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Pizza in the oven: »Modernist Pizza« contains more than 100 recipes to bake at home
Photo:
Peter Cade/Getty Images
When the courier needs a sack truck to deliver a review copy of a cookbook, there can almost only be one man behind it: Nathan Myhrvold, formerly
one of the top executives behind Bill Gates at Microsoft and for many years one of the most meticulous cookery researchers in the world.
After his mammoth works "Modernist Cuisine" (2478 pages) and "Modernist Bread" (2643 pages), the 1700 pages of the new compendium "Modernist Pizza" seem almost modest.
However, the three volumes in the slipcase still weigh almost 15 kilograms.
And all this about no other subject than a filled, oven-baked flatbread?
Sure, why not delve into a topic properly.
A 160,000 kilometer research trip to 250 pizzerias worldwide, in order to then bake more than 12,000 pizzas in a total of more than 200,000 hours: This is the knowledge that the team around Nathan Myhrvold and chef de cuisine Francisco Migoya summarized.
The work is illustrated with 3700 original photos, for some of which even new camera technologies were developed.
Of course, there is always something crazy about such a mammoth project, but the always cheerful boss of the 20 permanent researchers, cooks, historians and biochemists is a gifted communicator with irrepressible scientific curiosity.
The fact that 1,700 monothematic pages about what is probably the most widespread western form of food after hamburgers can make sense is due to the interdisciplinary nature and above all to the unconditional will to achieve the greatest possible precision.
After all, it is about baked goods, and unlike cooking, baking generally does not tolerate gray areas when it comes to parameters such as quantity, weight, temperature and time.
Baking recipes require precision
Baking recipes must always be absolutely precise.
It goes without saying that no pizzaioli between Naples and Nepal with decades of dough experience will take a pizza out of the oven that is in any way inferior to that of the US test chefs from their high-end modernist hellfires.
But even veteran professionals can still get details and background knowledge from the three thick volumes that make their output that little bit tastier.
We amateur pizza bakers, who bake reasonably edible flat cakes even with less suitable flour, dry yeast and a household oven that reaches its limits at 225 degrees Celsius, are initially amazed by this enormous amount of diligent work.
Fortunately, it is cleverly curated and prepared.
Myhrvold and his research team take us to the culinary origins of pizza, which well into the 17th century was still a sweetly flavored dish - often topped with dates, pigeon meat and raisins and more akin to a pie in shape.
What is known today as pizza, i.e. thin yeast dough with a hearty topping that is also baked, originated in Naples in the 18th and 19th centuries primarily as a basis for saturation for the largely impoverished urban population.
At the same time, the reputation of the tomatoes imported from Latin America slowly but surely improved: away from the inedible nightshade plant and towards the tasty and nutritious vegetable topping of the cheap flat cakes - since the middle of the 19th century in the wealthier classes supplemented by mozzarella cheese.
Myhrvold extensively tells the culinary history as well as the cultural history of pizza.
Brought by southern Italian immigrants, it soon conquered the plates of Argentina, Brazil and the USA, for example in the form of the New Haven-style pizza with the “Pepperoni” as a favorite topping, which was unknown in Italy at the time, and a smoked cured sausage.
In addition, since the 1940s it has been baked in the newly developed gas ovens instead of the wood heating system, which is impractical, especially in large cities.
Think out of the box
All in all, from a European point of view, the dozens of pizza styles in the USA and South America, from New Haven style to Chicago deep-dish to Buenos Aires thick crust, illuminated down to the last corner, are a bit tiring in the long run.
On the other hand, it is always worth taking a look over the edge of your own pizza plate, especially when it comes to this topic.
And, of course, styles from this side of the Atlantic are also explained and illustrated at epic length, such as the Neapolitan, Calabrian or Lombard style, as well as pizza al taglio and the stylish new Canotto (»Inflatable Rim«).
Mind you, we are now only on page 147 of 1700. In front of the huge and meticulously researched kitchen practice chapter, including all essential information about pizza ovens, flours and substitute flours, types of yeast and salt as well as their conversion factors First there is a 110-page travel report on hundreds of selected pizzerias on the American and European continents - one expedition even goes as far as Tokyo in 16 restaurants and the training centers for Japanese pizzaioli.
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Nathan Myhrvold, Francisco Migoya
Modernist pizza
Publisher: Phaedo
Number of pages: 1708
Publisher: Phaedo
Number of pages: 1708
Buy for €375.00
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Myhrvold dedicates a further 436 pages (volume 2) to all the relevant ingredients, including the production of homemade mozzarella, as well as the basic techniques of dough processing, sauce knowledge and finally the actual baking.
Anyone who has absorbed and understood all of this basically does not need the third volume with its targeted cooking recipes, although the typical "modernist" explosion photos alone are still amazing.
Beyond the preparation instructions for the basic pizza styles presented in the previous volumes, the following chapter "Worlds of Taste" is particularly interesting.
The favorite combinations of the Myhrvold team are shown there, which have emerged after four years of intense study of the subject.
At this point you can start directly as a hobby cook and immediately bake more than 100 different pizzas from classic to daring.
The work is rounded off by detailed instructions on the topics of serving, storing and reheating, as well as an opulent appendix with (online) reference addresses and conversion tables.
But what only the very few notice who have made it this far.
who needs this
Everyone who is really serious about baking pizza, i.e. professionals and pizzaioli as well as inquisitive hobby bakers who can share the high acquisition costs with the other members of their cooking or baking club, for example.
Typical recipe?
»Brazilian thin-crust pizza with chicken and catupiry cheese«
What does this cost?
375 euros
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