If you don’t know, that’s a method of stretching dough by slapping it from hand to hand. They tell us it’s difficult to master. Thank God, as I’ve never mastered it.
 
There’s also a technique for making Pizza Carnavale. It’s something the Modernistas experienced in Naples at Da Attlilio. Understandably, they admired its innovative qualities in a place that’s not known for pizza innovation.
 
Pizza Carnavale is a star-shaped Neapolitan pizza. The points of the star are filled with ricotta. You might call it the stuffed crust pizza from the better side of the tracks. Including this methodology seems like a left turn, but I admit: it gets me thinking about how I might do that and spend 20 minutes making only one pizza instead of three.
 
Was that Modernista enough for you? If not, they give us instructions for getting a big puffy rim on your Neapolitan pizza by injecting air using a food-grade syringe. (I’m sorry, but I feel like we’re treading close to nonsense here. This is like the boob job of Neapolitan pizza.)
 
On the flip side, there are very practical tips for making a crispier Margherita. This is style of pizza they were finding outside of Naples. It’s interesting that Naples hangs its hat on a soft, floppy pizza. I'm going to go off on a rant for a moment. Ready?
 
SIDEBAR RANT: Non-Modernist Pizza research I’ve seen shows that, objectively speaking, people prefer a crispy pizza. It’s almost as if Naples and the AVPN (the governing body of Neapolitan pizza) suffer from the same kind of culinary Stockholm syndrome as the rest of the world. “It might not be the most desirable quality, but it’s our quality.” (My hypothetical quotation, not theirs.) END RANT.
 
There are tips for the so-called handkerchief fold, in case you’ve ever seen that and wanted to try it. If you don’t know it, it’s basically a pizza with less cheese that is served cold from a street-side stand or stall. The pizza is folded into quarters, wrapped in a sheet of paper and handed to the customer. Seems to defeat the unique novelty of pizza in Naples, but try to tell the Italians that.
 
In case you’d like to know, the Modernistas were able to make an 18-inch Neapolitan pizza. That’s the largest they could get through the opening of their oven. Sounds like it’s impractical to try eating a Neapolitan pizza of this size. 12 inches is the ideal size for a Neapolitan pizza, apparently. (It’s Modernist Pizza, after all. They experiment with such things.)
 
The visual guide to topping Neapolitan pizza is clear and unromantic. These tips are followed by the rules for true, AVPN-certified Neapolitan pizza. While they appreciate the rules, they didn’t find them always to be the best for creating an ideal pizza. I salute them for saying as much.
 
There’s another exploded view of pizza, this time the Margherita. The “assembly recipe” for said pizza follows, along with a chart for baking times and (gluten surprise!) baking times for gluten-free Neapolitan, New York and Artisan pizzas.
 
Then, there’s a weird little present. It’s surprising to see in a cookbook about pizza: a photographic recreation of Salvador Dali’s “soft watches” from the painting Persistence Of Vision, but using pizzas in place of watches. How long did that take to set up, anyway?
 
There’s also an assembly recipe for marinara pizza, along with a topping variation for a Tokyo marinara. If you missed this pizza in the “Pizza Travels” section of the book, it’s a 12-inch Neapolitan pizza that has as much as 4 teaspoons of olive oil on top. And since it’s so fat-forward, Mhyrvold & Migoya experimented with other fats—including bacon fat, duck fat, schmaltz, ghee and butter.
 
The “Innovative Variations” section of the chapter includes “The Dark Side Neapolitan Pizza.” Yes, this pizza is black. The experiments they did with dying their ingredients black to see how it impacted baking times led to what, frankly, is a disturbing-looking pizza. Sure, I’d try it. It’s probably fantastic. But it’s BLACK. Black cheeses and black dough (no tomato) are colored with activated charcoal. (You’ll also be glad to know the pizza tastes the same without the addition of the charcoal.)
 
Anyway, their Waffle Pizza variation spared me from having to try this approach myself. I’ve thought about it for years. But I was wondering how, in the context of Modernist Pizza, this qualifies as a variation on Neapolitan pizza. I assume that’s because despite the use of a Detroit-style sauce and brick cheese, the Waffle Pizza is made with a Neapolitan-style dough. (But they also say you can use any dough you want.)
 
There’s a technique variation for what's known as Pinsa Romana. They’ve also decided this pizza is really nothing more than an oblong Neapolitan that’s popular in Rome. And since it’s not a true Neapolitan, I guess, they’ve provided additional instructions for baking it in home oven. Whee!
 
There’s a section for Medium-Crust Pizza, which they describe as a kind of hybrid of New York and Artisan styles. Like New York pizza, it will reheat well. It’s a structured pizza that can have char. (My personal preference.) The rim is more open and puffy than I typically care for, but hey—it’s all about personal preferences here.
 
I admit to a degree of bafflement on this next section: “Using Bread Finishing Techniques On Pizza.” But this is the section for you if you’re a bread head, and you want to bring your art—be it scored crust, stenciled crust, epi cut crust, or a seeded rim (which seems normal enough). There’s even a recipe for a starch slurry to help those seeds stick to the rim of your pizza.
 
Now, the part everyone has been waiting for: “NEW YORK PIZZA”! We begin with the ever-popular exploded view photo, this time of a New York-style pizza. We move back into the tutorial on medium-crust pizza here. There’s a weird little sidebar about the jumbo slice, something I’ve never seen before. (Though I have seen a 36-inch pizza in Hollywood, so the jumbo slice shouldn’t be too far behind).
 
Instructions for shaping the pizza include how to toss it in the air. And in a technique I've never seen before, the method for shaping via “gravity pull.” You let the dough hang off the edge of the work surface and rotate it. Who knew?
 
There’s a discussion of the science behind droopy pizza. A visual guide to topping a medium-crust pizza. An assembly recipe for a New York pizza. A table of baking times and temps (including for your home oven). And, knowing how they feel about it, the best part may be the assembly recipe for “Apizza.” Specifically, they offer the white clam pizza, which was their favorite style while in their otherwise disappointing and confusing trip to New Haven.
 
Now, as we know, the Modernistas have a hard time leaving anything alone when they think that have a better idea. Enter: The Modernist New Haven Pizza. They one-up the white clam pizza with a white pizza sauced using a sabayon, then topped with geoduck or Manila clams and razor clams. (It looks great.)
 
Next up, Artisan Pizza in the tradition of Wolfgang Puck, Ed LaDou and Alice Waters. They’re topping pizza with manchego, prosciutto, figs, arugula, goat cheese, and a balsamic vinegar glaze. I admit that while I have nothing against any of these ingredients, i really don’t want them on a pizza. I’ve always felt like these pizzas were trying to prove they were better than the other pizzas when the truth is, those other pizzas are the ones that matter. These pizzas are just saying, “See, we can be pizza, too!” Wannabes. Nonetheless, they are an inextricable slice of the pizza landscape ands get their due here in Modernist Pizza.
 
There is, of course, the smoked salmon and caviar artisan pizza. An exploded view of an artisan pizza of prosciutto, peas and mint. Then, we move on to “Pizza A Metro,” which is style of pizza ordered by the half-meter. The Modernistas are puzzled that it hasn’t caught on in a more widespread way. But I can proudly say that I’ve had it from a pizzeria in West Hollywood, CA. I can’t say that it rocked my world. But it was novel. For a moment. After that moment, it was just another yawner of a pizza with a gimmick. But Mhyrvold & Migoya like this, so there must be something to it that I haven’t experienced.
 
Quad Cities pizza is up next. And maybe the less said the better there. And then, make way for Deep-Dish Pizza!
 
If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. ​

​​The volume of recipes opens by defying your expectations of what a recipe book can be (Iconic Recipes, Part 3)

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.”
​
From there, Modernist Pizza dives right into the making of this challenging pizza style. I’ve never wanted to applaud deep-dish pizza baking instructions until just now. It’s only four paragraphs long. The photo of the pizza takes up more room on the page. But thank you, Nathan Mhyrvold and Francisco Migoya for speaking intelligently about the mechanics of a pizza that makes less rational folks see red, where emotions run rampant and common sense can be in short supply.
 
I’ve always been deep-dish pizza curious. I’ve never had a great one. I’ve had some good ones. I’ve eaten enough deep-dish pizza over the years to understand the attraction and the potential. Of course, I admit emotional bias. As good as it gets, deep-dish will never replace my beloved medium-crust New York-style pizza and its close cousins.
 
But yes, the Modernistas make it sound good. And their instructions make it sound like I can make it better. They even have me wondering about putting my own spin on it. Instead of deep-dish, how about deep-ish dish? One of the big challenges with this pizza style for me is the doorstop factor. How can I mitigate that for the US Northeast Pizza Corridor People? Is that even possible? But I digress. This is not about me.
 
Mhyrvold & Migoya offer common sense tips for more efficient production of a deep-dish pizza. The smartest one might be pre-baking the crust to prevent the dreaded gel layer, and to ultimately expedite baking and prevent a soggy crust.
 
But be warned: “There is a bizarre bias against this against this practice in Chicago.” In other words, “It’s the way we’ve always done it so it must be right.” (My quote, not theirs.) But this is typical in so much of traditional and accepted cooking methods. For instance...
 
“Take your meat out of the fridge half an hour before cooking it!” How many times have you heard that? But did you know that 30 minutes out of the fridge accomplishes almost nothing in terms of bringing the meat to room temp? The Modernistas are among the pros who’ve helped debunk such myth masquerading as wisdom. But again, I digress.
 
This section offers a very clear and concise series of steps and warnings. Modernist Pizza is preparing you for the tackling the task that is deep-dish pizza. And the photography is so sexy and evokes something so visceral it makes you want to try. So, hello Chicago!
 
There are several recipe recommendations here for deep-dish pizzas. They range from a pie of mozzarella, basil, fried eggplant, tomato confit, fior di latte mozzarella, and provolone, to a pie of Swiss cheese, potato confit, garlic confit, sautéed escarole, cheddar cheese and Wisconsin brick cheese. (Did someone mention “casserole”?) They’ve portrayed the pizzas in an array of half a dozen cross-section photos, and detailed the toppings in a chart called “Deep-Dish Parametric Recipe.” (And yes, in case you were worried it might be left out, the list of possible toppings includes blood sausage.)
 
The weirdest-looking pizza of the bunch, and the one calculated to freak out sufferers of trypophobia (that's the aversion to clusters of small holes), is the Pixelated Pizza. It’s a complex recipe requiring a lengthy assembly time. It includes making a pistachio pesto, using truffles, and topping the pizza with a tube-shaped pasta (they call for paccheri).
 
The result looks like a surreal landscape of sucking holes from a bad psychedelic dream. Nevertheless, Mhyrvold & Migoya claim “It is well worth it for a fantastic result: a combination of pizza, quiche and pasta dish.” And yes, they provide you with a recipe for the pistachio pesto.
 
Next, they inform us that “Mac and cheese is a popular topping on pizza.” (That's news to me. How about you?) With that, they proceed to unleash a recipe for “Mac And Cheese Deep-Dish Pizza.” It features their Modernist cheese sauce for an “ultra-smooth Mac and cheese and is then covered with more cheese and crispy bread crumbs.”
 
All that said, they are not without total understanding of what they’ve done here. “With all these carbs, however, you might need a nap.” The photo makes it look fantastic, and I need a nap just thinking about it. 
 
They then move us from there to the recipe for their Quizza, a hybrid French quiche and pizza. Yes, I admit that this is another one of those things I’ve thought about in my pizza ponderings. I’m grateful to Mhyrvold & Migoya from sparing me from stumbling through it myself and doing it for me. It makes total sense and looks excellent. And yes, real men eat Quizza.
 
The next deep-dish dazzler is a double-crust pizza. While in Italy, they encountered double-crust pizzas. These were thin-crust pizzas, and they enjoyed them. They encountered deep-dish double-crust pizzas in Chicago, and they did not enjoy them. Confronted with such disappointment, most people would walk away. Not the Modernistas! Instead, they go into the pizza lab and fix all of this so we can make and enjoy such a pizza for our very own.
 
Phew. Deep-dish, move aside. Next up is the thick-crust pizza parade. We’ll be venturing down the highway on light and airy, thick-crust pan pizzas. There will be recipes for Detroit-Style Red-Top Pizza (I’ve made Peter Reinhart’s version of this Motor City staple and can vouch for the crowd-pleasing qualities of this pie.) All that and more, right here next time on the ongoing review of Modernist Pizza. 

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. ​

 In the vast and expansive homemade pizza playpen: What fantastic flavors will paint your pizza?

“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.)
​
An example of a flavor theme is the classic tomato sauce and cheese. Other flavor themes come from the restaurant world via pasta sauces. When you order a cacio e pepe pizza, you’re not getting exactly the same thing as a bowl of cacio e pepe pasta. But you are getting a thematic representation thereof.
 
By this measure, it seems I’ve invented my own flavor themes. I’ve made gumbo pizza and etouffée pizza. They’re not strict representations of those dishes. But they’re pretty close. (They’re also great on a pizza.) 
 
Maybe you’ve been doing something like this yourself. It’s a natural step in one’s pizza journey. But here in the Modernist Pizza chapter about flavor themes, anything I’ve ever done pales by comparison to the epic, pizza-toppings madness that’s going on here.
 
“The Don’t Hold The Mustard Pizza is a direct translation of a pastrami course that we serve at our dinners in the lab.” And fortunately, Mhyrvold & Migoya say exactly the kind of thing I’d hope to read in such a chapter: “The flavor themes that we developed for this chapter are our own or are inspired by chefs and our travels, but we encourage you to experiment.” (Emphasis added.)
 
The chapter begins with a discussion of their favorite flavor combinations. They also discuss “pizzaioli around the world” and the influences that got them where they are. We’re talking about some extraordinary pizza celebrities like Laura Meyer, Franco Pepe, Nancy Silverton and Gabrielle Bonce.
 
From there, we move into “Dressing up a pizza.” We’re talking simple additions like garnishes, drizzles and condiments. I admit, I’m all for chopped herbs, shaved truffles, sauces or powders. But gold leaf on pizza (or any food) has always struck me as a decadence that’s signaling the decline of western civilization. But maybe that’s just me.
 
Eating gold carries with it a symbolism that I’d rather not discuss when we’re talking about food. (Fortunately, I believe there is exactly one mention of gold in here, and no real discussion of how to use it.) I could say, “Hey, it’s an inorganic compound. Why are we ingesting it?!” The problem is, by that measure, we should also not be eating salt. So, moving on…
 
The section, “Did anyone order a plain cheese pizza” has half a dozen photos of different cheese pizzas, illustrating just how broad the cheese-pizza spectrum can be. And there’s a chart of more than a dozen different ways to make cheese pizza, from crushed red cherry tomatoes and ricotta on an al taglio pizza, to a thin-crust pizza with cream cheese on a strawberry marinara sauce. Nobody promised this would be boring, friends!
 
There’s a four-page chart of dough, sauce, cheese and topping recommendations for simple pizzas. It’s simple, thorough and very, very organized. If you’re a pro or a screaming anal-retentive (or both), this is the chart for you.
 
From there, the fun really begins. In “Simple Pizza Recipes,” we’re talking 18 pages of simple combinations and fantastic photos—some of which will have you thinking about combinations that you never would have considered previously. I admit that the sausage and Swiss chard artisan pizza turned my head. So simple. So unusual.
 
The chart has some great notes on making these recipes. The four-cheese pizza lists Gorgonzola as a topping added after baking. The accompanying note says, “If you apply Gorgonzola cheese before baking, it can melt out and you won’t see it on the baked pizza.”
 
My favorite note is the one accompanying their Hawaiian pizza recipe: “While canned pineapple is widely used for this, we recommend (actually, implore) you to use our preparation for it on page 257.” If you’re interested, the “recommended preparation” involves no cans. They provide instructions for grilling fresh pineapple.
 
There is the briefest nod here to a pizza I’ve wondered about for decades: New England-style Greek pizza. It’s scant information, but by the time you’ve come this far, you should have enough pizza chops to pull it off just from the simplest of details.
 
There’s a Chef’s Surprise Pizza. What’s the surprise? Ricotta where you least expect it! (Hey now. Get your mind out of the gutter.)
 
Some themes are as simple as the Williamsburg Pizza Slice: Use any master dough, tomato sauce, grated pecorino Romano and fresh mozzarella, garnished with fresh basil. Notes: none. It’s that simple.
 
The flavor themes can be as complex as their Pizza Puttanesca: any master dough; their puttanesca sauce from volume 2; grated Parmigiano-Reggiano; pitted, oil-cured black olives; fried capers (yes); and anchovies or boquerones. Notes: “The Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese can go on after baking as well.”
 
If you want to make that latter recipe, you are one committed pizza geek. Unless, of course, you’re a restaurant pro and you’re looking for unusual menu items to raise your profile in pizza. You’re still committed, of course. But I’m not that committed, and I probably want to come to your joint when you make it because I don’t know that I’ll be making this pie myself.
 
This section is like a catalog of great ideas for the competent pizza geek. Flipping through it, I keep thinking, “Great idea! I want to make all of these!” That’s especially true when we get to the section where the pizzas are “Inspired by pizzerias/pizzaioli.”
 
There’s a spicy crab pizza inspired by Nobu Matsuhisa. It’s king crab chunks on a spicy vodka sauce with shredded “pizza cheese.” The Reinaldo Pizza is inspired by Pizzeria Bruno, and has a Brazilian-style thin-crust tomato sauce, shredded pizza cheese,  sliced mushrooms, canned tuna, sliced hearts of palm and “golf sauce.” (This is really kind of a mayo and tomato sauce like Russian dressing or fry sauce.)
 
There’s a barbecue chicken pizza inspired by the late, great Ed LaDou. (Ed created Wolfgang Puck’s pizza program at Spago, and developed the menu for California Pizza Kitchen.)
 
There’s a Nancy Silverton-inspired sausage and cream pizza. (I bet it’s decadent as all get out. Heavy cream, fresh mozzarella, fennel Italian sausage, red onion and scallions.) And a soppressata pizza inspired by Ken Forkish.
 
Next come the Modernist originals: Burrata and Prosciutto; chicken curry; Ramp It Up with (naturally) charred ramps, white tomato sauce , shredded pizza cheese and slow-roasted cherry tomatoes. I’m a sucker for a salade Niçoise, and there’s a Niçoise pizza.
 
The hits just keep coming. It’s a veritable pizza playground. And again, these are not full-on recipes. They are themes. You need to have a handle on what you’re doing by the time you come to this chapter.
 
But then…then come the full-on pizza recipes. Veggie Pizza. Meat Lover’s Pizza. Buffalo Chicken Pizza made with deep-fried chicken thighs and blue-cheese dressing. Frank’s Redhot New York Square. There’s a Tex-Mex pizza. (I’ve been pondering such a theme, and now I guess I just need to follow their recipe and forget about my own.)
 
How about a Kabob Pizza with gyro meat? Or the gorgeous Marinara Sbagliata pizza with a marinara tomato sauce and a basil pesto? The photo here is is one of the sexiest pizza images in the entire three volumes. They won me over with this shot back in volume 2 and I’ve made my own modest version of it.
 
If you’ve seen Franco Pepe’s “Mistaken Margherita” on Netflix’s Chef’s Table: Pizza, there’s a version of it here. And a Genovese Pizza with braised short ribs. An Il Porco Pizza with braised trotters. (I’ve been wondering if I could put trotters on a pizza. Now, I guess I know I can.) A Pizza Rossa inspired by the great Chris Bianco. A Cal-Italia pizza inspired by Tony Gemignani. Their Cacio E Pepe pizza has actual spaghetti on it. (I’ve tried making the version that requires baking a pizza dough with nothing on it but ice cubes. This looks far easier. And less likely to make you wonder why you bothered.)
 
They just keep coming. It’s like this chapter is the payoff for the entire book. It’s fantastic. Anything to follow this chapter is going to seem like an anti-climax.
 
So get ready for the denouement. Maybe. Next up: Serving And Storage.

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: After you've made all the pizzas, you gotta serve 'em, store 'em, reheat 'em--but how?

“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?
​
How do you cut the pizza? That matters. It affects the visual aesthetic as well as the eating experience. If the pizza sits too long, it declines in quality. How do you prevent that? (Surprise! They’re going to even tell us how to do it--and even how to reverse it!)
 
Serving, holding, storing, reheating—the un-sexy parts of pizza making are here. Mhyrvold & Migoya are going to educate us in the things we never really think about so we can make our pizza as good as it can be. Whee!
 
The speed with which one must serve and eat pizza is dependent on a simple variable: How thick is it? Yes, there’s even a photo diagram. Naples, meet Chicago. A Neapolitan pizza should ideally be eaten within two minutes. A Chicago-style deep-dish has a “heroic” 26-minute window in which to eat it. In between are six other styles and times. And how did they figure out all this? “When we started our experiments for this chapter…”
 
They timed the crust’s internal temperature decline. And guess what: pizza cools faster once you’ve sliced it. Never thought about that, didja? Thank you, Modernist Pizza!
 
They also describe how the pizza characteristics change during cooling, as well as how it’s behaving during the ideal eating temperature. That’s great. I’m glad to know it. BUT—isn’t part of the eating experience trying to eat it while it’s too hot? Then, enjoying it while it’s perfect? And after that, eating a pizza that’s too cool, already longing for that perfect slice whose time has passed?
 
That’s just me? OK. Moving on…
 
There are descriptions of the physical challenges that occur as various types of pizza cool. And speaking of pizza serving problems, have you considered the problems of pizza in space? They’re described here, along with a photo of NASA astronauts eating pizza. Also, there's an account of Pizza Hut’s 2001 pizza delivery to the cosmonauts on the International Space Station.
 
Does your pizza pan have nubs? No? Those nubs will keep your pizza warmer longer. Yes, there’s a discussion of the best types of serving pans, there are also instructions on the best way to cut a round pizza—and why cutting a pizza into 10 slices is No! Fun! (Yes, there are tips on how to best execute even slicing.)
 
The purposeful square cut. The nonsensical strip cut. Math-based slicing protocols for pizza based on monohedral disc tiling. (Yes! Finally!) From sensible to zany, we’re talkin’ geometry. But only briefly.

What knives do and don’t work when cutting pizza? Why does the world-famous DeLorenzo’s Pies in New Jersey slice their pizza with an oyster knife? (SPOILER ALERT! Because that’s the way they’ve always done it!!)
 
There’s even a little section called, ”The Problem With Cutting Deep-Dish Pizza.” Some smartass is going to argue the problem is simply that it’s deep-dish pizza and to throw it in the trash. But truly, each pizza has its own cross to bear when it comes to slicing.
 
The section on cutting tools covers wheel cutters, the mezzaluna or “rock and roll” cutter, and scissors. I’m scratching my head over this assertion: “For most pizzas, scissors are the most effective cutting tool.” I suspect you have to have tried scissors to understand the scratching sound that’s coming from my scalp. But what do I know? I am neither a professional chef nor a technical genius.
 
There is more than you ever wanted to know about the origins of the pizza cutter. And all five paragraphs are totally worth reading. Because after that, we move on to…
 
“Holding Pizza Hot.” I have one word on how to do it. Ready? "Don’t." Most pizza styles do better by being cooled to room temp and then reheated. Pizzas that are held hot continue to change. However… (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?) there are exceptions. And if you’re a pro who needs to hold hot, the Modernistas’ favorite method by far (and the most economical to boot) is heat lamps over a perforated pan that prevents the crust from getting soggy.
 
And yes, there’s a chart! “Hot-Holding Whole Pizzas In A Pizzeria” looks at different pizza styles, recommended holding times, and a star rating for the various methods. For what it’s worth, on the Modernistas’ three-star scale (good, very good, exceptional), no method rates better the two stars.
 
The section titled “The 30-Minute Delivery Fiasco” is exactly what you expect. Plus, it offers a few facts that maybe you didn’t see coming. “The Future Of Pizza Delivery” says nothing surprising about tomorrow—but does tell us a few surprising historical facts about robot pizza delivery that you’ve probably never known. Zumba, a California company, was promising pizza-making robots in delivery vans capable of making 56 pizzas before being refilled. (They failed to deliver—ha!—after spending a lot of investor dollars.) Robots seem to still be a long way off.
 
“The Genius Of Pizza Boxes” talks about the demands we place on a simple, corrugated cardboard box. And thankfully (perhaps unsurprisingly) the Modernistas mention pizza-history guru Scott Weiner, who has a Guinness World Record for his pizza-box collection. The Independent calls it, “One of the most effusive displays of love for corrugated cardboard the world will ever know.”
 
Yes, there are photos of pizza boxes from around the world—almost 50 of them. And in case you were wondering, there’s an ode to “The Ubiquity Of The Pizza Saver.” If you don’t know the Pizza Saver by name, it’s the little plastic support that goes in the middle of the box and prevents cheese from sticking to the lid. (“Engineers consider it an ‘elegant solution.'”)
 
Here now: “Reheating Pizza”! Would you be surprised to learn that this section is comprehensive? No, of course not. Not if you’ve been following along for any of the dozens of reviews of the previous 13 chapters. Example: “When reheating a slice in any type of oven, the rim should face the door. This will allow you to place the spatula under the rim when removing the slice from the oven so the pizza slice is less likely to rip. Do not slide the spatula under the tip of the pizza first because this is the weakest point.” Glad to know that, right?
 
There are instructions for reheating in a home oven with baking steel. Reheating in a home oven with a broiler. And a toaster oven (which gets more props than you might imagine). And the three main professional ovens: deck oven, countertop oven and impinger oven.
 
There are also extensive instructions for reheating whole pizzas at home. Of course, those come with an extensive table for whole pizzas and slices, as well as ideas and a table for “Enhancing Leftover Pizza At Home.”
 
And finally, another experiment: “The Ultimate Leftover Pizza Slice”! They did a comprehensive deep dive into the best ways to get a crispy frico crust of baked cheese on various kinds of leftover pizza slices. Science!
 
They also introduce us to a kind of “grilled cheese” slice by reheating two slices face-to-face in a skillet. I admit, I did that little exercise myself right before writing this. It works! (Yes, Free The Pizza tries these things so you do’t have to.)
 
And they introduce the “pizzadilla,” which is a quesadilla-style leftover whole pizza folded in half. There are batch reheating methods for home and pro kitchens. There’s info on reheating specific styles of frozen pizza. And a dissertation on reheated versus baking fresh al taglio pizza. While more likely to be useful in a pro environment (unless you have a blast freezer at home), it’s still intel that is delivered in the typical concise and efficient yet quite insightful Modernist Pizza style.
 
Comprehensive advice here tells you how to store leftover pizza. The section on food-safety rules and regulations helps keep your pizza safe. There’s a little sidebar about a cryogenic pizza in Italy that’s frozen in a liquid-nitrogen refrigeration tunnel. And another about “The Quest For Shelf-Stable Pizza,” regarding the MRE-version of pizza for the military.
 
Want to Learn how to freeze pizza at home? It’s here, along with how to freeze Neapolitan pizza for retail purposes.
 
“The Case For And Against Frozen Pizza” is essentially boosterism for pizzerias that freeze their product well so you can order it online. They of course have a chart of heating instructions for various styles of pizza that’s been frozen.
 
And that is all she wrote. Mainly. There’s some back matter: Further reading; grain cooking instructions; conversion tables; resources; pizzerias visited; an index of various step-by-step procedures (Where do I find instructions on how to make a poolish, anyway?); and last but not least, right before the index, acknowledgements and a photo spread of The Faces: All the people who made all this possible. (Most of them are smiling! Really! How much fun must it have been making this book—and doing so through a pandemic?)
 
I admit relief that I’ve made it to the end. But I know it’s not over. This book will be an ongoing source of reference in the years of pizza to come. And I’m glad to know it’s here. To think I bought this 32-pound beast of a book with the idea that, “Well, I can return it within 90 days.” Ha! I scoff at myself freely. (So does my wife.)
 
At the outset of all this, I employed a word I rarely use, and I do not use it lightly: Awesome. Just unboxing Modernist Pizza is an awesome experience.
 
But there is just one thing I wish: That there was a Kindle edition (or a proprietary Modernist e-reader and an e-book version) of these volumes for those of us who own the book. It would make searching for things so much easier.
 
Other than that, reading these entire three volumes has been both work and a pleasure. Next time, a final farewell to the back cover of Modernist Pizza. That includes the answer to the age-old question: Was it worth it and should you buy it? 

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

​Midweek Modernist Pizza Report: After you've made all the pizzas, you gotta serve 'em, store 'em, reheat 'em--but how?

​“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?
How do you cut the pizza? That matters. It affects the visual aesthetic as well as the eating experience. If the pizza sits too long, it declines in quality. How do you prevent that? (Surprise! They’re going to even tell us how to do it--and even how to reverse it!)
 
Serving, holding, storing, reheating—the un-sexy parts of pizza making are here. Mhyrvold & Migoya are going to educate us in the things we never really think about so we can make our pizza as good as it can be. Whee!
 
The speed with which one must serve and eat pizza is dependent on a simple variable: How thick is it? Yes, there’s even a photo diagram. Naples, meet Chicago. A Neapolitan pizza should ideally be eaten within two minutes. A Chicago-style deep-dish has a “heroic” 26-minute window in which to eat it. In between are six other styles and times. And how did they figure out all this? “When we started our experiments for this chapter…”
 
They timed the crust’s internal temperature decline. And guess what: pizza cools faster once you’ve sliced it. Never thought about that, didja? Thank you, Modernist Pizza!
 
They also describe how the pizza characteristics change during cooling, as well as how it’s behaving during the ideal eating temperature. That’s great. I’m glad to know it. BUT—isn’t part of the eating experience trying to eat it while it’s too hot? Then, enjoying it while it’s perfect? And after that, eating a pizza that’s too cool, already longing for that perfect slice whose time has passed?
 
That’s just me? OK. Moving on…
 
There are descriptions of the physical challenges that occur as various types of pizza cool. And speaking of pizza serving problems, have you considered the problems of pizza in space? They’re described here, along with a photo of NASA astronauts eating pizza. Also, there's an account of Pizza Hut’s 2001 pizza delivery to the cosmonauts on the International Space Station.
 
Does your pizza pan have nubs? No? Those nubs will keep your pizza warmer longer. Yes, there’s a discussion of the best types of serving pans, there are also instructions on the best way to cut a round pizza—and why cutting a pizza into 10 slices is No! Fun! (Yes, there are tips on how to best execute even slicing.)
 
The purposeful square cut. The nonsensical strip cut. Math-based slicing protocols for pizza based on monohedral disc tiling. (Yes! Finally!) From sensible to zany, we’re talkin’ geometry. But only briefly.

What knives do and don’t work when cutting pizza? Why does the world-famous DeLorenzo’s Pies in New Jersey slice their pizza with an oyster knife? (SPOILER ALERT! Because that’s the way they’ve always done it!!)
 
There’s even a little section called, ”The Problem With Cutting Deep-Dish Pizza.” Some smartass is going to argue the problem is simply that it’s deep-dish pizza and to throw it in the trash. But truly, each pizza has its own cross to bear when it comes to slicing.
 
The section on cutting tools covers wheel cutters, the mezzaluna or “rock and roll” cutter, and scissors. I’m scratching my head over this assertion: “For most pizzas, scissors are the most effective cutting tool.” I suspect you have to have tried scissors to understand the scratching sound that’s coming from my scalp. But what do I know? I am neither a professional chef nor a technical genius.
 
There is more than you ever wanted to know about the origins of the pizza cutter. And all five paragraphs are totally worth reading. Because after that, we move on to…
 
“Holding Pizza Hot.” I have one word on how to do it. Ready? "Don’t." Most pizza styles do better by being cooled to room temp and then reheated. Pizzas that are held hot continue to change. However… (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?) there are exceptions. And if you’re a pro who needs to hold hot, the Modernistas’ favorite method by far (and the most economical to boot) is heat lamps over a perforated pan that prevents the crust from getting soggy.
 
And yes, there’s a chart! “Hot-Holding Whole Pizzas In A Pizzeria” looks at different pizza styles, recommended holding times, and a star rating for the various methods. For what it’s worth, on the Modernistas’ three-star scale (good, very good, exceptional), no method rates better the two stars.
 
The section titled “The 30-Minute Delivery Fiasco” is exactly what you expect. Plus, it offers a few facts that maybe you didn’t see coming. “The Future Of Pizza Delivery” says nothing surprising about tomorrow—but does tell us a few surprising historical facts about robot pizza delivery that you’ve probably never known. Zumba, a California company, was promising pizza-making robots in delivery vans capable of making 56 pizzas before being refilled. (They failed to deliver—ha!—after spending a lot of investor dollars.) Robots seem to still be a long way off.
 
“The Genius Of Pizza Boxes” talks about the demands we place on a simple, corrugated cardboard box. And thankfully (perhaps unsurprisingly) the Modernistas mention pizza-history guru Scott Weiner, who has a Guinness World Record for his pizza-box collection. The Independent calls it, “One of the most effusive displays of love for corrugated cardboard the world will ever know.”
 
Yes, there are photos of pizza boxes from around the world—almost 50 of them. And in case you were wondering, there’s an ode to “The Ubiquity Of The Pizza Saver.” If you don’t know the Pizza Saver by name, it’s the little plastic support that goes in the middle of the box and prevents cheese from sticking to the lid. (“Engineers consider it an ‘elegant solution.'”)
 
Here now: “Reheating Pizza”! Would you be surprised to learn that this section is comprehensive? No, of course not. Not if you’ve been following along for any of the dozens of reviews of the previous 13 chapters. Example: “When reheating a slice in any type of oven, the rim should face the door. This will allow you to place the spatula under the rim when removing the slice from the oven so the pizza slice is less likely to rip. Do not slide the spatula under the tip of the pizza first because this is the weakest point.” Glad to know that, right?
 
There are instructions for reheating in a home oven with baking steel. Reheating in a home oven with a broiler. And a toaster oven (which gets more props than you might imagine). And the three main professional ovens: deck oven, countertop oven and impinger oven.
 
There are also extensive instructions for reheating whole pizzas at home. Of course, those come with an extensive table for whole pizzas and slices, as well as ideas and a table for “Enhancing Leftover Pizza At Home.”
 
And finally, another experiment: “The Ultimate Leftover Pizza Slice”! They did a comprehensive deep dive into the best ways to get a crispy frico crust of baked cheese on various kinds of leftover pizza slices. Science!
 
They also introduce us to a kind of “grilled cheese” slice by reheating two slices face-to-face in a skillet. I admit, I did that little exercise myself right before writing this. It works! (Yes, Free The Pizza tries these things so you do’t have to.)
 
And they introduce the “pizzadilla,” which is a quesadilla-style leftover whole pizza folded in half. There are batch reheating methods for home and pro kitchens. There’s info on reheating specific styles of frozen pizza. And a dissertation on reheated versus baking fresh al taglio pizza. While more likely to be useful in a pro environment (unless you have a blast freezer at home), it’s still intel that is delivered in the typical concise and efficient yet quite insightful Modernist Pizza style.
 
Comprehensive advice here tells you how to store leftover pizza. The section on food-safety rules and regulations helps keep your pizza safe. There’s a little sidebar about a cryogenic pizza in Italy that’s frozen in a liquid-nitrogen refrigeration tunnel. And another about “The Quest For Shelf-Stable Pizza,” regarding the MRE-version of pizza for the military.
 
Want to Learn how to freeze pizza at home? It’s here, along with how to freeze Neapolitan pizza for retail purposes.
 
“The Case For And Against Frozen Pizza” is essentially boosterism for pizzerias that freeze their product well so you can order it online. They of course have a chart of heating instructions for various styles of pizza that’s been frozen.
 
And that is all she wrote. Mainly. There’s some back matter: Further reading; grain cooking instructions; conversion tables; resources; pizzerias visited; an index of various step-by-step procedures (Where do I find instructions on how to make a poolish, anyway?); and last but not least, right before the index, acknowledgements and a photo spread of The Faces: All the people who made all this possible. (Most of them are smiling! Really! How much fun must it have been making this book—and doing so through a pandemic?)
 
I admit relief that I’ve made it to the end. But I know it’s not over. This book will be an ongoing source of reference in the years of pizza to come. And I’m glad to know it’s here. To think I bought this 32-pound beast of a book with the idea that, “Well, I can return it within 90 days.” Ha! I scoff at myself freely. (So does my wife.)
 
At the outset of all this, I employed a word I rarely use, and I do not use it lightly: Awesome. Just unboxing Modernist Pizza is an awesome experience.
 
But there is just one thing I wish: That there was a Kindle edition (or a proprietary Modernist e-reader and an e-book version) of these volumes for those of us who own the book. It would make searching for things so much easier.
 
Other than that, reading these entire three volumes has been both work and a pleasure. Next time, a final farewell to the back cover of Modernist Pizza. That includes the answer to the age-old question: Was it worth it and should you buy it? 

If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. 

​The million-dollar question: Should you buy Modernist Pizza, or 16 other pizza books for about the same total price?

People have 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.
​
But to feel better about making such a decision, you want more details. So let’s dig in. And let’s start with the superficial aspects of it: the dollar-per-pound investment. Let’s see what you get for all that cash (which, by the way, is not $450, but is under $300 when you use this link ):

• The stainless-steel case
• Volume 1: History and Fundamentals
• Volume 2: Techniques and Ingredients
• Volume 3: Recipes
• A waterproof Modernist Pizza Kitchen Manual that contains all of the recipes. This “bonus volume” alone weighs almost two and a half pounds—which is more than most of the 16 other pizza cookbooks I own (not including the additional, dozen or so Kindle editions of pizza cookbooks that I own). In fact, it’s possible that Modernist Pizza outweighs all of my other physical edition pizza cookbooks combined.

So, what’s dollar-per-pound analysis of this one book against all those others? Well, at an average cover price of say 20 bucks each (for a total of $320) against the $294 discounted price of Modernist Pizza, the latter is a pretty good investment.
 
That’s because, in part, you need to consider the 7 pounds of ink required to produce Modernist Pizza. (That poundage is probably because of all the extraordinary photography being printed.) And by the way, 7 pounds isn’t a number I pulled out of the air. I heard Nathan Mhyrvold quote it in a podcast interview. (He's a fascinating guest who sounds like he loves what he does more than anyone on earth.)
 
Now let’s see what else that hefty price tag buys--which is so much more than just a how-to book. It’s a tour de force of research and development.
 
Consider the cost of researching the content of Modernist Pizza. Most every other pizza book you’re going to buy is based on the personal experiences of the author as a pizza pro. Research: zero. Life experience: 100%.
 
There are exceptions, of course. Peter Reinhart, author of several pizza books, is a bread pro, university instructor, consultant, and former bakery owner who is obsessed with pizza. To my knowledge, he’s made tons of pizza but has never worked in a pizzeria. A pro, yes--but not strictly a pizza pro. And there’s my book. It was written by a fool who has deluded himself into believing he makes pretty good pizza and tries to dumb it down for the newbie. I am a professional writer. (I have the paychecks to prove it.) Not a pizza pro. But for the most part, pizza books are written by pizza restaurateurs.
 
Modernist Pizza is written by Nathan Mhyrvold, a trained chef by avocation, who also happens to be an accomplished engineer by vocation. (If you don’t know, he used to be the CTO of a little company called Microsoft.) Mr. Mhyrvold partnered with Francisco Migoya, an accomplished chef (who also happens to be an accomplished artist).
 
Mhyrvold & Migoya’s names are on the cover of Modernist Pizza. Maybe we can consider them the Lennon & McCartney of 30-pound pizza books. Of course, this doesn’t include the 24 other names and photos at the back of the book, PLUS the 126 additional names that appear in a section called “Acknowledgements and Additional Contributors.” 
 
This book is a literally massive testimony to a love for pizza: The history of it, the making of it, and the sharing of it. Don’t discount that latter point, sharing, for a even a second. They’re happy to tell us that possibly the best pizza in the country is coming out of Dan Richer’s Razza in New Jersey or Sarah Minnick’s Lovely’s 50/50 in Portland, Oregon. But they’re also happy to say their favorite place was Red Sauce Pizza. To reiterate from earlier in this review, "It wasn't the fanciest pizza we tried; it wasn't the most technically accomplished or the most original; it wasn't even the best. But everything about this place, and this particular pizza, felt so satisfying that it struck exactly the right chord for us." It’s the one they kept talking about for months afterward. There's something so enviable and even charming about that. 
 
There is a true love for pizza at work here. Indeed, it would not have been possible without the love. The entire first volume of Modernist Pizza is a world travelogue. That takes an investment beyond sheer perseverance. You have to want that travel and that pizza. 
 
They visited 250 pizzerias around the world, visiting the world’s key pizza cities and places--like Naples and Campania, Rome, Northern Italy, São Paolo, Bueno Aires, Tokyo, New York, New Haven, Chicago, the Quad Cities, Old Forge, Detroit, Portland, and “the rest of the United States.”
 
I’m going to take a stab in the dark here and say that this book would’ve been even longer had there not been a pandemic. They apparently had to cut their travels short because of COVID. How many more cities would they have visited? How much more pizza would they have eaten? How many more volumes would there have been? (Don’t laugh. The predecessor books, Modernist Cuisine and Modernist Bread are each five volumes. By comparison, Modernist Pizza is an exercise in restraint.)
 
Then there’s the research and development. Yes, they made a lot of pizzas based on standard recipes. They also invented a lot of their own recipes. And in case you don’t think experimentation matters, this book is a total eye opener in terms of the best ways to make pizza, regardless of whether you’re a moderately obsessive amateur like me or you’re a total pro. They even did things in a machine shop to try out methods that didn’t exist. They tried crazy things like coloring every part of a pizza black to see if it affected how the pizza absorbed heat. (They also provide the recipe, which requires activated charcoal. The all-black pizza is a little disquieting in appearance. Or maybe that’s just me.)
 
There’s a lot of technical detail about how ovens work. There are experiments about things like solid metal doors versus doors with windows and how it impacts baking. There are sections about the process inside a baking dough that give you insight nobody else has. Food scientists might be aware of these things, but there’s no way we’d ever get that intel from any source we normally have available to us as consumers. 
 
And very important is this: The explanations of science and process and technique are all concise and easy to understand for an intelligent and interested layman. As someone who has both read and written a lot of dumbed-down tech for people with no background in tech, it is impossible to emphasize how helpful this is.
 
Are there things I don’t like about Modernist Pizza? That’s a tough question. This is supposed to be a critical review. Is the book perfect? No. A smattering of the writing is a little corny—and is exactly what I would expect from a world-class tech geek when he’s having fun. So it’s authentic. I’m for it. (In college, I lived in a dorm that had an entire floor of engineers. I had roommates who were engineers. I've worked alongside engineers. I’ve lived this. It’s the product of smart, funny, engaged people who live to push boundaries and occasionally revel in the absurd.)
 
Do some of the photos seem a little excessive? Well, most of the photography is stunning and revealing. But replicating Salvador Dali’s Persistence Of Memory as a photograph in pizza is…well, eccentric. But then, so is producing this book. And as a fan of Jasper Johns’ artwork, I admit a degree of affection for the photo called Jasper Johns With Pepperoni. (We don’t have time to get into a discussion of the abstract expressionism of Jasper Johns and why he painted flags. Just know that pepperoni is America’s favorite pizza topping.) Yes, excessive. Just like Modernist Pizza in all its glory. 
 
At the risk of sounding like some kind of sycophant, this work strikes me as close to perfect as possible. It should appeal to anyone who cares about pizza, and about making better pizza.
 
But—what If all you’re trying to do is make a pizza in a hurry? Then you don’t need a book like this for that. However, if you’re interested in understanding the wide world of pizza, if you’re interested in learning how to make the best product you can in your own home (or in a pizzeria), if you love the idea of history and context and the details and the idiosyncrasies, this might be the kind of book you need.
 
I’ve heard that there are people who hate Modernist Pizza. I don’t know who they are. I haven’t seen their reviews. I’ve searched for them. One guy on Amazon gave it a two-star review because it’s too heavy for his mother to lift. It’s not a “verified purchase” review, and could easily have been written by a troll. What do I know? Only that I’ve read this entire book cover-to-cover, all three volumes. And I’m glad to have done it.
 
I did see one comment on Pizzamaking dot com, where a gentleman admitted that it’s a lot of money. But pizza is what he loves doing. And he’s grateful to have a billionaire out there who’s interested in creating something like this so he could benefit from it.
 
I admit that it is indeed a lot of money—but I also believe this will be a lifelong resource. The day it arrived in a cardboard box with the word "HEAVY" printed on it in bold letters, I admit to being in awe. I long ago gave up any idea that I might return it. It will remain in my library long after many other books have been relegated to the recycling bin. Like the guy writing in Pizzamaking dot com, I also love doing pizza. I love it enough that I finally had to leave most of the groups of Pizza Social because there’s too much anger and ego running around in there to make it loveable. 
 
And at the end of the day whose time is measured on a clock whose face is the same shape as a pizza, loveability is what matters. If you love pizza, you will probably love Modernist Pizza. It’s a gift to pizza lovers at our level. It opens your eyes to what’s possible.
 
Some of the pizzas will make your head spin. You will see some of them and think, “I’d love to taste that pizza—but I’m certainly never going to make it. I don't think.” Modernist Pizza is about an expression of culinary art that never seems to get old for the people who practice it. And this was produced by a person who could be doing anything in the world he wants—and somehow, this was what he decided to do.
 
I applaud Nathan Mhyrvold and Francisco Migoya and all the Modernistas who made this book possible. Not that they care what I think. I will never even scratch the surface of the potential that this book carries as a cookbook. But I’m glad to try. And I’m glad to have waded through it all.
 
Thank you to Mr. Mhyrvold and his team. They did a brilliant job. And thank you, especially if you’ve stuck it out through all of these review installments. If my math is correct, there are 28 of them, including this one. If you’ve read all of them, you’re a stronger human being than I am. Thank you for playing. 
 
____
​
If the idea of owning a copy of Modernist Pizza attracts you like a moth to the candle flame, you can find it here. If you want a skinnier, simpler, sillier book that teaches only one kind of pizza, you can find Free The Pizza! here. ​