American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza

Reinhart begins his inquiry into pizza with his baseline palate memory for what a great pizza should be. As a teenager he had worked in a pizzeria, Mama's, and instinctively knew this pie to be the best. Returning as an adult years later, he discovered otherwise. Had he changed, or had the pizza changed? Both, it happened, were true.

So what is the nature of perfection, and where do you go to find it? In the case of Peter Reinhart, this journey includes travels through Italy and across the US. This is Part One of the book, called The Hunt. It's not the most enlivening travel writing, which would have helped elevate the insights into the nature of great pizza and the people who make it happen. But it's only a third of the entire package. The best is yet to come. In Part Two: The Recipes, Reinhart comes entirely into his own. Here is the master at work. Chapters include "The Family of Doughs", "Sauces and Specialty Toppings," and "The Pizzas." Reinhart gives you the building blocks, no matter what your kitchen, tools, and oven might be like. And then he unfolds the roadmap--pizzas from the strictly classical to the strictly whimsical.

Work diligently with American Pie and in time you will be able to call yourself, without hesitation or rising color, pizzaiolo and focacciaiolo. --Schuyler Ingle

Product Description
In the course of his extraordinary career as a baker, culinary instructor, and author, Peter Reinhart has dedicated himself to exploring the passions and techniques behind the great breads of the world. His most recent pursuit has been pizza—a seemingly simple food that has been hotly debated since Italian immigrants brought it to America more than a century ago. Allegiances run from the general (Chicago- versus New York–style, Neapolitan versus Sicilian) to the particular (Pepe’s versus Sally’s, Gino’s East versus Pizzeria Uno), and newfangled versions like sushi pizza are extending the frontier. In AMERICAN PIE, Reinhart follows the pizza trail from Italy to the States, capturing the stories behind the greatest artisanal pizzas of the Old World and the New.

Beginning his journey in Genoa, Reinhart scours the Italian countryside in search of the fabled focaccia col formaggio di Recco. After a stop in Florence for pizza vesuvio, with its black truffles and molten cheese, Peter heads to Rome to sample the famed seven-foot-long pizza bianca, and then Naples for the archetypal pizza napoletana. Back in America, the hunt for authentic pizza begins in the unlikely locale of Phoenix, Arizona, where Chris Bianco of Pizzeria Bianco has convinced many that his pie is the best in the country. Sardinian pizza in Dallas; the pizza epicenter of New Haven; grilled pizza in Providence; the deep-dish pies of Chicago; Yugoslavian pogacha in Bellevue, Washington—these are just a few of the stops on Reinhart’s epic tour.

Reinhart then returns to the kitchen, where he gives a master class on pizza-making techniques and provides his interpretations of the most memorable pizzas from his journey. His insatiable curiosity—and appetite—and gift for storytelling make this a must-have book for the avid cook, as well as a great read for the armchair pizzaiolo.

The book has two sections. The first is a fascinating account of all Reinhart went through to find what he regards as the perfect pizza. This includes details of a trip to Italy as well as places within the United States where he found excellent pizza on his pilgrimage. The second, larger section deals with the recipes (formulas) he has created, and this section is broken down further into three sections -- dough, toppings and sauces, and finally complete pizzas.

Do yourself a favor -- do not skip the first section and plow right into the recipes and formulas. While you may be more interested in getting down to business, you learn a tremendous amount about what the author regards as a great pizza, and more importantly, you learn just how serious the author was when he set out to find what he calls the perfect pizza. As is typical of his other works, Reinhart writes with unwavering passion, pouring everything he's got into the writing. Finally, many of the pizzas he mentions in the first section are recreated in recipe form in the second section, and it's really fasinating to recreate one of the pies in your own kitchen.

The dough section is a collection of approximately a dozen excellent formulas for crust. Each recipe sticks to Reinhart's trademark method -- slow rise, usually an overnight rising. I have not tried all of these, but those that I have tried have not disappointed. I'm getting rid of my old crust recipe.

The toppings and sauces section contains two recipes for nice sauces, neither of which I have attempted yet but will. Where it gets interesting is his "Specialty Toppings" section -- there are things there that I would never dream of putting on a pizza, such as pureed butternut squash, as well as tried and true items such as sauteed mushrooms and garlic oil. While some of these will not appeal to everyone, there is something interesting bound to tempt everyone.

Included is a brief breakdown of baking scenarios and how to deal with them -- home oven/no stone, convection oven and stone, etc. He covers all the bases.

Finally, the actual complete pizza forulas he gives reflect his quest to find a pizza that meets his unwavering standards. Many of the recipes are clearly a result of his trip to Italy, such as Pizza Vesuvio, and others are accounted in his domestic travels. Again, I have not tried them all (and with eggplant as an ingredient in some of these, it's doubtful I ever will), but those I have tried are so far and away better than what I made before.

All this said, an underlying thought I had was that the search for the "perfect pizza" was Reinhart's search. He was going for what *he* considers a perfect pizza, and that could very well be different than that of many of his readers. He seems to prefer a thinner, crisp crust that is mildly charred, with a good crunch and a finely tuned sauce and toppings combination. If you prefer a thick, chewy crust, you may feel like he is "off the mark" in his search. It is important to remember this when working your way through this book and finding your own "perfect pizza".

If you like pizza and want to make pizza of your own that is just flat-out outstanding, this book will serve you exceptionally well. Even if you don't find what you would consider "perfect pizza" here, you'll find something that's a great foundation.


Dough recipies are right on the money!   June 3, 2005
Don Trapani (Sacramento, CA USA)
33 out of 33 found this review helpful

I've made pizza from plain flour and yeast, commercial all-in-one packages, and even tried a bread machine recipe, but the taste and consistency were never as good as a real Pizzeria-made pizza. I beleive in the saying that crust is 80% of a pizza, so I bought this book and tried the first recipe for Neo-Neapolitan pizza dough. Because I'm lazy, I used a bread machine to knead the dough, and topped it with sauce and cheese I picked up off the shelf. To my pure delight, the dough was fantastic. It came out of the bread machine "sticky" just like the book says real pizza dough should be. I cut the ball in half, covered each piece with olive oil, and placed both in plastic bags to rise slowly overnight in the refrigerator, as indicated. The next evening I shaped the dough by applying flour to the backs of my hands as the book said, and baked it on a pizza stone in a conventional oven. The results were incredible. I repeated the feat at my girlfriend's house the next night with the second ball of dough, and she demanded that I leave the remaining pieces at her house for her to eat the next day.

I should mention that I divided the recipe in half because I don't need to make 4 balls of dough at once. And I did make two slight modifications to the recipe: 1) I dissolved the yeast in 105° water for 2 minutes before adding it to the bread machine, then added the olive oil followed by the dry ingredients; and 2) I added 2 tablespoons of gluten to the mix. I buy my flour and other supplies from a local baking store, and they recommend adding gluten to get a better rise. So I just do that out of habit, and it seemed to work perfectly for me. I followed this up with the New York-style crust, which also resulted in a perfectly sticky ball of dough. I may be making pizza every Friday night for the next 10 years, because you can whip this dough up on Thursday night in about 20 minutes, using a bread mixer on the Dough setting. I'm sure I could get gourmet-oriented and try some of the great sauce recipes, and buy some fresh mozzarella cheese, but the pizza tastes great with ordinary sauce and toppings, so for now I'm sticking with these dough recipes for their savory crusts.

As I mentioned above, I use a 15-inch pizza stone which I place in the oven and heat to 450° for 20 minutes while preparing the pizza. A Pizza Peel, the wooden paddle used for transporting the pizza to and from the oven, is essential if you want to bake the pizza directly on the stone. You need to place a generous amount of flour and corn meal on the peel beforehand, or the pizza will not slide off easily. If this happens, have a spatula handy to coax the pizza off the peel and onto the stone. The pizza will cook up quickly and be ready in 8 to 10 minutes.

My favorites are: Neo-Neapolitan, New York Style, Pizza Americana, and Chicago Deep Dish dough. One reviewer here gave the Chicago recipe a low score, but I liked mine. The problem wasn't with the crust, it was with all the ingredients in two layers of crust that produced a heavy and moist pizza. I prefer a thinner crust that results in a pizza that two people can polish off in one meal, but the Chicago Deep Dish is a good change of pace once in a while and leaves lots of leftovers for the next day or so!

Also, I finally got to Phoenix and visited Pizzeria Bianco in October 2008. As Reinhart promised, it was a GREAT crust, baked by the dough-maker in a wood-fired brick oven. I spoke briefly to Chef Bianco and gave him the Thumbs-Up, he was very humble and thanked me. When I mentioned I had read about PB in Peter Reinhart's book, he told me he had just spoken to Peter the day before. Good people, good food.




A search for Pizza Perfection, and how you may achieve it   December 23, 2003
B. Marold (Bethlehem, PA United States)
70 out of 76 found this review helpful

I'm sure there are other books devoted to the pizza, but this is the one which all true foodies will want. For starters, it's written by Peter Reinhart, a major American authority and writer on bread baking. Then, there are connections in the story to culinary luminaries such as Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Mario Batali, Rick Bayless, Paul Bertolli, and David Rosengarten.

The first half of the book is a quest to find the best American pizza, after an incident in Reinhart's home town of Philadelphia when he has a pie from a fondly remembered local restaurant, and it simply does not come up to his fond memories of the pizza of days gone by. As one would expect, the quest begins by a visit to sample the pizzas of Italy in Genoa, Florence, Rome, and Naples, the legendary home of the pizza archetype.

Upon returning home, the author and his wife visit famous pizza locations in New York City, New Haven, San Francisco, Los Angles, Chicago, and Phoenix. In case the Food Network has not caught onto this fact yet, some of the very best pizza is made at Pizzeria Bianco by Chris Bianco, a James Beard Best Chef of the Southwest award winner.

The author is not so gauche as to make a pronouncement on the best pizza in the country, but comes to the conclusion that a local `best' is the conjunction of a perception of what the best pizza should be and a very good pizzaioli who can produce a pie to meet those expectations. One of the most difficult problems for maintaining a good pizza in the U.S. is keeping a dedicated pizzaioli at work at that position and not to treat the job as just another station for a chef to master and move on. Even food meccas like Chez Panisse have problems keeping up the quality of their crusts in the face of staff rotation.

The second half of the book is dedicated to recipes and techniques for making pizzas at home. Given the great variety of wood, coal, gas, and electric ovens used to make pizza commercially, it's hard to imagine that with a reasonable amount of dilligence, people cannot get very good results from their home ovens. The biggest difficulty is that the typical home oven cannot manage more than about 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Reinhardt offers three methods to improve your chances with a home oven, both with and without the convection oven.

As Reinhart is a recognized expert on bread baking, I find no basis for my questioning his recommendations. And, since many of his colleagues believe the crust is five times more important for the quality of the pizza than all the toppings put together, I have to believe Rienhart's advice will be a golden addition to your pizza skills.

If there is any question in your mind up to now, be aware that this book deals only with the real deal. There are no short cuts here. The recipes part has chapters on:

The Family of Doughs including Napoletana, Roman, New York, Chicago, Sardinian, and Focaccia dough
Sauces, including tomato, pesto, and specialty sauces

Pizzas, including Mapoletana, neo-Neapolitan, Roman, Grilled, Sardinian, and Pita.

The classic American pizza represented primarily by New York City is a neo-Neapolitan pizza, but people in Chicagoland live and die by their deep dish pizzas. This is the source of Reinhardt's conclusion that one's perception of the best is affected greatly by what you grew up with.

If you don't like chatty books and you just want the recipes, this may not be the best book for you, but if you want the history, the general techniques, plus an excellent presentation of all the classic recipes, this is the book for you, especially at the very reasonable list price for a very well composed hardcover book.

Highly recommended.


All about taste   December 29, 2003
Joe Mielke (Kingsley, MI United States)
27 out of 27 found this review helpful

Reinhart's quest for the perfect pizza has resulted in the holy grail of pizza books.

Reading it will give you an understanding of what makes a good pizza good as well as how you can make excellent pizza at home. Reinhart has the ability to describe what dough is supposed to look and feel like at its various stages of development; he helps you develop a sense of what's happening.

I've made all of the doughs he describes--except the sourdough--and they all taste good. The descriptions of what to expect from each dough gives various reasons for why you might make one over the other. Eventually, Reinhart, says you will find a particular kind of dough that you focus on.

The book itself is beautiful, ragged edged pages and excellent typography.

There really isn't another book like it. It is what all good baking books wish they could be: A combination of clear instruction, insight, knowledge and explanation that results in food that tastes good.


pizza feelings put into words..............   January 2, 2004
Pablo Hauszler (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
21 out of 21 found this review helpful

I'm a pizza fan (eater and amateur baker) and I've endlessly explored the possibilities of reinventing pizza at home. I thought I was doing a pretty good job until I made the pizza crust Peter Reinhart has in his book "the bread bakers apprentice". I was hooked on pizza. After that, I bought a couple of books including Pizza Napoletana, American pie, Figs table...in view of further expanding my knowlege. What I love most about this book is that Peter Reinhart gives you an incredible overview about the different aspects of regional pizza. I've learned to appreciate and respect all tipes of pizza while conserving my favorites. With this book, you learn that the important thing is to respect each countries version of pizza, the quality of the ingredients and the feeling you put into it. Tradition and memories play an important part in the liking of any pizza. I strongly recomend this book. I do put in a note of warning: don't expect to find a picture book. You'll have to rely on the authors colorful narrating to create the picture in your head. At fist, when I flipped the books pages, it was a drawback, but when I started reading it........ Wow.... I realy don't miss the pictures all that much....To resume my comment: If you're realy into pizza, the technical and philosophical aspect of it all, this book will be a treasure of your library..........buy and enjoy