June 28, 2019 • 56 mins
This dish has inspired strong emotions and opposing opinions for hundreds of years. Anney and Lauren present a slice of pizza’s history, plus the science behind baking a good pie at home.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to save our production of I Heart
Radio and Stuff Media. I'm Any Rees and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum.
And today we're talking about pizza. Yes, you heard that correctly.
This is a very exciting day. It is. This one
is yes, a long time coming. And it goes out
to listener Bob, Yes, Yes, who once sent us pizza. Yeah,
(00:30):
from China. He I mean the pizzas weren't from China.
I believe he was in China at the time and
somehow got us pizzas delivered. And everyone in the office
we were the coolest people for a solid couple of hours.
Oh yeah, yeah, because everyone was just like, why are
there pizzas? And we were like, a listener sent them
and they were like whoa and we just nodded knowingly. Um.
(00:54):
And this also is kind of timely because as we
record this Independence Day, the fourth of July in the
United States is coming up, and pizza is pretty merka thing.
I mean, it's it's a many places like it. Oh yeah, um,
we get very excited about it. Yes, I don't think
(01:15):
it's really a fourth of July food. Oh, I think
you can make anything a fourth of July food. That
is a tangent. Okay, alright, so I done it. Um.
I feel like we've talked about this before, but when
it comes to pizza preferences, I like a thin crust margharita.
That's my favorite. That that would be my favorite as well.
I do like I do like a meatball on a pizza.
(01:37):
Um as I yes, I've mentioned before, and mushrooms are nice,
but yeah, class of margarita, man me. Yeah, that that
is what I need. But sometimes I am in the
mood for deep dish, and when I am, it's a
beautiful thing. Oh yeah, any well made pizza, I'm just like, well,
this is made of pizza, true, even some not so well.
Oh absolutely, there's a time in place. Oh yeah, yeah,
(01:58):
there's nothing it. I get more excited about when I'm
playing D and D specifically like tabletop gaming. I suppose
then like the smell of the heated cardboard pizza. Yeah,
was the first time we played together. We had pizza
and it was wonderful. Also see our delivery episode for
(02:19):
for we have more details on delivery and also pretty
pizza is pretty involved in the story of delivery and
modern delivery, right and then our our Pepperoni episode and
our frozen food episode Pizzas touched a lot. We used
to have a pizza fact. We did all the pizza fact.
Oh wow, this whole episode is pizza facts. But that
(02:42):
about brings us to our question, Yes, pizza, what is it? Well, um,
I do not want to start any trouble here, so
I'm going to be vaguely vague. A pizza is a
flat east is in wheat flour dough that's topped with
(03:02):
things and then baked so that the toppings and the
bread like incorporate a bit and the bread gets nice
and crusty. Those toppings are usually savory and often include
like a milty, gooey cheese and a sauce made from tomatoes.
It's often served as fresh and hot out of the
oven as possible. They are often cut into slices, either
squares or widges, and the slices are often shared out
(03:25):
among multiple eaters and consumed without using utensils. Yeah, if
you're not from the United States, I'm not sure that
I can explain to you how intense people get about
regional variations on this common theme. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
I mean it comes up in our politics like how
(03:46):
politicians eat their pizza. Yeah, it is hoof indeed, and
there's a million types of pizza, and that's only a
slight exaggeration. I'm pretty sure some people will argue over
what cows pizza like dessert, pizza, pizza bites, pizza bagels,
But there are a lot of options out there. In
(04:07):
any case, there is, of course Neapolitan New York, Chicago, Detroit,
Greek California, and Sicilian, which is really just to name
a few. Oh yeah, you know, like like how thick
is the crust? What's the ratio of a crispy to
chewy in the crust? Do the toppings go all the
way to the edge? Is your pizza around a rectangular?
Do you use a knife and fork to eat it?
Should the slices be foldable? Is it baked free form
(04:30):
or in a dish? What kind of oven is appropriate
and what fuel may be used therein? Back to the toppings,
which of those are appropriate and how much of them
is appropriate? Is your tomato sauce raw? When you bake
the pizza? It sounds like a personality quiz, like you're
trying to get to the bottom of whether or not
I'm a sociopath is depending on your answers to those questions.
(04:53):
Some people would absolutely be like, the lady is a
total sociopath. Oh no, very intense, very intense. Um. Italian listeners,
I am so curious, like do y'all argue about which
regional traditions are are the best or even real pizza
because we do that. We're like, oh, if it's a
deep dish pizza, that's not a real pizza. Or oh
(05:14):
it's not a deep dish pizza, that's not a real pizza. Yes. Um.
And speaking of sociopaths, I eat pizza crust first, and
I have received a lot of grief word strangers have
come up to me, stranger strangers, not even the people
sitting at your table whom you are there with on purpose,
(05:36):
other humans to like to like question what I am doing?
What is it like in a in a in like
a to make sure you're okay sort of way, or
is it or is it like a listen here, young lady.
It's almost there's a sense of bufuddlement, like whoa excuse me?
Are you eating that crust first? Mm hmmm, And it's
(06:01):
like I'm in a zoo and they have questions like, well,
tell me more about that. When did you start doing this?
Was there a traumatic experience in your childhood? What do
you think about the crust? I mean questions after questions,
and I just well, I'm happy to talk about it.
Is it a pizza eating experience? Is it because you
you like the center of the pie the best, and
(06:23):
and so you're saving that for last? Yeah, okay, pretty much.
I just feel like, uh, this way, I'm gonna end
on a cheesy, buttery topping note and the crust is
usually good, but it's not like it's not my favorite. Yeah. Yeah,
so it kind of like eating it last because it's
sort of like the like weird like dessert at the
(06:43):
end of the pizzle. So that's interesting. Yea. I I
recently learned researching for this episode that um, sometimes the
pizza it's meant the crust is meant to be a
dessert like it in Honey. Yeah, So maybe you're onto something.
You know, people are different eat their pizza. They're always
and that's just that speaking of that's just that nutrition. Oh,
(07:08):
it depends a lot. I mean, you're most basic here.
You're talking about bread with some cheese on it and
like a little bit of vegetable, which is not a
health food unless you're talking about mental health, which counts,
which totally counts. It does. Um, yeah, it's you know,
i'd say, don't go overboard, try not to, try not
(07:30):
to all the time, all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
be mindful. Yeah. Man, there's another pizza memory. I just
I used to order pizza without cheese. What was that doing?
Oh dude, you were not living your best life. I
was a kid. What kind of weirdo kid does that? Sorry?
Anybody out there's like I have left. Yes, that's totally no,
(07:52):
that's valid. Yeah, absolutely, it's strange to me as someone
who loves cheese. Now I was about to say, you're
making up for it, so oh yes I am. Um.
Numbers somewhere around three billion pizzas are sold each year
in the United States, and that comes out to around
forty six slices of person. The government sponsored the most
(08:13):
government sponsors study of Americans pizza eating habits, and they
found that on any given day, percent of Americans ages
two and up, we'll eat some pizza. What's the government
looking into this? I think that they realized that it's
a very popular food, and they were like how popular
and like, how what kind of nutritional density are people
(08:34):
getting from this? And uh, that's true because we do
have it in a lot of our school lunches as
a vegetable. We've talked about that before. Oh yeah, it's
ah it is. Oh goodness, I'm forgetting the specific compound
in tomatoes that is sometimes like oh that's good for you, like, um, yes,
thank you, right right, because of because of like like
(08:57):
like werewolves, because where well was obviously, um, it is
people's primary source. Oh dear, oh dear, I guess that's
not surprising, but oh dear, well on on days that
they eat pizzas, sure, sure, yeah, And I guess the
government has been really interested in like we talked about
(09:18):
in our m R. E episode, in our Space Food episode,
people love pizza. How can we capture this in those forms? Um? Oh?
And I read that globally a little bit over five
billion pizzas are sold every year, though I couldn't back
that number up, so I don't know. The largest pizza
chain is Pizza Hut, with over six thousand, six hundred
(09:40):
locations in the United States and over four thousand internationally.
I went to one in China and it was a
super fancy experience. I was not expecting that. I went
and think, oh, I'll just get a pizza, um, and
don't get mad at me. I was in China for
a long time. It wasn't like I was, oh, pizza, hut,
I'll go there. No, this was I was very for
a long time and um, it was like a sit down,
(10:02):
fancy claw table experience and cut the pizza. For me,
it was the whole thing. Yeah, I'm picturing like that
scene in Demolition Man, like all restaurants are taco bell
like so like, I don't know, like very fancy anyway. Um,
when we're talking about delivery, Dominoes, is King also talking
(10:24):
about chain still um? And they also lead the way
on pizza delivery technology. There's the hot spot, um, which
is where you just turn on your GPS wherever you
are are, within reason, wherever you are, and they will
show up and deliver the pizza there. And I saw
someone used this recently and it blew my mind. It blew.
They were into me in the middle of a parking lot. Yeah,
(10:44):
and they just received a pizza. Yeah. Uh. Um. The
pizza tracker, the pizza shoes, these shoes that can order
pizza after you run, however long you're supposed to run for,
does it order the pizza? I need to immediately after
my workout. I need a pizza. The pizza sex story. Um,
(11:05):
there's the corrugated pizza box and the hot bag. Domino's
ladies claim to both of those. Okay. Um, My brother
used to order Papa John's so often in college that
when he went a week or so without ordering it,
they called him to make sure everything was okay. I
(11:25):
was in the car with him as he received this call,
and I was like, Oh, my goodness, who was that.
Papa is so bizarre and sweet. It blew my mind
and completely amazing. I have never you know, that's a relationship.
That's true. I guess if you order it sounds like
(11:47):
he was ordering multiple times a week. Yeah. Sure. They
were like, hey, buddy, okay, oh man as disgusting our
pepperoni episode. This is by far the number one topping
in the United States two and fifty two million pounds
of pepperoni a year. Poor anchoes rank as least popular
(12:10):
um here in this country anyway. Different countries have different
favoriteslled ginger and minced mutton. In India, squid and a mayo,
bacon and potato combo in Japan, green peas in Brazil,
coconut and Costa Rica. I have a shrimp and some
kind of sauce pizza and Japan and you and super
producer Dylan. It's been a good five minutes recently making
(12:33):
fun of one of my late night pizza delivery spots
and the baby Many. It has as all kinds of
topics like anything you can imagine. Oh yeah, I mean
people like putting stuff on pizzas. Yes, this is true,
and there were a number of combinations that I didn't understand.
(12:56):
It's fair, but as I made my case, there's only
four options available from the hours of two am to
four am where I live, so that is one of them. No, no,
it wasn't judgment. Okay, it was mirth. Okay, I'll take that.
I'll take that. Um. The record for most expensive pizza
(13:17):
goes to the Pizza Royal Double seven and it was
made for a fundraiser and topped with gold lobster caviar
soaked in champagne, smoked salmon and venison for three thousand euros,
which is around four thousand, four hundred thirty dollars. Um.
There's also the luxury Pizza in New York City, which
I think we talked about in our Edible Gold episode,
(13:38):
running you one dollars a slice and one thousand for
the whole twelve inch pie. If you're curious about the tappings,
cream fresh, lobster, and six types of cave six six.
All right, you know, And look, there are so many
pizza records there's no way we can go through all
of them. Um. But there's the largest, which is one
(14:00):
hundred and twenty two point seven feet or thirty seven
point four meters pizza out of Johannesburg. And apparently that
one wasn't eaten because there's a record for the largest
made and eat Oh it was made in Havanah, Florida
in seven and yielded nine four thousand two slices. And
there's a record for the longest pizza delivery and it
(14:21):
was from London to Melbourne, Australia. That's that's not a
that's not that's not a delivery anymore. That's your pizza
is cold. At that point, maybe this person likes cold pizza. Hey,
that's a separate food. That's a suffarate food for pop pizza.
We need a whole other, whole other episode to discuss that.
I am unprepared to talk about cold pizza today. You're right, well, Uh,
(14:46):
Pizza is ranked as the processed food most associated with
sometimes of addiction type eating behavior, according to the Yale
Food Addiction Scale. UM researchers say that in addition to
pizza's heavy doses of salt and carbs and fat, which
are all things that make your brain pretty happy, um,
it's contrasting textures, contrasting colors, and a combination of all
(15:08):
the basic flavor groups in one dish are what really
gets you. Yeah. Yeah. We talked about that a little
bit in our pepperoni episode as well, that one of
the reasons it was so readily adopted was that contrast
of color. Yeah yeah, yeah, the the white cheese and
then the good red pepperoni. Right yeah. And also, yes,
now that I think about it, it is commonly associated
with drunk food or high food, yeah, which kind of
(15:33):
goes into this next point. Pizza is popular, and I
mean it probably goes without saying, but I would I
would recommend that you take two seconds and think of
all the pizza inner pop culture and just what comes
to mind first. Um, I think of the pizza, the
Hut Pizza Slust and the Ninja Turtles. Ninja Turtles. I
(15:55):
think that's fine. Yeah, Liz shot gunning that pizza on
thirty Your Rock. Um, the SpongeBob episode where he's trying
to deliver the pizza. And that song that got sick
in my head while doing this, Um, the Mary Kayton
Ashley's song give Me Pizza, which super producer Andrew and
I had a long pre recording discussion about. Yeah, yeah,
(16:15):
there is a high version of that as well, slowed down.
Um yeah, now that's in my head too. Uh yeah,
one bite. Everybody knows the rules, that guy, that's the
one that I think of. Now. Yeah, so much, so
many shirts, so much merchandise out there. Oh yeah, one
of my friends has a shirt that says, oh, I'm
(16:37):
forgetting exactly what it is, friend right in, I'll ask
you later. I'm it's something to the extent of like
of like, feelings are boring, Pizza is awesome. But that's
actually a shirt from Dinosaur Comics that says feelings are boring,
kissing is awesome. I don't know anyway, So pizza is
better than kissing. Well, pizza is better than feelings. Pizza
(17:01):
is feelings. I feel like there's some kind of logic
thing that just happened. Well, well, indeed, well that brings
us to some history, some pizza history. But first it
brings us to a quick break for word from our sponsor,
(17:31):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Pizza history. Okay.
Depending on how you define pizza, it can go way back,
all the way to first century b C. When early
civilizations and what is now Europe would eat flat bread,
occasionally topped with things. Archaeologists found three thousand year old
(17:55):
evidence on in Sicily of flattened bread and the tools
used to flatten it. Similar items spread throughout Europe over
the next couple of hundred years and beyond, with many
evolving to suit the ingredients and taste of different regions,
and many of those still exist today. They went on
their own, like pizza pass In these early versions, something
(18:17):
approximating bread was baked on hot stones, then seasoned and
used in the place of utensils to soak up broth
and gravy. And I'm laughing because it reminds me of
my traumatizing medieval times. Experience, and I didn't realize that
you were supposed to use the bread to get the soup.
So I picked up the bowl of soup and tried
to drink it because you know, they don't give you
any at medieval times. And it was so hot and
(18:41):
bird and I built it everywhere. I'm surprised at for
as traumatized as you always sound when you bring this up,
that you really want to go back to medieval times,
I want you and nil it. And as you're to
experience it, and plus you'll learn from my mistake, you
won't make the same thing. That's very true. That's very true.
I love it. Love when they ask if you want
to it's my favorite. Um well. Similar flatbreads were developed
(19:10):
pretty much all over the world right. One of the
first recorded mentions of pizza comes to us from Darius
the Great in the five hundred BC Ish Range, who
described his soldiers cooking flat and bread on their shields
and topping this flat and bread with dates and cheese.
By the eighth century BC, Greek colonies and what's now
southern Italy, we're making a flatbread topped with oil, garlic, onion, herbs,
(19:35):
and um. Small fisher or minced meat if you were fancy.
In the third century b c. Cato the Elder wrote
the First History of Rome, and in it he described
cout flat round of dough dressed with olive oil, herbs,
and honey, baked on stones. Plato also mentioned cakes made
of barley flour baked with cheese and olives, and it
was around this general time that Greek bakers were spreading
(19:58):
Egyptian bread making techniques through out the Mediterranean. Um levined
needed dough cooked in these out roofed ovens rather than
than over opened fire. Ah. Yes, then we get this
from Virgil's anneed beneath a shady tree, the hero spread
his table on the turf with cakes of bread, and
with his chiefs on forest fruits. He fed. They sate,
(20:20):
and not without the God's command. They're homely fair dispatched.
The hungry band invade their trenches next, and soon devour
to mend the scanty meal their cakes of flour. Scannys
this observed and smiling said, see we devoured the plates
on which we fed. Oh. Archaeologist found evidence of pizza
and the remains of Pompeii street stands where vendors sold
(20:43):
pizza bakeries, and pizza making tools. The word pizza first
shows up in N seven in Italy, and that first
mentioned um was in a list of donations due to
the Bishop of Naples Um from from domain tenants. It
this this list that twelve pizzas should be delivered to
him every Christmas and every Easter. Etymologists think it comes
(21:05):
from an old Italian word for point, and later it
evolved into an Italian word meaning to plug or to
pitch or clamp, and yeah, that's that's one suggestion. Other theories,
because there are a bunch of theories about this, are
that the modern word pizza evolved from a root meaning
cake or pie um, that the same root as the
Greek pita sort of makes sense, or that it evolved
(21:28):
from this Proto Germanic root for for a bite or
a morsel, which the word for which eventually became a
beso or piso um, or from another Greek word meaning congealed,
or or from other Latin words meaning either like decorated
or flattened. Lots of options. There are as a possibility
(21:51):
I think I think it was just a whole zeitgeist
of of of words that let us pizza. I wish
you listener could see. It's modern Italian for pie, which
makes saying pizza pie quite funny to me personally. Pipe
pie pie pie piepie, Share me too. Apicius's cookbook That's
(22:17):
Fun to Say included several recipes for a pizza, like
dish putting toppings on bread. Um. Many also came with
the instruction cool and snow and yeah, okay, when brick
evans were invented, flatbread was ideal because it was easier
to get in there. Then we skip ahead just a
little to the sixteenth century and the tomato arrives in Europe.
(22:41):
And now, if you listen to our tomato episode, you
know that the tomato was not super popular at first
because of that like canthropy thing. Yeah that it might
it's either poisonous or it might turn you into werewolf,
a dead wear wolf. Oh no, oh gosh, that would
be terribly immediately. Um, but this was kind of a
(23:06):
rich person thing. Poor people didn't have the option to discriminate.
And also they didn't run into the same problem with
their fancy silver ware not resting I'm sorry, tarnishing right
with the acid and tomato. So the tomato was seen
as this food for poor people. Another food on the
scene at the time mozzarella. It got its first known
(23:26):
mentioned in an Italian recipe book in fifteen seventy. In
the eighteenth century, Fernando the Fourth tast a chef at
his summer palace with whipping up some pizza and his
father's famous porcelain ovens. It was his wife's favorite. Chefs
and Naples started to experiment with tomatoes on their pizza
creations in the sixteenth century, and by the eighteenth century
(23:48):
pizza is a really popular food in Naples, especially in
the poorer areas. Visiting tourists and sailors really enjoyed it too,
um So, seeing a need to organize the pizza vendors
came to other to form the first pizzaria in eighteen thirty.
In eighteen eighty nine, a Naples pizza maker by the
name of Rafael Esposito made Umberto, the first King of
(24:11):
Italy and his wife, Queen Margarita di savoia Um, both
of whom were traveling and we're tired of French food,
which was kind of the like Reich, the in thing
to do for the people at the time, So he
made them three pizzas, one with the colors of Italy,
white mozzarella, green basil, and red tomato. And the Queen
liked this third one so much that she sent a
(24:34):
letter of thanks to the creator, and after that he
named it the Margharita. It was a hit, and it
spread throughout the country, and it endeared the queen to
her subjects, to most royalty would not openly dine not,
I mean much less praise so called peasant food. Oh sure,
And we need to talk about what was going on
(24:55):
in Italy at the time for a second, Okay, because
this isn't just like a charming story. No, that country
was in a tumultuous process of becoming that country um unification.
Naples had long been their own independent kingdom. The Queen
was traveling around the country trying to ease this process
of unification um. And so perhaps it's no coincidence that
(25:18):
she chose that pizza with the colors of the Italian flag.
I mean, perhaps it was her favorite, but it could
have also been hey like political like be like exactly,
And perhaps it's no coincidence that the chef made it
for her um and her stamp of approval made people
regarded as Italian, which was a big deal because Italy
(25:38):
was new Italian. What is italian um? So yeah, this
was This was a big moment in Italy's history and
also in the history of pizza, and prior to unification,
the rest of what is now Italy looked down upon
Naples as a poor port area and often derighted their food.
(26:00):
Samuel Morris, who was the inventor of the telegraph, described
pizza like this in one quote, species of the most
nauseating cake, covered over with slices of pomdora or tomatoes,
and sprinkled with little fish and black pepper, and I
know not what other ingredients. That all together looks like
a piece of bread that has been taken reeking out
(26:20):
of the sewer. Oh that is rude, right, Come on, yes,
I share your personal affront of this. I am Samuel Morris.
You you had a couple of good ideas, but you
didn't know from pizza, damn straight. At the dawn of
the twentieth century, the economic situation in Italy was quite poor,
(26:43):
and over four million Italians made the journey to the
United States. As Italian immigrants came over to the US,
they brought their cuisines with them, especially in cities like Philadelphia, Chicago,
and New York. Lombardies in New York City was the
first pizza restaurant to open in the United States, and
at the time pizzas were frequently called tomato pies. Oh yeah,
(27:05):
and that was in nineteen o five. A Neapolitan immigrant
by the name of Antonio Pero had started making pizza's
for Lombardies Grocery a couple of years back, and they
were so popular that they decided to open a whole shop. Yes,
and from what I understand it closed for a while.
What is open again? Still can't go. At first, pizza
vendors stuck largely to Italian neighborhoods, but it didn't take
(27:25):
long before they branched out, selling to traffic on nearby streets.
The word pizza, although spelled p i z z, appeared
in American newspapers as early as nineteen o three. America's
generally agreed on to be second pizzria. Joe's Tomato Pies
opened in Trenton, New Jersey, in nineteen ten or some
sources I saw nineteen twelve, and for a long time
(27:49):
pizza was looked down upon here in the United States
as dirty, disgusting and ethnic food for the poor. Um.
Just as Italians were discriminated discriminated against, so was their food.
And I remember and I can't find it. I tried
to find it, but there was this I think it
was the New York Times. Oh, I don't want to
call out the New York Times. It wasn't you. It
was a big publication, um. And there was an article
(28:11):
about like these gross foods and in it are all
of our like still fit like like like now they're
their favorite, our favorite foods. Like what are they doing
with this lasagna? Yeah? How gross can you get? It
was like spaghetti, apple pie, pizza, Like it wasn't mac
and cheese, but it was something approximating mac and cheese.
(28:34):
It's just strange now, um, but yeah, pizza was it? Yeah?
More and on board racism is real serious, it really is. Um.
What it turned the boat around is American soldiers returning
from World War Two and they brought back with them
a love of pizza. And this really catapulted pizza popularity
(28:58):
outside of Italian communities, um in the United States. And
another thing that helped were Italian celebrities like Frank Sinatra
singing pizza's praises literally yes, like Dean Martin with this
lyric and apologies in advance for the earworm. But when
the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie,
that's a more um More and more pizzeria's started opening
(29:20):
across the country. In a returning soldier built the first
gas fired Baker's Pride Pizza oven, and tourism helped too.
It was cheaper than ever for Americans and other folks.
She traveled to Italy and try their food, and this
encouraged restaurants to offer more quote Italian food, which was
(29:41):
mostly what soldiers had brought back with them to their
home countries. That's what people envisioned Italian food to be
who are visiting, and pizza was a big part of that. So,
in a weird way, American tourism helped solidify pizza as
Italian and then they took it an americanized because that's
how we do. Yeah, it's a lot and let us
(30:07):
dish on the deep dish this style of pizza. And
I know if you would disagree with the usage of
pizza here allegedly goes back to and one Ike Suel,
a Texan looking for a heartier option at his Chicago pizzeria,
to set it apart. I love that. I love that,
(30:29):
the heartier option. This we'll do the trick. I had
one of the most dramatic conversations of my life over
deep dish pizza. What a comedy of errors that was. Like,
if you've got to choose a food to have a
dramatic conversation over, don't choose deep dish pizza. There's gonna
be cheese dripping oil everywhere, pizza sauce oozing just like
(30:52):
the tears and snapped down your face. It was not good,
like such a comforting food. That's why I think I
made that mistake. This will help carves and cheese. No, no, no, okay, Julie.
Not to thank you, You're welcome. Colorado's Rocky Mountain Pie
(31:13):
also got going around, this time with a wider crest
meant to be dipped in honey. Yeah, to make a dessert.
The first commercial pizza pie mix, Oh I did the
pizza pie thing, debuted in nineteen forty eight in Massachusetts,
um quote Roman pizza mix. It was called frozen Pizza
made its way into grocery stores a decade later, and
(31:34):
as we said in our Frozen Food episode, it's the
most popular frozen food in this country. Ye. Pillsbury went
on to purchase one of the first folks selling frozen pizza,
Totinos in nineteen seventy five for twenty million dollars. Huh wow.
And at first pizza was a very local thing. The
mozzarella was made fresh or brought locally, the tomato, sauce
(31:56):
and dough made in house. It was a popular option
for workers on their lunch break our friends hanging out
at bars. Um, Pizza is easily shared unless you're super hungry,
and I've been there certain Yeah. I had a friend
in college who was like, it's so convenient that pizzas
are single serving. I had a friend in college who
(32:17):
we notoriously would order one pizza, eat it all, look
at each other and order I don't know why we
didn't just like just order two pizzas, just except what
we were going to do. I think we always had
this idea of maybe this time will be better. No.
Pizza EA's were frequently twenty one and up at the time,
(32:37):
and they were a placed for people to hang out
that wasn't work our home, and I'm assuming by people
they mean men here. Um. And then along come the chains,
the pizza chains. The first Pizza Hut opened its doors
in Wichita, Kansas and nineteen fifty eight. Little Caesar's opened
in Michigan in nineteen sixty, and then in nineteen sixty one,
Domino's delivered their first pizza, also in Michigan. And these
(33:00):
chains changed our pizza escape forever. Um. Instead of local
stuff ingredients were made cheaply at central location and then
shipped to franchise ease off. The non chain pizzeria's couldn't
compete and ended up closing their doors. And here is
a Hawaiian pizza sidebar. This was the topic of a
(33:20):
couple discussions while we were recently in Hawaii. It was indeed, Um,
you may be shocked, but probably won't be to learn
that this pizza topped with pineapple and Canadian bacon did
not come out of Hawaii. No. A Greek man who
was living in Canada by the name of Sam Panapulo's
claims who had invented it in nineteen sixty two, when
(33:41):
America was writing high on the tiki trend. Makes sense, Yes, Um.
Carmela Vitale patented the package saver in nine five. And
those are those little mini three legged tables that keep
pizza boxes from collapsing. And you can see our delivery
episode for more on that. And then there are so
(34:02):
many Dominoes legends. Oh my goodness. Um thirty minutes our
last thing that went away officially in nine due to
again officially through conditions and weather. Um. The company settled
several cases out of court. Um. Tom Monahan, the founder
of Domino's Pizza, sold the chain in n for one
billion dollars. His next project involved creating an all Catholic
(34:26):
town in Florida that bands abortions, birth control, and pornography. Um. Yeah,
no where, I'm not retiring last Ira. It has thirty
thousand residents, including five thousand students. Alright, Dobino Sky. This
was on Snopes. Well. In Papa Murphy started the take
(34:47):
in bake pizza trend, where consumers buy freshly made, but
unbaked pizzas to cook at home. Okay. Also in ninety five,
Pizza Hut debuted the stuffed crust pizza. According to the
woman who developed it, want Patty Sidneyer, she got the
idea when this guy on a tasting panel reported that
he never eats the crust. He always gives it to
(35:07):
his dog. And then after that, it took three years
of development and of convincing the brass of the public
would be even vaguely interested. They were like, clearly, no
one is going to want this product, what are you
talking about? I know right. Early experiments involved wrapping sticks
of string cheese and dough, but both the cheese and
the dough had to be reworked to get the textures
(35:29):
and stability right. They rolled it out with a national
ad campaign that costs them forty five million dollars and
featured Donald and Ivana Trump. Wow, but intrigue later stuffed
crusted pizza intrigue. Later in the nineties of Brooklyn Night
sued Pizza Hut for a billion bucks for patent infringement.
(35:50):
He had a patented a stuffed crust pizza process. He
wound up losing the suit because Pizza Hut used a
different process to get the same outcome. I good news. Yeah.
On December ninth, two tho nine, the European Union named
Naples Neapolitan pizza part of Europe's culinary heritage. And puts
protection around it in place. Um it stipulates that only
(36:14):
San Marzano tomatoes and fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese be used.
The True Neapolitan Pizza Association only recognizes two types of
pizza as authentic Marinara and Margarita. To meet these standards,
the pie has to be round no more than thirteen
and three quarters inches in diameter, which made me laugh
(36:34):
and laugh and laugh. Tall pizza I mean relatively yeah
well yeah, um. The center must be less than one
tenth of an inch tall, crusts less than three fourth
of an inch thick, and completely hand kneaded, and it
has to use specific types of yeast, flower, salt, and tomatoes.
Thanks to host works for all of this info. Um.
The official Marinara pizza calls for extra virgin olive oil, tomato, garlic,
(36:57):
and marinara. And it's named after the fisherman's wife who
would cook the dish for her husband while he was
out fishing. Twenty marks when Major Chain started offering gluten
free pizza dough, and then on the other end in
we see things like the hot dog stuffed crust pizza. Yeah, y'all,
(37:19):
pizza just keeps one upping itself. Um. The ultimate stuffed
crust includes pepperoni, sausage, bacon, and cheese. Um. The stuffed
garlic knots pizza has like a row of garlic knots
around the edge that you can pull off. In the
Middle East and then Canada they debuted crown crust pizzas
and these if y'all have never seen one, it it
looks like the pizza is an amba that's sending off
(37:42):
nubbins all around its edge, and each nubbin of crust
contains a little bite of something like a tiny burger
patty topped with a tiny square cheese for cheese burger
crown crust pizza, or like a tan a chicken nugget. Um.
I don't know, I don't really understand it. Um, I
love the tenacity. Um. There was a Derito's crunchy crust
(38:05):
pizza in Australia and a cheesy Marmite stuffed crust pizza
in New Zealand. That sounds like a lot. I mean,
all of these are a lot, but I feel like
a little mermaid. That's the key is you use a
little Oh sure, yeah, I'm not sure. How much is it?
How much is involved. I don't think it's as much
as like they're like a yeah, oh my gosh, oh um. Yeah.
(38:32):
So lots of pizza innovation abounds, Yes, whether it was
needed or not, in abounds. I suspect it will continue.
But that about brings us to today. It does, and
it brings us to some pizza science. But first it
brings to one more quick break for a word from
our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you.
(39:05):
So there is a lot of science that goes into
making whatever kind of pizza it is that you are
going for. No judgment um, because the crust is probably
just flour, water, oil, salt, yeast, and sugar. Um. The
ratio of all of those things matters a whole lot. Um.
(39:27):
In a thinner crust situation, a little bit more oil
gives you a more tender bite, by the way, um,
and then you've got to work with that yeast. Pizza
is a leavened bread, so you're looking at proofing the dough,
letting the yeast eat sugars an excrete carbon dioxide and
flavor for some period of time. Longer times give the
final product more lift and stronger flavor. Very long times
(39:49):
may let lactic acid bacteria get in on the flavor
game too, if you're into that sort of thing. Yeast yeah. Um,
and the ways you bring the dough together and shape
it out matter a lot too. Um. Mixing and kneading
does will will prompt chains and even sheets of gluten, stretchy,
(40:09):
springy gluten to form as the proteins in the flower
interact with with the water that you've added. Uh. Some
pizzas are made to be spongey, some tender, some chewy,
some crispy, some flaky, or some combination of the above.
Oh yeah, And because people like pizza and it's fun,
there is a decent amount of published scientific research about
(40:33):
pizza that does not surprise me. Yeah. Co worker Ramsey,
he has this habit of leaving random we have one
of those peel day onion. He leaves random entries by
my desk. The first when he left by my desk
was drunk. Nutritionist recommend eating frozen pizza at three am.
(40:56):
Oh yeah, that's solid. Yeah. Other good studies perhaps, well,
maybe not a study, but but an equation. One mathematician
by the name of Eugenia Chang created an equation describing
the perfect amount of toppings to put on a pizza
based on the thickness of the dough, and a paraphysicists
(41:20):
published paper titled the Physics of Baking a Good Pizza,
where in this is going to be contentious for some
of y'all, I'm sorry, A good pizza was defined as
a class margharita made in a wood fired brick oven
in Rome. Like. To do this research, they consulted a
pizza allow which I love. Um, okay, so what they
(41:45):
broke this down using all of these thermodynamics equations and okay,
so what's what's going on in this in this type
of pizza oven is that, um, it's designed to get
really hot, about six five degrees fahrenheit, which is like Celsius.
And they're they're designed to to radiate that heat evenly
(42:06):
through the air inside. If you've never seen one of
these things, and you probably have, it's sort of like
a it's shaped sort of like a like a turtle.
Um and uh and and and the head portion of
the turtle is is sometimes a separate chamber, but sometimes
just a corner of the oven where the fire is
actually burning. And then um, the the flat floor and
(42:28):
the domed ceiling. I'm trying to I'm visually gesticulating around
the microphone. It's very silly. I don't know why I'm
doing this. You're helping. Okay, well that's that's what really counts.
I guess. Oh, you're welcome. Um. Uh then then the yeah.
So you've got flat brick on on the floor of
(42:49):
the oven and this domed ceiling and uh yeah, yeah.
The domed ceiling absorbs that heat from the fire and
slowly transfers it to the air, which transfers it in
turn to the pizza. UM. The brick flooring, meanwhile, transfers
heat to the crust directly. A good pizza in these
conditions is only cooked for two minutes. The crust is
(43:10):
so thin that that's all it needs. UM. If the
toppings need a little extra bit past that, that's when
the pizza maker will will slide their spade in and
lift the pizza up for maybe another thirty seconds. UM.
That's to give the crust a break from the direct
heat of the flooring. UM. The top of the pizza
receiving indirect heat will get up to about two d
and twelve fahrenheight, a hundred celsius and stay there. Um,
(43:31):
that's the temperature which water boils. Um. And so what's
happening here is that water content from the cheese and
the sauce is going to be steaming out and kind
of controlling the temperature right above the pizza. Um. But
the bottom of the pizza with that direct heat, will
heat all the way to about fahrenheit or two hundred
celsius as as it cooks. So the researchers figured all
(43:53):
of this out and again using thermodynamics, determined that in
a home electric oven, you can replicate these conditions by
baking your pizza for a hundred and seventy seconds at
four hundred and fifty fahrenheight a k a t thirty celsius,
adding a little bit of extra time if your toppings
have high water content, because as that water boils off,
(44:16):
the air in the oven will cool. Um yeah, necessitating
a few extra seconds. Oh man, I can't wait to
try that. More recommendations. Um, My very favorite food science
writer j Kenji Lopez Alt recommends um pre heating a
pan or preferably a slab of baking steel or of
(44:37):
baking ceramic too and thirty degrees fahrenheit. That's Um, that's
two twenty celsius and then baking your pizza on it
under the broiler for like a minute or two and
twenty seconds. Um. He also recommends resting your do in
the fridge for a full three to five days to
(45:00):
let the flavor and texture of the dough develop, with
the bonus of it also being more workable at that
point because those gluten's will be really well formed. Oh,
three to five days, I know, I have to plan
for this. Yeah. I've only tried to make pizza once
and it turned out okay. Yeah. Yeah, I've never made
it from scratch. It's the dough that yeah, I mean
(45:24):
maybe that's obvious. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty intimidated by East
does even Like I like, I grew up making east
bread with my grandmother, but but I I never She
just did it so confidently, you know, like she didn't
really measure anything. She just kind of like threw all
the ingredients together and like she just had she knew
by feel and by like like vague sense of like, oh,
I've hung up this many shirts on the on the line,
(45:46):
so it's time to go like knock the bread down again.
Oh I love that kind of stuff. I'm very envious
of it. Yeah, yeah, you know she made it like
at least once a week for years and years, and
I I think it had like I think her teaching
me that way, I had sort of the opposite of
the intended effect, Like I was like, like, this is impossible.
(46:07):
I don't understand. I feel like there's a Disney movie there, like,
you know, you got to learn your own way. So cute,
this is um. We recently were at Atliana Food and
Wine and the second day we were there, I don't
(46:29):
think you were there. It's just me, and it really
cracked me up because there was I mean at sevent
d plus options of things to eat try and the
longest line was for a pizza that was making it
in this way like you could see them with the Yeah,
they had a portable oven. Yeah. And it cracked me
up because it was the longest line and everybody in
(46:50):
the line at some point would be like, it's just pizza.
I mean, we can get pizza, and then the other
person whoever they said that too, would remain silent. I
heard it many times and we all waited it out.
Oh God, and then it's gone. It's like a little
vite this second. But that's beautiful. It was you know,
(47:14):
yeah we do, we do, you know all all y'all
from other places, like right, and like let us know,
Like I can't, I kind of can't imagine. It's such
an ingrained part of American culture at this point. Yeah,
that I get confused when I hear about places that
don't have a whole lot of like cheap available pizza.
(47:36):
Yeah yeah, like um, or even really good pizza like
I remember UM growing up. I don't know how many
people remember accelerated reading, but it was like this point
based system and at the end of the year, you
were rewarded with a pizza party if you're number one.
I always wanted to get that pizza party, but like
(47:57):
that's the level of It's just it was a prize
in my from kindergarten on oh yeah yeah. And my
public libraries would and I and maybe still do, like
pizza Hutwood would team up had them and during summer
reading programs, UM give you like a coupon for a
free pizza if you read a certain number of books. Yeah, yeah,
(48:19):
we had that too. It's just a huge part and
we would love to hear from other listeners. Um not
in the United States or even in the United States,
like if you have a specific, yeah, very specific type
of pizza or toppings that go on it, or just
a memory or just some weird I mean, we won't
say no to any kind of pizza related email or
(48:40):
never never um. But that about brings us to the
end of this episode into see, we could have gotten
superproducer Andrew to just slow it down and been like,
but you know, we're trying to spare him some shave
(49:01):
off some seconds of his work face. Okay, so this
first one is pretty long, but I like all of it,
so let's just see how this goes. Samuel wrote, It's
amazing to me that the cookie Monster actually had a
cavity to swallow the cookies with, because from what I
(49:21):
can remember, they usually didn't make it into his mouth
but ended up falling down his front and onto the floor.
But anyway, just like with the words crisp, chips and fries,
the British once again are here to cause confusion and
distress to those across the pond by creating confusing, arbitrary
definitions for things. As you pointed out, the word cookie
(49:42):
is by no means simply equivalent for biscuit because we
use both words. But while for us all cookies are biscuits,
not all biscuits are cookies. Annoyingly, there also seemed to
be no hard and faster rules for what is and
what isn't a cookie. It's more just like something you
fee feel in your soul. Since I don't have a
(50:02):
laptop though I've come into the office at work, just
write this email, so I'll be damned if I don't
share my various strong opinions about cookies. In the UK,
what we think of as cookies tend to be softer
than biscuits and usually contain chocolate chips, small chunks of
caramel or nuts, but aren't necessarily covered in chocolate. So
something like a viscount, a wagon wheel or a tim
(50:23):
Tam no idea if you have these in the US,
but it's easy to google and see what I mean.
We do know what those are, and we have done
a tim Tam slam on social media. Um are all
not cookies, although arguably the last two are actually chocolate bars,
not even biscuits. Another crucial distinction between cookies and biscuits
is that cookies tend to be made with a looser dough,
(50:44):
which then spreads in the oven and then hardens when
it's cooled. Other biscuits, though, start out with a fairly
solid but still pliable though, which then goes firm in
the oven. When you google cookie, most of what comes
up are actually cookies, but using the rules of thumb
bread gingerbread with Scotty Viennese whirls, hobnobs, chocolate bourbons, java cakes.
(51:04):
Don't start the debate about whether these are cakes where
you don't have time. All of these not cookies. All
caps by the way, of course, especially for not in Britain.
I'm not going to correct anybody on what they like
to say. Um, you just gave me this platform and
I took advantage to spread my agenda. I've only recently
(51:27):
managed to do cookies properly, even though I can do
other kinds of biscuits like short bread, tweet and so on.
I mean, what came out of the oven was at
least recognizable, as I just didn't have the right amount
of bite to it. Too soft, basically cake. Here's what
I learned from my mistakes. A lot of my success
is purely down to leaving the dough overnight. Just like
(51:47):
Annie says, although I heard it from Jack first, I
did do so fair. Make sure you've already divided the
dough up first, because otherwise it can be tricky to
get even distribution across the baking train. Also, they can
come out of the fridge and go straight into the
oven if you have limited time, say if, for example,
you're on bake Off and Paul Hollywood is staring at
your workstation and you have only forty five minutes left
(52:09):
breathe put them in the freezer for twenty then bake
for whatever time you need and lead them to cool.
You won't get exactly the same texture as in the
fridge overnight, but your cookies will be more uniform than
just throwing them in the oven like a monster. Treat yourself.
Patience is a virtue. If I've said it once, I've
said it a thousand times. Brown you're butter, Use unsalted butter.
(52:32):
If you're making a cookie with very delicate flavors like
white chocolate and raspberry, don't brown more than half of
your better. If the recipe doesn't say to brown butter,
you will end up with less brown butter than the
recipe calls for. Because the water in the butter will evaporate,
so use more to commen sate. Pour the melted butter
into fifty fifty brown and white sugar. I can't talk
(52:53):
about the flour because flower is really different. Here. If
using eggs, I would only use one whole egg. I
would then add only the yoke of the second egg.
This is because the egg white is mostly liquid and
a very wet cookie dough will produce a hard cookie,
which I'm not into. There's this company in the UK
called Maryland Cookies, weirdly nothing to do with mid Atlantic states,
and their cookies are hardest rocks and gods don't buy them.
(53:17):
But I digress. After chilling the dough, using this combination
is going to make a really lovely texture which walks
the tight rope between having a bite and a snap
to it, but also chewy. I don't know. I think
it's magic. I'm sure someone will disagree with me on
anything I've said, but I just had their way in
and give my two cents. Thank you, Yes, especially for
(53:38):
going into work to type all that up. That is beautiful.
So many cookie thoughts. Yeah, giving a lot to think about. Yeah, yeah,
it's no, it's this level of opinion that I personally
appreciate the most, like like, come come on, I love
the like there are methods here, let us follow them.
(54:01):
I love the It's something you feel in your soul.
Oh yeah, yeah. When you were saying that, I was like, oh,
I have a lot of feelings about cookies in my soul.
That is where they all reside. It's true. It's true. Uh,
Rob wrote, when you were talking about the reception m R.
S received from troops in the field, I wanted to
give you an anecdote involving the Canadian version the individual
(54:23):
meal pack or i MP. For a number of years
in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands, I was
an instructor with the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, and one
of the courses I taught was Winter air Crew Survival.
The exercise involved taking a group of senior cadets into
the mountains in January from four pm Friday to four
pm Sunday. Each cadet had minimal gear and a single
(54:43):
supper i MP to last them forty eight hours. Each
cadet had their own preferences for that meal, but year
after year, the cabbage roll meal was universally hated, so
when it came time to distribute the imps, as I'm
just going to say, from now on, I had to
obscure the meal name on the outer packaging. Cadets would
often forego the cabbage roll and go without an entree
(55:05):
for the entire weekend. Of course, since the cadets are
between twelve and eighteen, they came up with a nickname
for the cabbage roll imp, the alien Fetus. It made
me chuckle to myself, but of course military decorum had
to prevail. I hope you enjoyed the story. Perhaps it's
time for the cabbage roll to uh, I don't know. Yeah,
(55:29):
if you can get a kid to to not eat
for two days instead of instead of taking the cabbage roll,
then yeah, that's an intense mm hmmm. Around that time,
oh man, I was I was eating like twice as
much as my dad was when I was that age.
I ate so much. Oh yeah, I did too. Yeah,
blows my mind looking back. Sure bones are hard to grow, man,
(55:52):
takes a lot of work, It's true, It's true. Gosh,
cabbage rolls. I know, I've heard of such things. I
don't think I've ever had one. I've had I don't
know if I've had the traditional type, but I've certainly
made a role with cabbages that outer like yeah, mm hmm.
Thoughts for a future episode perhaps anyway, yes, yes, anyway,
(56:14):
Thanks to both of them for writing in. If you
would like to write to us, you can. We would
love to hear from you. Our email is hello at
savorpod dot com. We're also on social media. You can
find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at savor pod.
We do hope to hear from you. Savor is a
production of iHeart Radio and Stuff Media. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(56:38):
Thanks as always to our super producers Andrew Howard and
Dylan Fagan. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to save our production of I Heart
Radio and Stuff Media. I'm Any Rees and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum.
And today we're talking about pizza. Yes, you heard that correctly.
This is a very exciting day. It is. This one
is yes, a long time coming. And it goes out
to listener Bob, Yes, Yes, who once sent us pizza. Yeah,
(00:30):
from China. He I mean the pizzas weren't from China.
I believe he was in China at the time and
somehow got us pizzas delivered. And everyone in the office
we were the coolest people for a solid couple of hours.
Oh yeah, yeah, because everyone was just like, why are
there pizzas? And we were like, a listener sent them
and they were like whoa and we just nodded knowingly. Um.
(00:54):
And this also is kind of timely because as we
record this Independence Day, the fourth of July in the
United States is coming up, and pizza is pretty merka thing.
I mean, it's it's a many places like it. Oh yeah, um,
we get very excited about it. Yes, I don't think
(01:15):
it's really a fourth of July food. Oh, I think
you can make anything a fourth of July food. That
is a tangent. Okay, alright, so I done it. Um.
I feel like we've talked about this before, but when
it comes to pizza preferences, I like a thin crust margharita.
That's my favorite. That that would be my favorite as well.
I do like I do like a meatball on a pizza.
(01:37):
Um as I yes, I've mentioned before, and mushrooms are nice,
but yeah, class of margarita, man me. Yeah, that that
is what I need. But sometimes I am in the
mood for deep dish, and when I am, it's a
beautiful thing. Oh yeah, any well made pizza, I'm just like, well,
this is made of pizza, true, even some not so well.
Oh absolutely, there's a time in place. Oh yeah, yeah,
(01:58):
there's nothing it. I get more excited about when I'm
playing D and D specifically like tabletop gaming. I suppose
then like the smell of the heated cardboard pizza. Yeah,
was the first time we played together. We had pizza
and it was wonderful. Also see our delivery episode for
(02:19):
for we have more details on delivery and also pretty
pizza is pretty involved in the story of delivery and
modern delivery, right and then our our Pepperoni episode and
our frozen food episode Pizzas touched a lot. We used
to have a pizza fact. We did all the pizza fact.
Oh wow, this whole episode is pizza facts. But that
(02:42):
about brings us to our question, Yes, pizza, what is it? Well, um,
I do not want to start any trouble here, so
I'm going to be vaguely vague. A pizza is a
flat east is in wheat flour dough that's topped with
(03:02):
things and then baked so that the toppings and the
bread like incorporate a bit and the bread gets nice
and crusty. Those toppings are usually savory and often include
like a milty, gooey cheese and a sauce made from tomatoes.
It's often served as fresh and hot out of the
oven as possible. They are often cut into slices, either
squares or widges, and the slices are often shared out
(03:25):
among multiple eaters and consumed without using utensils. Yeah, if
you're not from the United States, I'm not sure that
I can explain to you how intense people get about
regional variations on this common theme. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
I mean it comes up in our politics like how
(03:46):
politicians eat their pizza. Yeah, it is hoof indeed, and
there's a million types of pizza, and that's only a
slight exaggeration. I'm pretty sure some people will argue over
what cows pizza like dessert, pizza, pizza bites, pizza bagels,
But there are a lot of options out there. In
(04:07):
any case, there is, of course Neapolitan New York, Chicago, Detroit,
Greek California, and Sicilian, which is really just to name
a few. Oh yeah, you know, like like how thick
is the crust? What's the ratio of a crispy to
chewy in the crust? Do the toppings go all the
way to the edge? Is your pizza around a rectangular?
Do you use a knife and fork to eat it?
Should the slices be foldable? Is it baked free form
(04:30):
or in a dish? What kind of oven is appropriate
and what fuel may be used therein? Back to the toppings,
which of those are appropriate and how much of them
is appropriate? Is your tomato sauce raw? When you bake
the pizza? It sounds like a personality quiz, like you're
trying to get to the bottom of whether or not
I'm a sociopath is depending on your answers to those questions.
(04:53):
Some people would absolutely be like, the lady is a
total sociopath. Oh no, very intense, very intense. Um. Italian listeners,
I am so curious, like do y'all argue about which
regional traditions are are the best or even real pizza
because we do that. We're like, oh, if it's a
deep dish pizza, that's not a real pizza. Or oh
(05:14):
it's not a deep dish pizza, that's not a real pizza. Yes. Um.
And speaking of sociopaths, I eat pizza crust first, and
I have received a lot of grief word strangers have
come up to me, stranger strangers, not even the people
sitting at your table whom you are there with on purpose,
(05:36):
other humans to like to like question what I am doing?
What is it like in a in a in like
a to make sure you're okay sort of way, or
is it or is it like a listen here, young lady.
It's almost there's a sense of bufuddlement, like whoa excuse me?
Are you eating that crust first? Mm hmmm, And it's
(06:01):
like I'm in a zoo and they have questions like, well,
tell me more about that. When did you start doing this?
Was there a traumatic experience in your childhood? What do
you think about the crust? I mean questions after questions,
and I just well, I'm happy to talk about it.
Is it a pizza eating experience? Is it because you
you like the center of the pie the best, and
(06:23):
and so you're saving that for last? Yeah, okay, pretty much.
I just feel like, uh, this way, I'm gonna end
on a cheesy, buttery topping note and the crust is
usually good, but it's not like it's not my favorite. Yeah. Yeah,
so it kind of like eating it last because it's
sort of like the like weird like dessert at the
(06:43):
end of the pizzle. So that's interesting. Yea. I I
recently learned researching for this episode that um, sometimes the
pizza it's meant the crust is meant to be a
dessert like it in Honey. Yeah, So maybe you're onto something.
You know, people are different eat their pizza. They're always
and that's just that speaking of that's just that nutrition. Oh,
(07:08):
it depends a lot. I mean, you're most basic here.
You're talking about bread with some cheese on it and
like a little bit of vegetable, which is not a
health food unless you're talking about mental health, which counts,
which totally counts. It does. Um, yeah, it's you know,
i'd say, don't go overboard, try not to, try not
(07:30):
to all the time, all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
be mindful. Yeah. Man, there's another pizza memory. I just
I used to order pizza without cheese. What was that doing?
Oh dude, you were not living your best life. I
was a kid. What kind of weirdo kid does that? Sorry?
Anybody out there's like I have left. Yes, that's totally no,
(07:52):
that's valid. Yeah, absolutely, it's strange to me as someone
who loves cheese. Now I was about to say, you're
making up for it, so oh yes I am. Um.
Numbers somewhere around three billion pizzas are sold each year
in the United States, and that comes out to around
forty six slices of person. The government sponsored the most
(08:13):
government sponsors study of Americans pizza eating habits, and they
found that on any given day, percent of Americans ages
two and up, we'll eat some pizza. What's the government
looking into this? I think that they realized that it's
a very popular food, and they were like how popular
and like, how what kind of nutritional density are people
(08:34):
getting from this? And uh, that's true because we do
have it in a lot of our school lunches as
a vegetable. We've talked about that before. Oh yeah, it's
ah it is. Oh goodness, I'm forgetting the specific compound
in tomatoes that is sometimes like oh that's good for you, like, um, yes,
thank you, right right, because of because of like like
(08:57):
like werewolves, because where well was obviously, um, it is
people's primary source. Oh dear, oh dear, I guess that's
not surprising, but oh dear, well on on days that
they eat pizzas, sure, sure, yeah, And I guess the
government has been really interested in like we talked about
(09:18):
in our m R. E episode, in our Space Food episode,
people love pizza. How can we capture this in those forms? Um? Oh?
And I read that globally a little bit over five
billion pizzas are sold every year, though I couldn't back
that number up, so I don't know. The largest pizza
chain is Pizza Hut, with over six thousand, six hundred
(09:40):
locations in the United States and over four thousand internationally.
I went to one in China and it was a
super fancy experience. I was not expecting that. I went
and think, oh, I'll just get a pizza, um, and
don't get mad at me. I was in China for
a long time. It wasn't like I was, oh, pizza, hut,
I'll go there. No, this was I was very for
a long time and um, it was like a sit down,
(10:02):
fancy claw table experience and cut the pizza. For me,
it was the whole thing. Yeah, I'm picturing like that
scene in Demolition Man, like all restaurants are taco bell
like so like, I don't know, like very fancy anyway. Um,
when we're talking about delivery, Dominoes, is King also talking
(10:24):
about chain still um? And they also lead the way
on pizza delivery technology. There's the hot spot, um, which
is where you just turn on your GPS wherever you
are are, within reason, wherever you are, and they will
show up and deliver the pizza there. And I saw
someone used this recently and it blew my mind. It blew.
They were into me in the middle of a parking lot. Yeah,
(10:44):
and they just received a pizza. Yeah. Uh. Um. The
pizza tracker, the pizza shoes, these shoes that can order
pizza after you run, however long you're supposed to run for,
does it order the pizza? I need to immediately after
my workout. I need a pizza. The pizza sex story. Um,
(11:05):
there's the corrugated pizza box and the hot bag. Domino's
ladies claim to both of those. Okay. Um, My brother
used to order Papa John's so often in college that
when he went a week or so without ordering it,
they called him to make sure everything was okay. I
(11:25):
was in the car with him as he received this call,
and I was like, Oh, my goodness, who was that.
Papa is so bizarre and sweet. It blew my mind
and completely amazing. I have never you know, that's a relationship.
That's true. I guess if you order it sounds like
(11:47):
he was ordering multiple times a week. Yeah. Sure. They
were like, hey, buddy, okay, oh man as disgusting our
pepperoni episode. This is by far the number one topping
in the United States two and fifty two million pounds
of pepperoni a year. Poor anchoes rank as least popular
(12:10):
um here in this country anyway. Different countries have different
favoriteslled ginger and minced mutton. In India, squid and a mayo,
bacon and potato combo in Japan, green peas in Brazil,
coconut and Costa Rica. I have a shrimp and some
kind of sauce pizza and Japan and you and super
producer Dylan. It's been a good five minutes recently making
(12:33):
fun of one of my late night pizza delivery spots
and the baby Many. It has as all kinds of
topics like anything you can imagine. Oh yeah, I mean
people like putting stuff on pizzas. Yes, this is true,
and there were a number of combinations that I didn't understand.
(12:56):
It's fair, but as I made my case, there's only
four options available from the hours of two am to
four am where I live, so that is one of them. No, no,
it wasn't judgment. Okay, it was mirth. Okay, I'll take that.
I'll take that. Um. The record for most expensive pizza
(13:17):
goes to the Pizza Royal Double seven and it was
made for a fundraiser and topped with gold lobster caviar
soaked in champagne, smoked salmon and venison for three thousand euros,
which is around four thousand, four hundred thirty dollars. Um.
There's also the luxury Pizza in New York City, which
I think we talked about in our Edible Gold episode,
(13:38):
running you one dollars a slice and one thousand for
the whole twelve inch pie. If you're curious about the tappings,
cream fresh, lobster, and six types of cave six six.
All right, you know, And look, there are so many
pizza records there's no way we can go through all
of them. Um. But there's the largest, which is one
(14:00):
hundred and twenty two point seven feet or thirty seven
point four meters pizza out of Johannesburg. And apparently that
one wasn't eaten because there's a record for the largest
made and eat Oh it was made in Havanah, Florida
in seven and yielded nine four thousand two slices. And
there's a record for the longest pizza delivery and it
(14:21):
was from London to Melbourne, Australia. That's that's not a
that's not that's not a delivery anymore. That's your pizza
is cold. At that point, maybe this person likes cold pizza. Hey,
that's a separate food. That's a suffarate food for pop pizza.
We need a whole other, whole other episode to discuss that.
I am unprepared to talk about cold pizza today. You're right, well, Uh,
(14:46):
Pizza is ranked as the processed food most associated with
sometimes of addiction type eating behavior, according to the Yale
Food Addiction Scale. UM researchers say that in addition to
pizza's heavy doses of salt and carbs and fat, which
are all things that make your brain pretty happy, um,
it's contrasting textures, contrasting colors, and a combination of all
(15:08):
the basic flavor groups in one dish are what really
gets you. Yeah. Yeah. We talked about that a little
bit in our pepperoni episode as well, that one of
the reasons it was so readily adopted was that contrast
of color. Yeah yeah, yeah, the the white cheese and
then the good red pepperoni. Right yeah. And also, yes,
now that I think about it, it is commonly associated
with drunk food or high food, yeah, which kind of
(15:33):
goes into this next point. Pizza is popular, and I
mean it probably goes without saying, but I would I
would recommend that you take two seconds and think of
all the pizza inner pop culture and just what comes
to mind first. Um, I think of the pizza, the
Hut Pizza Slust and the Ninja Turtles. Ninja Turtles. I
(15:55):
think that's fine. Yeah, Liz shot gunning that pizza on
thirty Your Rock. Um, the SpongeBob episode where he's trying
to deliver the pizza. And that song that got sick
in my head while doing this, Um, the Mary Kayton
Ashley's song give Me Pizza, which super producer Andrew and
I had a long pre recording discussion about. Yeah, yeah,
(16:15):
there is a high version of that as well, slowed down.
Um yeah, now that's in my head too. Uh yeah,
one bite. Everybody knows the rules, that guy, that's the
one that I think of. Now. Yeah, so much, so
many shirts, so much merchandise out there. Oh yeah, one
of my friends has a shirt that says, oh, I'm
(16:37):
forgetting exactly what it is, friend right in, I'll ask
you later. I'm it's something to the extent of like
of like, feelings are boring, Pizza is awesome. But that's
actually a shirt from Dinosaur Comics that says feelings are boring,
kissing is awesome. I don't know anyway, So pizza is
better than kissing. Well, pizza is better than feelings. Pizza
(17:01):
is feelings. I feel like there's some kind of logic
thing that just happened. Well, well, indeed, well that brings
us to some history, some pizza history. But first it
brings us to a quick break for word from our sponsor,
(17:31):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Pizza history. Okay.
Depending on how you define pizza, it can go way back,
all the way to first century b C. When early
civilizations and what is now Europe would eat flat bread,
occasionally topped with things. Archaeologists found three thousand year old
(17:55):
evidence on in Sicily of flattened bread and the tools
used to flatten it. Similar items spread throughout Europe over
the next couple of hundred years and beyond, with many
evolving to suit the ingredients and taste of different regions,
and many of those still exist today. They went on
their own, like pizza pass In these early versions, something
(18:17):
approximating bread was baked on hot stones, then seasoned and
used in the place of utensils to soak up broth
and gravy. And I'm laughing because it reminds me of
my traumatizing medieval times. Experience, and I didn't realize that
you were supposed to use the bread to get the soup.
So I picked up the bowl of soup and tried
to drink it because you know, they don't give you
any at medieval times. And it was so hot and
(18:41):
bird and I built it everywhere. I'm surprised at for
as traumatized as you always sound when you bring this up,
that you really want to go back to medieval times,
I want you and nil it. And as you're to
experience it, and plus you'll learn from my mistake, you
won't make the same thing. That's very true. That's very true.
I love it. Love when they ask if you want
to it's my favorite. Um well. Similar flatbreads were developed
(19:10):
pretty much all over the world right. One of the
first recorded mentions of pizza comes to us from Darius
the Great in the five hundred BC Ish Range, who
described his soldiers cooking flat and bread on their shields
and topping this flat and bread with dates and cheese.
By the eighth century BC, Greek colonies and what's now
southern Italy, we're making a flatbread topped with oil, garlic, onion, herbs,
(19:35):
and um. Small fisher or minced meat if you were fancy.
In the third century b c. Cato the Elder wrote
the First History of Rome, and in it he described
cout flat round of dough dressed with olive oil, herbs,
and honey, baked on stones. Plato also mentioned cakes made
of barley flour baked with cheese and olives, and it
was around this general time that Greek bakers were spreading
(19:58):
Egyptian bread making techniques through out the Mediterranean. Um levined
needed dough cooked in these out roofed ovens rather than
than over opened fire. Ah. Yes, then we get this
from Virgil's anneed beneath a shady tree, the hero spread
his table on the turf with cakes of bread, and
with his chiefs on forest fruits. He fed. They sate,
(20:20):
and not without the God's command. They're homely fair dispatched.
The hungry band invade their trenches next, and soon devour
to mend the scanty meal their cakes of flour. Scannys
this observed and smiling said, see we devoured the plates
on which we fed. Oh. Archaeologist found evidence of pizza
and the remains of Pompeii street stands where vendors sold
(20:43):
pizza bakeries, and pizza making tools. The word pizza first
shows up in N seven in Italy, and that first
mentioned um was in a list of donations due to
the Bishop of Naples Um from from domain tenants. It
this this list that twelve pizzas should be delivered to
him every Christmas and every Easter. Etymologists think it comes
(21:05):
from an old Italian word for point, and later it
evolved into an Italian word meaning to plug or to
pitch or clamp, and yeah, that's that's one suggestion. Other theories,
because there are a bunch of theories about this, are
that the modern word pizza evolved from a root meaning
cake or pie um, that the same root as the
Greek pita sort of makes sense, or that it evolved
(21:28):
from this Proto Germanic root for for a bite or
a morsel, which the word for which eventually became a
beso or piso um, or from another Greek word meaning congealed,
or or from other Latin words meaning either like decorated
or flattened. Lots of options. There are as a possibility
(21:51):
I think I think it was just a whole zeitgeist
of of of words that let us pizza. I wish
you listener could see. It's modern Italian for pie, which
makes saying pizza pie quite funny to me personally. Pipe
pie pie pie piepie, Share me too. Apicius's cookbook That's
(22:17):
Fun to Say included several recipes for a pizza, like
dish putting toppings on bread. Um. Many also came with
the instruction cool and snow and yeah, okay, when brick
evans were invented, flatbread was ideal because it was easier
to get in there. Then we skip ahead just a
little to the sixteenth century and the tomato arrives in Europe.
(22:41):
And now, if you listen to our tomato episode, you
know that the tomato was not super popular at first
because of that like canthropy thing. Yeah that it might
it's either poisonous or it might turn you into werewolf,
a dead wear wolf. Oh no, oh gosh, that would
be terribly immediately. Um, but this was kind of a
(23:06):
rich person thing. Poor people didn't have the option to discriminate.
And also they didn't run into the same problem with
their fancy silver ware not resting I'm sorry, tarnishing right
with the acid and tomato. So the tomato was seen
as this food for poor people. Another food on the
scene at the time mozzarella. It got its first known
(23:26):
mentioned in an Italian recipe book in fifteen seventy. In
the eighteenth century, Fernando the Fourth tast a chef at
his summer palace with whipping up some pizza and his
father's famous porcelain ovens. It was his wife's favorite. Chefs
and Naples started to experiment with tomatoes on their pizza
creations in the sixteenth century, and by the eighteenth century
(23:48):
pizza is a really popular food in Naples, especially in
the poorer areas. Visiting tourists and sailors really enjoyed it too,
um So, seeing a need to organize the pizza vendors
came to other to form the first pizzaria in eighteen thirty.
In eighteen eighty nine, a Naples pizza maker by the
name of Rafael Esposito made Umberto, the first King of
(24:11):
Italy and his wife, Queen Margarita di savoia Um, both
of whom were traveling and we're tired of French food,
which was kind of the like Reich, the in thing
to do for the people at the time, So he
made them three pizzas, one with the colors of Italy,
white mozzarella, green basil, and red tomato. And the Queen
liked this third one so much that she sent a
(24:34):
letter of thanks to the creator, and after that he
named it the Margharita. It was a hit, and it
spread throughout the country, and it endeared the queen to
her subjects, to most royalty would not openly dine not,
I mean much less praise so called peasant food. Oh sure,
And we need to talk about what was going on
(24:55):
in Italy at the time for a second, Okay, because
this isn't just like a charming story. No, that country
was in a tumultuous process of becoming that country um unification.
Naples had long been their own independent kingdom. The Queen
was traveling around the country trying to ease this process
of unification um. And so perhaps it's no coincidence that
(25:18):
she chose that pizza with the colors of the Italian flag.
I mean, perhaps it was her favorite, but it could
have also been hey like political like be like exactly,
And perhaps it's no coincidence that the chef made it
for her um and her stamp of approval made people
regarded as Italian, which was a big deal because Italy
(25:38):
was new Italian. What is italian um? So yeah, this
was This was a big moment in Italy's history and
also in the history of pizza, and prior to unification,
the rest of what is now Italy looked down upon
Naples as a poor port area and often derighted their food.
(26:00):
Samuel Morris, who was the inventor of the telegraph, described
pizza like this in one quote, species of the most
nauseating cake, covered over with slices of pomdora or tomatoes,
and sprinkled with little fish and black pepper, and I
know not what other ingredients. That all together looks like
a piece of bread that has been taken reeking out
(26:20):
of the sewer. Oh that is rude, right, Come on, yes,
I share your personal affront of this. I am Samuel Morris.
You you had a couple of good ideas, but you
didn't know from pizza, damn straight. At the dawn of
the twentieth century, the economic situation in Italy was quite poor,
(26:43):
and over four million Italians made the journey to the
United States. As Italian immigrants came over to the US,
they brought their cuisines with them, especially in cities like Philadelphia, Chicago,
and New York. Lombardies in New York City was the
first pizza restaurant to open in the United States, and
at the time pizzas were frequently called tomato pies. Oh yeah,
(27:05):
and that was in nineteen o five. A Neapolitan immigrant
by the name of Antonio Pero had started making pizza's
for Lombardies Grocery a couple of years back, and they
were so popular that they decided to open a whole shop. Yes,
and from what I understand it closed for a while.
What is open again? Still can't go. At first, pizza
vendors stuck largely to Italian neighborhoods, but it didn't take
(27:25):
long before they branched out, selling to traffic on nearby streets.
The word pizza, although spelled p i z z, appeared
in American newspapers as early as nineteen o three. America's
generally agreed on to be second pizzria. Joe's Tomato Pies
opened in Trenton, New Jersey, in nineteen ten or some
sources I saw nineteen twelve, and for a long time
(27:49):
pizza was looked down upon here in the United States
as dirty, disgusting and ethnic food for the poor. Um.
Just as Italians were discriminated discriminated against, so was their food.
And I remember and I can't find it. I tried
to find it, but there was this I think it
was the New York Times. Oh, I don't want to
call out the New York Times. It wasn't you. It
was a big publication, um. And there was an article
(28:11):
about like these gross foods and in it are all
of our like still fit like like like now they're
their favorite, our favorite foods. Like what are they doing
with this lasagna? Yeah? How gross can you get? It
was like spaghetti, apple pie, pizza, Like it wasn't mac
and cheese, but it was something approximating mac and cheese.
(28:34):
It's just strange now, um, but yeah, pizza was it? Yeah?
More and on board racism is real serious, it really is. Um.
What it turned the boat around is American soldiers returning
from World War Two and they brought back with them
a love of pizza. And this really catapulted pizza popularity
(28:58):
outside of Italian communities, um in the United States. And
another thing that helped were Italian celebrities like Frank Sinatra
singing pizza's praises literally yes, like Dean Martin with this
lyric and apologies in advance for the earworm. But when
the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie,
that's a more um More and more pizzeria's started opening
(29:20):
across the country. In a returning soldier built the first
gas fired Baker's Pride Pizza oven, and tourism helped too.
It was cheaper than ever for Americans and other folks.
She traveled to Italy and try their food, and this
encouraged restaurants to offer more quote Italian food, which was
(29:41):
mostly what soldiers had brought back with them to their
home countries. That's what people envisioned Italian food to be
who are visiting, and pizza was a big part of that. So,
in a weird way, American tourism helped solidify pizza as
Italian and then they took it an americanized because that's
how we do. Yeah, it's a lot and let us
(30:07):
dish on the deep dish this style of pizza. And
I know if you would disagree with the usage of
pizza here allegedly goes back to and one Ike Suel,
a Texan looking for a heartier option at his Chicago pizzeria,
to set it apart. I love that. I love that,
(30:29):
the heartier option. This we'll do the trick. I had
one of the most dramatic conversations of my life over
deep dish pizza. What a comedy of errors that was. Like,
if you've got to choose a food to have a
dramatic conversation over, don't choose deep dish pizza. There's gonna
be cheese dripping oil everywhere, pizza sauce oozing just like
(30:52):
the tears and snapped down your face. It was not good,
like such a comforting food. That's why I think I
made that mistake. This will help carves and cheese. No, no, no, okay, Julie.
Not to thank you, You're welcome. Colorado's Rocky Mountain Pie
(31:13):
also got going around, this time with a wider crest
meant to be dipped in honey. Yeah, to make a dessert.
The first commercial pizza pie mix, Oh I did the
pizza pie thing, debuted in nineteen forty eight in Massachusetts,
um quote Roman pizza mix. It was called frozen Pizza
made its way into grocery stores a decade later, and
(31:34):
as we said in our Frozen Food episode, it's the
most popular frozen food in this country. Ye. Pillsbury went
on to purchase one of the first folks selling frozen pizza,
Totinos in nineteen seventy five for twenty million dollars. Huh wow.
And at first pizza was a very local thing. The
mozzarella was made fresh or brought locally, the tomato, sauce
(31:56):
and dough made in house. It was a popular option
for workers on their lunch break our friends hanging out
at bars. Um, Pizza is easily shared unless you're super hungry,
and I've been there certain Yeah. I had a friend
in college who was like, it's so convenient that pizzas
are single serving. I had a friend in college who
(32:17):
we notoriously would order one pizza, eat it all, look
at each other and order I don't know why we
didn't just like just order two pizzas, just except what
we were going to do. I think we always had
this idea of maybe this time will be better. No.
Pizza EA's were frequently twenty one and up at the time,
(32:37):
and they were a placed for people to hang out
that wasn't work our home, and I'm assuming by people
they mean men here. Um. And then along come the chains,
the pizza chains. The first Pizza Hut opened its doors
in Wichita, Kansas and nineteen fifty eight. Little Caesar's opened
in Michigan in nineteen sixty, and then in nineteen sixty one,
Domino's delivered their first pizza, also in Michigan. And these
(33:00):
chains changed our pizza escape forever. Um. Instead of local
stuff ingredients were made cheaply at central location and then
shipped to franchise ease off. The non chain pizzeria's couldn't
compete and ended up closing their doors. And here is
a Hawaiian pizza sidebar. This was the topic of a
(33:20):
couple discussions while we were recently in Hawaii. It was indeed, Um,
you may be shocked, but probably won't be to learn
that this pizza topped with pineapple and Canadian bacon did
not come out of Hawaii. No. A Greek man who
was living in Canada by the name of Sam Panapulo's
claims who had invented it in nineteen sixty two, when
(33:41):
America was writing high on the tiki trend. Makes sense, Yes, Um.
Carmela Vitale patented the package saver in nine five. And
those are those little mini three legged tables that keep
pizza boxes from collapsing. And you can see our delivery
episode for more on that. And then there are so
(34:02):
many Dominoes legends. Oh my goodness. Um thirty minutes our
last thing that went away officially in nine due to
again officially through conditions and weather. Um. The company settled
several cases out of court. Um. Tom Monahan, the founder
of Domino's Pizza, sold the chain in n for one
billion dollars. His next project involved creating an all Catholic
(34:26):
town in Florida that bands abortions, birth control, and pornography. Um. Yeah,
no where, I'm not retiring last Ira. It has thirty
thousand residents, including five thousand students. Alright, Dobino Sky. This
was on Snopes. Well. In Papa Murphy started the take
(34:47):
in bake pizza trend, where consumers buy freshly made, but
unbaked pizzas to cook at home. Okay. Also in ninety five,
Pizza Hut debuted the stuffed crust pizza. According to the
woman who developed it, want Patty Sidneyer, she got the
idea when this guy on a tasting panel reported that
he never eats the crust. He always gives it to
(35:07):
his dog. And then after that, it took three years
of development and of convincing the brass of the public
would be even vaguely interested. They were like, clearly, no
one is going to want this product, what are you
talking about? I know right. Early experiments involved wrapping sticks
of string cheese and dough, but both the cheese and
the dough had to be reworked to get the textures
(35:29):
and stability right. They rolled it out with a national
ad campaign that costs them forty five million dollars and
featured Donald and Ivana Trump. Wow, but intrigue later stuffed
crusted pizza intrigue. Later in the nineties of Brooklyn Night
sued Pizza Hut for a billion bucks for patent infringement.
(35:50):
He had a patented a stuffed crust pizza process. He
wound up losing the suit because Pizza Hut used a
different process to get the same outcome. I good news. Yeah.
On December ninth, two tho nine, the European Union named
Naples Neapolitan pizza part of Europe's culinary heritage. And puts
protection around it in place. Um it stipulates that only
(36:14):
San Marzano tomatoes and fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese be used.
The True Neapolitan Pizza Association only recognizes two types of
pizza as authentic Marinara and Margarita. To meet these standards,
the pie has to be round no more than thirteen
and three quarters inches in diameter, which made me laugh
(36:34):
and laugh and laugh. Tall pizza I mean relatively yeah
well yeah, um. The center must be less than one
tenth of an inch tall, crusts less than three fourth
of an inch thick, and completely hand kneaded, and it
has to use specific types of yeast, flower, salt, and tomatoes.
Thanks to host works for all of this info. Um.
The official Marinara pizza calls for extra virgin olive oil, tomato, garlic,
(36:57):
and marinara. And it's named after the fisherman's wife who
would cook the dish for her husband while he was
out fishing. Twenty marks when Major Chain started offering gluten
free pizza dough, and then on the other end in
we see things like the hot dog stuffed crust pizza. Yeah, y'all,
(37:19):
pizza just keeps one upping itself. Um. The ultimate stuffed
crust includes pepperoni, sausage, bacon, and cheese. Um. The stuffed
garlic knots pizza has like a row of garlic knots
around the edge that you can pull off. In the
Middle East and then Canada they debuted crown crust pizzas
and these if y'all have never seen one, it it
looks like the pizza is an amba that's sending off
(37:42):
nubbins all around its edge, and each nubbin of crust
contains a little bite of something like a tiny burger
patty topped with a tiny square cheese for cheese burger
crown crust pizza, or like a tan a chicken nugget. Um.
I don't know, I don't really understand it. Um, I
love the tenacity. Um. There was a Derito's crunchy crust
(38:05):
pizza in Australia and a cheesy Marmite stuffed crust pizza
in New Zealand. That sounds like a lot. I mean,
all of these are a lot, but I feel like
a little mermaid. That's the key is you use a
little Oh sure, yeah, I'm not sure. How much is it?
How much is involved. I don't think it's as much
as like they're like a yeah, oh my gosh, oh um. Yeah.
(38:32):
So lots of pizza innovation abounds, Yes, whether it was
needed or not, in abounds. I suspect it will continue.
But that about brings us to today. It does, and
it brings us to some pizza science. But first it
brings to one more quick break for a word from
our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you.
(39:05):
So there is a lot of science that goes into
making whatever kind of pizza it is that you are
going for. No judgment um, because the crust is probably
just flour, water, oil, salt, yeast, and sugar. Um. The
ratio of all of those things matters a whole lot. Um.
(39:27):
In a thinner crust situation, a little bit more oil
gives you a more tender bite, by the way, um,
and then you've got to work with that yeast. Pizza
is a leavened bread, so you're looking at proofing the dough,
letting the yeast eat sugars an excrete carbon dioxide and
flavor for some period of time. Longer times give the
final product more lift and stronger flavor. Very long times
(39:49):
may let lactic acid bacteria get in on the flavor
game too, if you're into that sort of thing. Yeast yeah. Um,
and the ways you bring the dough together and shape
it out matter a lot too. Um. Mixing and kneading
does will will prompt chains and even sheets of gluten, stretchy,
(40:09):
springy gluten to form as the proteins in the flower
interact with with the water that you've added. Uh. Some
pizzas are made to be spongey, some tender, some chewy,
some crispy, some flaky, or some combination of the above.
Oh yeah, And because people like pizza and it's fun,
there is a decent amount of published scientific research about
(40:33):
pizza that does not surprise me. Yeah. Co worker Ramsey,
he has this habit of leaving random we have one
of those peel day onion. He leaves random entries by
my desk. The first when he left by my desk
was drunk. Nutritionist recommend eating frozen pizza at three am.
(40:56):
Oh yeah, that's solid. Yeah. Other good studies perhaps, well,
maybe not a study, but but an equation. One mathematician
by the name of Eugenia Chang created an equation describing
the perfect amount of toppings to put on a pizza
based on the thickness of the dough, and a paraphysicists
(41:20):
published paper titled the Physics of Baking a Good Pizza,
where in this is going to be contentious for some
of y'all, I'm sorry, A good pizza was defined as
a class margharita made in a wood fired brick oven
in Rome. Like. To do this research, they consulted a
pizza allow which I love. Um, okay, so what they
(41:45):
broke this down using all of these thermodynamics equations and okay,
so what's what's going on in this in this type
of pizza oven is that, um, it's designed to get
really hot, about six five degrees fahrenheit, which is like Celsius.
And they're they're designed to to radiate that heat evenly
(42:06):
through the air inside. If you've never seen one of
these things, and you probably have, it's sort of like
a it's shaped sort of like a like a turtle.
Um and uh and and and the head portion of
the turtle is is sometimes a separate chamber, but sometimes
just a corner of the oven where the fire is
actually burning. And then um, the the flat floor and
(42:28):
the domed ceiling. I'm trying to I'm visually gesticulating around
the microphone. It's very silly. I don't know why I'm
doing this. You're helping. Okay, well that's that's what really counts.
I guess. Oh, you're welcome. Um. Uh then then the yeah.
So you've got flat brick on on the floor of
(42:49):
the oven and this domed ceiling and uh yeah, yeah.
The domed ceiling absorbs that heat from the fire and
slowly transfers it to the air, which transfers it in
turn to the pizza. UM. The brick flooring, meanwhile, transfers
heat to the crust directly. A good pizza in these
conditions is only cooked for two minutes. The crust is
(43:10):
so thin that that's all it needs. UM. If the
toppings need a little extra bit past that, that's when
the pizza maker will will slide their spade in and
lift the pizza up for maybe another thirty seconds. UM.
That's to give the crust a break from the direct
heat of the flooring. UM. The top of the pizza
receiving indirect heat will get up to about two d
and twelve fahrenheight, a hundred celsius and stay there. Um,
(43:31):
that's the temperature which water boils. Um. And so what's
happening here is that water content from the cheese and
the sauce is going to be steaming out and kind
of controlling the temperature right above the pizza. Um. But
the bottom of the pizza with that direct heat, will
heat all the way to about fahrenheit or two hundred
celsius as as it cooks. So the researchers figured all
(43:53):
of this out and again using thermodynamics, determined that in
a home electric oven, you can replicate these conditions by
baking your pizza for a hundred and seventy seconds at
four hundred and fifty fahrenheight a k a t thirty celsius,
adding a little bit of extra time if your toppings
have high water content, because as that water boils off,
(44:16):
the air in the oven will cool. Um yeah, necessitating
a few extra seconds. Oh man, I can't wait to
try that. More recommendations. Um, My very favorite food science
writer j Kenji Lopez Alt recommends um pre heating a
pan or preferably a slab of baking steel or of
(44:37):
baking ceramic too and thirty degrees fahrenheit. That's Um, that's
two twenty celsius and then baking your pizza on it
under the broiler for like a minute or two and
twenty seconds. Um. He also recommends resting your do in
the fridge for a full three to five days to
(45:00):
let the flavor and texture of the dough develop, with
the bonus of it also being more workable at that
point because those gluten's will be really well formed. Oh,
three to five days, I know, I have to plan
for this. Yeah. I've only tried to make pizza once
and it turned out okay. Yeah. Yeah, I've never made
it from scratch. It's the dough that yeah, I mean
(45:24):
maybe that's obvious. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty intimidated by East
does even Like I like, I grew up making east
bread with my grandmother, but but I I never She
just did it so confidently, you know, like she didn't
really measure anything. She just kind of like threw all
the ingredients together and like she just had she knew
by feel and by like like vague sense of like, oh,
I've hung up this many shirts on the on the line,
(45:46):
so it's time to go like knock the bread down again.
Oh I love that kind of stuff. I'm very envious
of it. Yeah, yeah, you know she made it like
at least once a week for years and years, and
I I think it had like I think her teaching
me that way, I had sort of the opposite of
the intended effect, Like I was like, like, this is impossible.
(46:07):
I don't understand. I feel like there's a Disney movie there, like,
you know, you got to learn your own way. So cute,
this is um. We recently were at Atliana Food and
Wine and the second day we were there, I don't
(46:29):
think you were there. It's just me, and it really
cracked me up because there was I mean at sevent
d plus options of things to eat try and the
longest line was for a pizza that was making it
in this way like you could see them with the Yeah,
they had a portable oven. Yeah. And it cracked me
up because it was the longest line and everybody in
(46:50):
the line at some point would be like, it's just pizza.
I mean, we can get pizza, and then the other
person whoever they said that too, would remain silent. I
heard it many times and we all waited it out.
Oh God, and then it's gone. It's like a little
vite this second. But that's beautiful. It was you know,
(47:14):
yeah we do, we do, you know all all y'all
from other places, like right, and like let us know,
Like I can't, I kind of can't imagine. It's such
an ingrained part of American culture at this point. Yeah,
that I get confused when I hear about places that
don't have a whole lot of like cheap available pizza.
(47:36):
Yeah yeah, like um, or even really good pizza like
I remember UM growing up. I don't know how many
people remember accelerated reading, but it was like this point
based system and at the end of the year, you
were rewarded with a pizza party if you're number one.
I always wanted to get that pizza party, but like
(47:57):
that's the level of It's just it was a prize
in my from kindergarten on oh yeah yeah. And my
public libraries would and I and maybe still do, like
pizza Hutwood would team up had them and during summer
reading programs, UM give you like a coupon for a
free pizza if you read a certain number of books. Yeah, yeah,
(48:19):
we had that too. It's just a huge part and
we would love to hear from other listeners. Um not
in the United States or even in the United States,
like if you have a specific, yeah, very specific type
of pizza or toppings that go on it, or just
a memory or just some weird I mean, we won't
say no to any kind of pizza related email or
(48:40):
never never um. But that about brings us to the
end of this episode into see, we could have gotten
superproducer Andrew to just slow it down and been like,
but you know, we're trying to spare him some shave
(49:01):
off some seconds of his work face. Okay, so this
first one is pretty long, but I like all of it,
so let's just see how this goes. Samuel wrote, It's
amazing to me that the cookie Monster actually had a
cavity to swallow the cookies with, because from what I
(49:21):
can remember, they usually didn't make it into his mouth
but ended up falling down his front and onto the floor.
But anyway, just like with the words crisp, chips and fries,
the British once again are here to cause confusion and
distress to those across the pond by creating confusing, arbitrary
definitions for things. As you pointed out, the word cookie
(49:42):
is by no means simply equivalent for biscuit because we
use both words. But while for us all cookies are biscuits,
not all biscuits are cookies. Annoyingly, there also seemed to
be no hard and faster rules for what is and
what isn't a cookie. It's more just like something you
fee feel in your soul. Since I don't have a
(50:02):
laptop though I've come into the office at work, just
write this email, so I'll be damned if I don't
share my various strong opinions about cookies. In the UK,
what we think of as cookies tend to be softer
than biscuits and usually contain chocolate chips, small chunks of
caramel or nuts, but aren't necessarily covered in chocolate. So
something like a viscount, a wagon wheel or a tim
(50:23):
Tam no idea if you have these in the US,
but it's easy to google and see what I mean.
We do know what those are, and we have done
a tim Tam slam on social media. Um are all
not cookies, although arguably the last two are actually chocolate bars,
not even biscuits. Another crucial distinction between cookies and biscuits
is that cookies tend to be made with a looser dough,
(50:44):
which then spreads in the oven and then hardens when
it's cooled. Other biscuits, though, start out with a fairly
solid but still pliable though, which then goes firm in
the oven. When you google cookie, most of what comes
up are actually cookies, but using the rules of thumb
bread gingerbread with Scotty Viennese whirls, hobnobs, chocolate bourbons, java cakes.
(51:04):
Don't start the debate about whether these are cakes where
you don't have time. All of these not cookies. All
caps by the way, of course, especially for not in Britain.
I'm not going to correct anybody on what they like
to say. Um, you just gave me this platform and
I took advantage to spread my agenda. I've only recently
(51:27):
managed to do cookies properly, even though I can do
other kinds of biscuits like short bread, tweet and so on.
I mean, what came out of the oven was at
least recognizable, as I just didn't have the right amount
of bite to it. Too soft, basically cake. Here's what
I learned from my mistakes. A lot of my success
is purely down to leaving the dough overnight. Just like
(51:47):
Annie says, although I heard it from Jack first, I
did do so fair. Make sure you've already divided the
dough up first, because otherwise it can be tricky to
get even distribution across the baking train. Also, they can
come out of the fridge and go straight into the
oven if you have limited time, say if, for example,
you're on bake Off and Paul Hollywood is staring at
your workstation and you have only forty five minutes left
(52:09):
breathe put them in the freezer for twenty then bake
for whatever time you need and lead them to cool.
You won't get exactly the same texture as in the
fridge overnight, but your cookies will be more uniform than
just throwing them in the oven like a monster. Treat yourself.
Patience is a virtue. If I've said it once, I've
said it a thousand times. Brown you're butter, Use unsalted butter.
(52:32):
If you're making a cookie with very delicate flavors like
white chocolate and raspberry, don't brown more than half of
your better. If the recipe doesn't say to brown butter,
you will end up with less brown butter than the
recipe calls for. Because the water in the butter will evaporate,
so use more to commen sate. Pour the melted butter
into fifty fifty brown and white sugar. I can't talk
(52:53):
about the flour because flower is really different. Here. If
using eggs, I would only use one whole egg. I
would then add only the yoke of the second egg.
This is because the egg white is mostly liquid and
a very wet cookie dough will produce a hard cookie,
which I'm not into. There's this company in the UK
called Maryland Cookies, weirdly nothing to do with mid Atlantic states,
and their cookies are hardest rocks and gods don't buy them.
(53:17):
But I digress. After chilling the dough, using this combination
is going to make a really lovely texture which walks
the tight rope between having a bite and a snap
to it, but also chewy. I don't know. I think
it's magic. I'm sure someone will disagree with me on
anything I've said, but I just had their way in
and give my two cents. Thank you, Yes, especially for
(53:38):
going into work to type all that up. That is beautiful.
So many cookie thoughts. Yeah, giving a lot to think about. Yeah, yeah,
it's no, it's this level of opinion that I personally
appreciate the most, like like, come come on, I love
the like there are methods here, let us follow them.
(54:01):
I love the It's something you feel in your soul.
Oh yeah, yeah. When you were saying that, I was like, oh,
I have a lot of feelings about cookies in my soul.
That is where they all reside. It's true. It's true. Uh,
Rob wrote, when you were talking about the reception m R.
S received from troops in the field, I wanted to
give you an anecdote involving the Canadian version the individual
(54:23):
meal pack or i MP. For a number of years
in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands, I was
an instructor with the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, and one
of the courses I taught was Winter air Crew Survival.
The exercise involved taking a group of senior cadets into
the mountains in January from four pm Friday to four
pm Sunday. Each cadet had minimal gear and a single
(54:43):
supper i MP to last them forty eight hours. Each
cadet had their own preferences for that meal, but year
after year, the cabbage roll meal was universally hated, so
when it came time to distribute the imps, as I'm
just going to say, from now on, I had to
obscure the meal name on the outer packaging. Cadets would
often forego the cabbage roll and go without an entree
(55:05):
for the entire weekend. Of course, since the cadets are
between twelve and eighteen, they came up with a nickname
for the cabbage roll imp, the alien Fetus. It made
me chuckle to myself, but of course military decorum had
to prevail. I hope you enjoyed the story. Perhaps it's
time for the cabbage roll to uh, I don't know. Yeah,
(55:29):
if you can get a kid to to not eat
for two days instead of instead of taking the cabbage roll,
then yeah, that's an intense mm hmmm. Around that time,
oh man, I was I was eating like twice as
much as my dad was when I was that age.
I ate so much. Oh yeah, I did too. Yeah,
blows my mind looking back. Sure bones are hard to grow, man,
(55:52):
takes a lot of work, It's true, It's true. Gosh,
cabbage rolls. I know, I've heard of such things. I
don't think I've ever had one. I've had I don't
know if I've had the traditional type, but I've certainly
made a role with cabbages that outer like yeah, mm hmm.
Thoughts for a future episode perhaps anyway, yes, yes, anyway,
(56:14):
Thanks to both of them for writing in. If you
would like to write to us, you can. We would
love to hear from you. Our email is hello at
savorpod dot com. We're also on social media. You can
find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at savor pod.
We do hope to hear from you. Savor is a
production of iHeart Radio and Stuff Media. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(56:38):
Thanks as always to our super producers Andrew Howard and
Dylan Fagan. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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