The Pizza Thread

D'you think the combination's notoriety has increased those sales?
I mean, how many people might've thought "I wonder what the fuss is about?" and found they liked it?
 
Unknown to me until now there is a National Pizza Day on February 9th.

Italy wants to be different and call their’s World Pizza Day tied to a celebration of a Saint Anthony on January 17 th.

Surprisingly per person, Norway out eats the world in pizza eating 11 pounds per person or around 5 kg per year.
 
Unknown to me until now there is a National Pizza Day on February 9th.

Italy wants to be different and call their’s World Pizza Day tied to a celebration of a Saint Anthony on January 17 th.

Surprisingly per person, Norway out eats the world in pizza eating 11 pounds per person or around 5 kg per year.
I could not for the life of me imagine how much pizza that was, so I went and looked at the weights of frozen pizzas online, and it's only 10 or 15 pizzas, that's not as much as I thought.
 
There used to be a pizza delivery place around the corner from me when I lived in Beckenham. Their 'speciality' was the Beast.
A rectangular slab, you could have different toppings on different parts of it ... because it was about 2ft. by 3ft.
Absolutely ideal for parties!
 
Wow, 2 by 3 feet pizza.

The commercial pizza stores in the U.S.won’t go over 16 to 18 inches.
 
A 2,000 year-old fresco recently uncovered in Pompeii shows what looks extremely like a pizza - accompanied by a couple of pineapples.
The latter possibly qualify as OOPARTS, as conventional history tells us that pineapples were first brought to Europe by Columbus in the 16th century.

View attachment 67404

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-possibly-depicts-2000-year-old-form-of-pizza

Further discoveries at the Pompeii Archaeological Park, include this beautifully preserved oven, adjacent to the Pizza fresco.
It looks almost identical to pizza ovens you can see in pizzerias today.

pizza.png

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66226417
 
Ideal for making flatbreads.
Also the 'disk' style of loaves the Romans made.
Many 'public' bakers would allow regular customers to use the ovens to bake the dough the customer made themselves. This was popular because many of the poorer homes in tenements weren't allowed to have cooking facilities, due to the fire risk.
 
Further discoveries at the Pompeii Archaeological Park, include this beautifully preserved oven, adjacent to the Pizza fresco.
It looks almost identical to pizza ovens you can see in pizzerias today.

View attachment 67931
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66226417
In Herculaneum with Escette we saw ovens like that, then went for a pizza from a shop with a very similar one. :)

Pizzas are made of bread dough with olive oil added to make it stretchy. Lob some toppings on and there's your pizza.
 
For the pizza bases, any strong/bakers flour will do.
Pasta, though, really needs zero-zero flour; I think it's because it's ultra-fine for the texture. You can, however, make gyoza/dim sum 'skins' using ordinary plain flour, so I can't see the problem.
I've always got 0-0 and strong flour in stock all the time.
Storm- I just tried using puff pastry as a base for pizza and it was very good.

Even though I suspect it will be more fattening than a regular flour pizza, due to the butter used to make it, it had a very light and airy feel.

For the next attempt, I shall make a marinara pizza ie without cheese, to counteract the added aforementioned butter.
 
Storm- I just tried using puff pastry as a base for pizza and it was very good.

Even though I suspect it will be more fattening than a regular flour pizza, due to the butter used to make it, it had a very light and airy feel.

For the next attempt, I shall make a marinara pizza ie without cheese, to counteract the added aforementioned butter.

Fiend!
 
I often watch James Martin (Yorkshire chef) and he uses tonnes of the stuff.
Makes me feel a bit queezy sometimes................
 
I've decided to use my multichef to grate some cheese and some tinned ham into a mix and, adding some garlic, try this as a 'quick' topping.
 
Supposedly ham and pineapple getting more popular on pizza.
Actually, I've always liked ham and pineapple pizza. There used to be a brilliant pizza place in Prittlewell (part of Southend-on-Sea) called Planet Pizza, I'm talking the 1970's now. They named their pizza's after planets and their Neptune seafood and black olive pizza was to die for.
 
When the kids were young my wife made pizza out of any thing should could find in the kitchen like English Muffins or Italian Bread.

She used pizza sauce from the jar and a bunch of Mozzarella Cheese, and the kids didn’t know the difference.

Today in the grocery there are all kinds of pizza supplies and kits to use.

Then of course one can today go the many pizza franchises.
 
Y'see, technically it depends on what you mean by a pizza. :)
Bread base? Sure. Variable toppings? Uh ... okay. Grilled or at least oven warmed? Y...yeah.
So technically, you could take a slice of bread, smear it with ketchup, add a bit of ham, sprinkle of cheese and ... PRESTO! A pizza.
I'm not a purist at all - food is food!
But I think we do need some form of expectation management here. :)
If I make a flatbread with topping, I still call it a flatbread.
 
Y'see, technically it depends on what you mean by a pizza. :)
Bread base? Sure. Variable toppings? Uh ... okay. Grilled or at least oven warmed? Y...yeah.
So technically, you could take a slice of bread, smear it with ketchup, add a bit of ham, sprinkle of cheese and ... PRESTO! A pizza.
I'm not a purist at all - food is food!
But I think we do need some form of expectation management here. :)
If I make a flatbread with topping, I still call it a flatbread.
When I make flatbreads/wraps whatever you want to call them, them first one is always a bit crap (even though I make sure the pan is hot?) - a bit 'stiff' if you will, without the 'air pockets/bubbled up bits' that I like to have - so I usually oven it for a few minutes and use it as a base with maybe only cheese, or perhaps oil and some herbs.
 
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