More "Blast From the Past", about How "Pizza" became popular in the US 12/10/2011

This article looks like it was on Slice, but I didn’t see if before.


Period Pies: A Look Back at New York Pizza Journalism

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2011/04/period_pies_a_look.html

I had to click on the article to be able to view it.

Any words highlighted can only be previewed in the NY times. These highlighted articles need to be bought to view them in their entirely.

Another article called: "Pizza, A Johnny-come-lately"

http://www.jcs-group.com/fun/culinary/pizza.html

This article shows (pictures) how fresh frozen pizzas were made. I don’t know if this was when they first made flash frozen pizzas or not.

http://brooklynology.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/post/2011/01/03/Big-Appetites-Little-Pizzas.aspx

Norma

A 1930 guide to dining out in New York defined pizza as “a inch-thick, potato pan-cake, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and stewed tomatoes.”

I don’t know how accurate this article is, but find it interesting how many pizzerias were listed from 1958 until 2010 in NY.

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/11/30/how-new-york-became-a-pizza-capital/

Page 10 in this article from The Italian Academy tells about how pizza became popular in the 50’s. I had to chuckle when I read this part of the article:

A good starting point to observe how popular magazines dealt with Italian Food in the 1950s is the case of pizza. Before the war, most non-Italian Americans were completely unfamiliar with it. A 1930 guide to dining out in New York defined pizza as “a inch-thick, potato pan-cake, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and stewed tomatoes.” In 1947, The New York Times Magazine introduced readers to a recipe for making pizza at home, claiming that the Italian specialty, a favorite in New York’s Little Italies, “could be as popular a snack as the hamburger, if only the Americans knew more about it.”22 The prescience is astonishing, as a national market for pizza was created overnight.

http://www.italianacademy.columbia.edu/publications/working_papers/2003_2004/paper_sp04_Cinotto.pdf

I think there are good references in the pdf document above that could be researched more.



Norma

Another Attempt at a clone Mellow Mushroom Pizza: used Pendletons Power Flour 12/06/2011

The MM#7 formulation worked out well this week.  I left the dough ball warm-up longer than my other attempts at market.  The dough sat out for 7 hrs. before the dough was opened. The dough ball was placed on top of a metal container on top of the deck oven for 2 hrs. of the warm-up.  I wanted to see if letting the dough ball warm-up longer would affect it in any way, but it didn’t appear that it did, expect it did rise a lot more.  The dough ball opened the same as the others and also baked almost the same.  It seems like the crust was a little moister this time.  I don’t know if that was from using the PMF Power flour or from the dough ball sitting out so long.  The temperatures were warmer than normal at market today, so maybe that also helped the dough to ferment more.

I changed flours from KASL to Pendleton Power flour (unbleached) for this attempt.

Norma

Next Attempt at a Jet's Pizza 12/06/2011

This was my next attempt at a Jet's pizza.  This was my best attempt so far.  The bottom crust did brown and the crumb was airy and soft.

Norma

First Attempt at a Victory Pig clone posted by steel-baker 12/07/2011

So, here is my attempt at the clone VP pizza steel_baker posted about. It went okay, but there were a few things I didn’t do right. I will make another attempt next week for a clone VP pizza.


I added too much sauce and I don’t know if it was the sauce, my baked temperature, or how long I baked the pie that gave me the results I had. It could have been any of the variables listed above.

I saw the pie was browning on the bottom of the steel pan and it looked about finished to me but when it was taken out of the pan I really don’t think the crumb was baked enough.

Norma

More experiments with the preferment Lehmann dough using ADM Gigantic High- Gluten flour 12/06/2011

I didn’t think to take more pictures yesterday, but I tried another experiment with the preferment Lehmann dough to see if a bromated flour made any difference in my pizzas using the same formulation. I used ADM Milling Gigantic High Gluten flour in two batches of preferment Lehmann dough. I wished I would have taken more pictures of the baked pizzas, dough balls, and skins yesterday, but I only have these few pictures. The dough looked the same after the final mix. The dough balls also fermented the same. When opening the dough balls though, it seemed the skin wanted to stretch back some. I sure don’t know what caused that. The finished pizzas seemed to bubble more in the rim and also seemed to brown a little better in the bake. I guess, but don’t know, that bromated flour contributed to the differences. The bottom crusts even seemed to brown better and more evenly. The Greek pizzas even seemed to have more oven spring in the rims.


Norma

Pizza Made with NY dough ball from Rizzo's Astoria, Queens 12/06/2011

I used the one Rizzo’s http://rizzosfinepizza.com/ dough ball yesterday to make a pizza. I let the dough warm-up for awhile at room temperature. The dough ball was first pressed out, then rolled a little, then hand stretched to over 17”. The skin was then cut until it weighed 13.38 ounces. The opened skin was then placed in the 17” round steel pan and the edges were pressed onto the sides of the round steel pan. The skin was very easy to open and could have been hand stretched more than it was. The 17” round steel pan was oiled with a little bit of corn oil. Sauce and mozzarella was then applied to the skin.


The pizza was partially baked in the steel pan and when I saw the edges were starting to brown, (but not the bottom crust) Steve and I transferred the pizza out of the steel pan onto the stone. This was a very thin pizza The pizza crust had a very good taste, even though it was very thin. I guess Rizzo’s knows what they are doing when they make their dough, or maybe it might be the NY water that made the crust taste good.

After the bake grated percino romano was added to the pizza. The added grated percino romano was also good.

I think, but sure don’t know, that maybe more oil might have been needed in the steel pan, because the pie bottom crust didn’t get crispy like the real slice of Rizzo’s pizza I ate in NY. The side crust was very crispy, but the bottom crust wasn’t. The bottom crust was more like a NY style pizza crust. This pizza with Rizzo’s dough ball was very good.

I think I might try another approach with the other Rizzo’s frozen dough ball for next Tuesday.

Norma