Our friend Bob Masullo, writer for the
Sacramento (CA) Bee tells you things you never knew about Pizza?? :)
Italian by birth, pizza in America reflects a melting pot of styles
By Bob Masullo
Bee Staff Writer
June 23, 2004
Eric Schnetz was raised in Chicago, John Ruffaine in New York. Both men make their living selling the kind of pizza they grew up with - and love.
Schnetz owns the Chicago Fire pizzeria on Folsom's historic Sutter Street. Ruffaine owns Sacramento's two Giovanni's Old World New York pizzerias.
Chicago-style pizza vs. New York-style. What's the difference? And what about other styles - Neapolitan, Sicilian, Californian?
Every pizza style has a devoted following. If you want to start a heated discussion, just tell a fan of New York-style that you prefer deep dish.
"I'm originally from Hoboken, New Jersey, so I know what a good pizza is, and this is the real thing," said Tony Basile of El Dorado Hills as he bought a couple of slices of New York-style pizza at Giovanni's on Folsom Boulevard. "It has a really good, thin crust, not like those bagel-y crusts you get in some places. Chicago-style pizza? There's no comparison."
Alicia Stampfli of Plumas Lake, moments after finishing a Chicago-style pizza at Zelda's Pizzeria in midtown, said: "I prefer the Chicago style because you can fit more toppings on it. It's a nice change from New York-style pizza, which you can get anywhere. And it just tastes better."
Jeremy White, editor of the trade magazine Pizza Today, says that, of the estimated 3 billion pizzas consumed in the United States every year, "the vast majority are the New York style or some approximation of it. The Chicago style is most popular, not surprisingly, in the Midwest, where it originated."
So, what is a Chicago pizza?
Well, for starters, according to Schnetz, there is not one but three: thin crust, stuffed and deep dish. Chicago Fire sells the first two, "but I'm still working on the recipe for a good deep-dish one," says Schnetz, who says he might add it to his menu this fall. Meanwhile, he thinks Zelda's offers a good example of the deep-dish pizza in the true Chicago style.
"None of the Chicago-style pizzas have a thick crust," Schnetz says. "That's a common misconception about Chicago pizza."
Kimberly Janusz of Sacramento apparently believes that. Outside of Zelda's, she said: "I like the Chicago style because I like bread and it just has more of it. It has a better crunch, too."
Schnetz believes people think Chicago pizzas have thick crusts because the pan in which the stuffed and deep-dish varieties are made have high sides. They were developed in the big meat-packing (and meat-eating) city in the late 1940s when casserole dishes were popular, and are, in effect, pizza casseroles. They're usually eaten with a knife and fork, unlike the New York pizzas, whose slices are most often hand-held. Because of the high sides, Chicago pizzas can hold much more meat, cheese and sauce than their New York cousins.
"The crust is worked up the side of the pan, maybe as much as 2 inches," Schnetz adds. "That way, it can hold more toppings. But the crust itself is thin."
The Chicago pizza known simply as "thin crust" is rectangular, and the slices are cut into squares rather than pielike wedges. The crust has a flaky, almost pastrylike texture. It is not baked in a pan but directly on the oven floor.
And New York pizzas?
Ruffaine's are thin crust, too, but have the more-traditional round shape and rounded edges. It is, he notes, only a slightly modified version of the style made in Naples, Italy, the city in which modern pizza was developed about 150 years ago.
Most think of thin crust and New York style as synonymous. That's not completely true. Many New York pizzerias also sell a thick-crust pizza they call Sicilian.
Like the Chicago thin crust, the thick-crust Sicilian pizza is rectangular and slices are cut into squares. Thick-crust pizzas outside of New York tend to be found only in chain pizzerias, most noticeably Pizza Hut, which claims to offer "America's favorite thick-crust pizza," a round pizza made in a pan.
"A real New York thin-crust pizza has to be made from scratch with top-quality, very fresh ingredients," says Ruffaine, who learned his trade in his father's restaurant in Brooklyn. "I use only San Marzano tomatoes; cow's-milk mozzarella made by Salerno, an Italian American company in New York; and extra-virgin olive oil. The dough, which I make with a special flour and according to my own recipe, has to be hand-worked and baked in a very hot oven right on the stone, not in a pan. The dough has to be shocked by its first contact with the heat."
When all elements are meshed correctly, the cooked dough has a slightly charred outer crispiness and an inner chewiness, and the toppings blend into a symphony of tastes, he says.
"I prefer thin-crust pizzas, especially here," Arnold Robbins of Rancho Cordova said while eating at the Giovanni's on Folsom Boulevard. "I would definitely recommend these. They taste great and they're really cooked well."
Ruffaine says that "the only significant difference between a New York pizza and a Neapolitan one is the mozzarella." In Naples, the mozzarella is made from the milk of water buffaloes; in New York, they use cow's-milk mozzarella.
"I used to use buffalo mozzarella, but it has a higher water content," Ruffaine says. "So when it melted, it made the sauce too runny."
This is a point on which Vince Burke, another New York-style pizza maker, agrees. The owner of Pizza Romeo in Loehmann's Plaza says he uses buffalo-milk mozzarella in salads but cow's-milk mozzarella on his pizzas for this reason.
"The buffalo-milk mozzarella is a premium cheese, and just for eating it's really superior," he says. "But if you put it on a pizza, you get a soggy pie."
The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (Authentic Neapolitan Pizza Association), a Naples-based trade group that promotes Neapolitan pizza around the world, favors the buffalo-milk mozzarella. At its behest, Italy passed a law last month stating that anyone claiming to sell a Neapolitan-style pizza must comply with the rules; pizzerias could - and in most parts of Italy outside of Naples do - make other kinds of pizza, but they can't call them "Neapolitan."
The association gives pizzerias that make pizzas according to its strict rules a "VPN" seal to display. Only 10 pizzerias in the United States have earned that seal, including two in California: the Café Niebaum-Coppola (with outlets in San Francisco and Palo Alto) and Antica Pizzeria in Los Angeles.
California style is the antithesis of the Neapolitan style. Like California cuisine in general, California pizza is adventuresome. Anything you can think of putting on a pizza has probably already been put on a pizza somewhere in the Golden State.
Sacramento had a major hand in developing this style. Although pizza was available in the United States since the late 1890s (primarily in East Coast "Little Italies"), it didn't become popular in most places until after World War II.
The first restaurant to sell pizza in Sacramento was Joe Marty's (also known as El Chico's) on Broadway. Noby Keiunji, a former owner, recalls the introduction of what was then a novelty item.
"It was in the very early '50s," he says. "Bill Limeberger (another former owner) had the idea. And I can still recall Shakey Johnson, who worked in the kitchen, making some of the first ones. Boy, they sold well."
In 1954, the late Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson opened a "pizza parlor" (a term he claimed to have coined and preferred over "pizzeria") of his own with his college friend Ed Plummer at 57th and J streets.
It was the first of what is now a 400-unit international chain of Shakey's Pizza Parlors. Not bound by tradition, as East Coast pizza makers were, he experimented with a variety of toppings, making what arguably could be called the first California-style pizza.
This concept was carried to its logical - some would say illogical - conclusion in 1985 by Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax, both attorneys in Southern California, when they started another chain, California Pizza Kitchen.
"They wanted to make pizzas that were really different, that broke all the rules," says Brian Sullivan, the chain's vice president of menu development. "They wanted them to be gourmet and to stay in tune with the public's ever-changing palate."
Signature pizzas offered by the chain, which now has 140 outlets worldwide, including one in Market Square at Arden Fair and another at the Sacramento International Airport, are topped with such ingredients as barbecue chicken, Japanese eggplant and Peking duck. Sullivan says the latter is the chain's "most exotic pizza" to date.
"We now offer 28 different pizzas," Sullivan says. "We add two to four new ones every year and we'll drop a few, as well. We try to keep on top of the public's changing tastes and offer what most people want."
Chicago style and
New York style may be the dominant pizza styles, notes Sullivan, "and California
Pizza Kitchen offers versions of them, but why limit yourself to just those
few?"
Why, indeed?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pizza by the
book
Under pressure from
the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (Authentic Neapolitan Pizza Association),
the Italian parliament last month passed a law defining a true Neapolitan
pizza. It is now pushing to have the European Union do the same.Under the
Italian law, such a pizza, among other things, must:
* Have its dough
kneaded by hand.
* Be round and no
more than 13.8 inches in diameter.
* Have a crust that
is less than 1/4-inch thick.
* Be made only with
approved flour, salt, yeast, extra-virgin olive oil, tomatoes, and mozzarella
made from the milk of water buffaloes.
The law does not require that all pizzas made in Italy be made this way, just those described as "authentic Neapolitan."
Pizzerias that comply can identify their pizzas as "STG" ("Specialitá Traditionale Garantita" or "Guaranteed Traditional Specialty"). Other products also have earned STGs, most notably parmigiano cheese from Parma.
Sources: New York
Times News Service and Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana Web site, www.verapizzanapoletana.org/vpn.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
How you slice
it
* The average American
consumes 10 pizzas a year.
* Most popular topping:
pepperoni.
* Least popular:
anchovies.
* There are 63,500
pizzerias in the United States, representing 17 percent of all restaurants.
* There are more
than 200 pizzerias in the greater Sacramento area.
* About 48 percent
of the pizzerias are independents; 52 percent are part of chains.
* About 3 billion
pizzas are sold annually in the United States.
* More than $30
billion was spent on pizza in the United States in 2003.
* The industry grew
5 percent from 2002 to 2003 and is projected to grow another 6.5 percent
in 2004.
SOURCES: Pizza Today
magazine and Food Industry News
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finding your
favorite style
Neapolitan
The original pizza is circular, with rounded edges, made with a crust that is between 1/8-and 1/4-inch thick, and is usually topped with crushed San Marzano tomatoes (or a chunky tomato sauce made from them), buffalo milk mozzarella, extra-virgin olive oil, fresh basil and nothing else. It is baked in a wood-or coal-burning brick oven. In San Francisco: Café Niebaum-Coppola, 916 Kearny St.
New York
Similar to Neapolitan except that the mozzarella is made from cow's milk, and a few additional toppings (such as sausage, mushrooms, olives and anchovies) are allowed. May be baked in gas ovens, although brick ovens are preferred.Sacramento: Giovanni's (5924 S. Land Park Drive and 6200 Folsom Blvd.); Pete's (2001 J St.; 8785 Center Parkway; 5005 Foothills Blvd., Roseville; 1950 Douglas Blvd., Roseville; and 9050 Fairway Drive, Roseville); Pizza Romeo (2449 Fair Oaks Blvd. in Loehmann's Plaza); and NYPD - New York Pizza Department (6200 Stanford Ranch Road, Rocklin).
Sicilian
A thick crust (about 1 1/2 inches) style of pizza that is popular on the East Coast. It is something like focaccia with a tomato/mozzarella topping. Rectangular in shape, its slices are cut square. The name is a misnomer, though, as it is not popular in Sicily.
Pizza Hut makes a pan pizza that has a thick crust that is somewhat similar; California Pizza Kitchen has a pizza it calls "Sicilian" but it has a thin crust, is round and has a spicy, multi-ingredient topping.
Chicago deep dish
Thin crust worked in a round pan so that the dough comes up the sides as high as 2 inches. The inside is filled with about twice as much sauce, cheese and other meat and vegetable toppings as a New York-style pizza of the same size. Served in the pan and usually eaten with a knife and fork.
Sacramento: Zelda's, 1415 21st St.
Chicago stuffed
Similar to the deep dish except that it's covered by a thin layer of dough and sauce.Sacramento: Chicago Fire, 614 Sutter St., Folsom.
Chicago thin crust
Crust is thin but flakier than a New York-style pizza; edges are not rolled. Baked in a rectangular shape with slices cut in squares.Sacramento: Chicago Fire, 614 Sutter St., Folsom.
California
This is an "anything goes" style. It may be thick or thin, round or square, and toppings can be whatever the mind is capable of imagining. Eggplant and Peking duck are among the toppings offered at California Pizza Kitchen.
Most chains - including Pizza Hut, Round Table and, most conspicuously, California Pizza Kitchen - offer many varieties of California-style pizzas; numerous locations.-
Bob Masullo
The Bee's Bob Masullo
can be reached at (916) 321-1118 or bmasullo@sacbee.com.