The Quest for the Perfect Pizza

We take pizza for granted.

Pizza has been with food lovers for decades. It's the tasty, cheap meal we eat on the run or feast on at parties or holidays. Pizza is also good, nutritious food and it's, well just pretty cool. It's the circular King of Cuisine - the Fonz of Food. Pizza is the fast food that doesn't taste like it and has more zest than most quickie meals.

Sadly, for all of pizza's popularity, for many it's almost an afterthought. Pizza has become so much of a landmark on the American dining landscape, that there's not much novelty to it anymore. There's Pizza Hut, Dominos, Papa John's, Little Caesar's and of course the vast number of Mama & Papa pizzerias, which not only consistently surpass the chains for taste, freshness and value, but continue to innovate the pizza itself more than any corporate chain owned entity ever could.

My family has owned several local Italian restaurants in the NJ area. They operated for years and were city and county famous for their popular Italian cooking. Perhaps I'm a little biased because of that, but pizza to me isn't merely a cheap fast food. It's not just something you toss into a cart from a frozen food aisle. Pizza making is something of an art form. When you get right down to it and think about just what goes into making a pizza, it's a pretty special thing.

Ingredients Equal Quality

Like most every other complex food to prepare, pizza depends on superior ingredients. And yes, pizza is complex. Grilled chicken entails the chicken, some spices and grilling it. Wow. You call that hard? A steak: start with a good cut, then maybe marinate and grill, fry or bake. That's your idea of complicated cooking? Maybe you find a stir-fry taxing. Yeah, throw in a few cubed portions of meat, vegetables, turn up the heat and stir em around - not exactly my idea of incredibly challenging cooking.

So freshness counts, but it doesn't stop there. The quest for the perfect pizza isn't as easy as throwing together fresh stuff.

Four Taste Elements