slkinsey
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Franny's was reviewed in today's NY Times: Brooklyn Pizza With a Résumé
Franny's belongs to a new wave of pizzerias popping up in Italy and the States, where high quality ingredients, like house-cured meats and farmstead cheeses, elevate humble pies. Ms. Stephens and her husband, Andrew Feinberg — the chef in the Mets cap at the wood-burning brick oven — worked at Savoy in SoHo and spent a year in the Berkshires, making cheese and befriending farmers. Their menu is seasonal, changes daily and proclaims their ingredients' sustainable provenance.I found it kind of odd that the write up of what is in essence a pizzeria only devoted a quarter of the review to their pizza and doesn't have much illuminating to say about them:
But those pies. When I first visited, they fitted snugly on the plate. They grew with time until they drooped onto the table. Nicely charred bottoms and puffy rims taste faintly of wood smoke and thin centers hold their own against superior toppings.For traditionalists, house-made, just-gamy-enough pepperoni and gumball-size meatballs, bursting with herbs and spice, arrive with milky mozzarella and dollops of deeply flavored sauce ($14).
In a city where everyone has an opinion about pizza, creative pies cause debates. "It tastes like breakfast," one friend said, biting into barely cooked egg yolk, pancetta, and fontina ($13). I thought the flavors got along beautifully. "What's a pie without cheese?" another said of chilies, olives, and buttery roasted garlic ($11), perfectly calibrated against a cooked-in layer of sauce. The one-two punch of sweet clams and briny capers ($14) was delicious.
This is Dana Bowen's second or third $25 and Under, afaik, and it seems like she's still feeling her way around a bit. It was a positive review, I thought, but didn't really say as much as the New York Magazine review (although NY Magazine had 70% more words to say it in). Interesting that Bowen doesn't like the pasta, though, as other reviews have been very positive.
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In that case, the menu should say Kobe style beef.
Oh? Should it say "cheddar style cheese" unless the cheese comes from Cheddar, England?
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Steven, those new pictures are certainly a lot closer to what I would think of as a Neapolitan style than the first one. Still, they don't show the signs of the explosive action on the crust that one gets in a hot Neapolitan oven, and there is something artificial-looking about them to my eye. This is probably due to their "griddled then broiled" technology. Given the unusual, quirky system in use at Otto, that's probably as close as they can come to the real thing. I still don't understand why they chose to reinvent the wheel and go that route instead of going with proven methods, but I bet it has something to do with cutting costs.
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Seeing these photos from Naples I'm again reminded that I'm the only person . . . who thinks the pizza at Otto in New York is very reminiscent of the Neapolitan style.
There are certainly elements of Otto's style that are closely related to the Neapolitan style. These elements have mostly to do with the toppings and the size, however, and not much to do with the crust. So I suppose the pizza might be reminiscent of the Neapolitan stule with respect to these elements. The thing is... the crust is the game. If the crust isn't right, the pizza isn't right. Re Otto, I think the pizza there is much thinner and crisper, without of the pliable puffyness that can be seen in Neapolitan pizza. Really, Otto pizza is a thing unto itself. A good comparison is to look at it like this:
As you can see, the edge of the Otto crust is thin and cracker-like without any discernable effects of leavening whereas the Trianon crust has blistered puffyness at the cornicione, and overall looks much softer and more pliable. The Otto crust looks like it's barely leavened.
Have you, by any chance, been to Napoli?
. . . Otto does have an alleged D.O.C. pizza on the menu."Alleged" is a good word to use, because I don't think a pizza can satisfy the DOC requirements unless it is baked in a wood-fired "beehive" oven. Then again, the DOC regulations don't cary any legal weight over here, so Mario can call it a "DOC" pizza and no one will do anything about it.
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Dryden, I think you'll find that just about everything on average is substantially more expensive here than it is in the South and Midwest. We are able to pay those prices because people here tend to earn substantially more than people in the South and Midwest on average. It all balances out in the end. The nice thing for us is that when we travel our of town it seems like everything is on sale.
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There is a neo-Neapolitan Italian style that is found almost everywhere (e.g., thin crusted individual sized pizza, but without so much blistering and puffing up at the cornicione), but I've even seen what struck me as more or less American pizza in a few places. The variation of toppings on baked flat-ish bread is infinite, I suppose.
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Pomodorino a piennolo. Also here. Good information and pictures here.
Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio are DOP.
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GREAT thread, Moby! I hardly know what to add except jealousy, of course.
I think a lot of the soft, pliable texture and fairly pale color (contrasting with the crisp, brown, blistered cornicione and great oven spring) has to do with their use of soft, hyper-refined 00 flour. Most pizzerie in America use a much stronger flour and consequently have to cut the dough with fat in order to make it tender enough to eat. Even Franny's uses high gluten flour. This use of strong flour (which makes sense for an American pizzeria, what with America being the world's leading supplier of strong flour and all) works more towards an overall crispness, "snap" and chewyness rather than tender pliability.
Oh, and I am naturallt honored to have a pizza crust evaluation scale named after me.
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I have a hard time believing that 20 wood-burning barbecue pits produce an appreciable amount of air pollution in a city of that size. That said, barbecue smoke is particularly troublesome because it is a grease-laden smoke, and this is the worst kind of particulate. There should be some relatively measures that can be implemented that will cut down the particulates considerably -- especially when compared to the current measures which are, well, nothing.
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Okay guys... we've had fun playing around, but let's get back on topic. We have a real question before us.
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Do you know if the book mentioned in your linked reference was ever published?
Yes. The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott.
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It predates the 1970s.
Dude, it predates the 1770s.
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Given the source I found above, I think it seems fairly clear that "having a barbeque" is something that goes back several hundred years in the US.
It's still not clear where and when the "que" spelling and "BBQ" shortening developed (especially since these sources all call the French "barbe a queue" explanation bullshit).I think it's probably a regional thing. I think they've been writing "BBQ" in Texas for a long, long time. Since it is fairly easy to understand how "BBQ" came from "barbecue" (with the "Q" representing the last syllable") my guess is that "barbeque" came from "BBQ."
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The point is the lactobacilli, not the yeast, as the lactobacilli are the organisms that give sourdough its unique flavor, etc. The yeast are only important insofar as they are able to coexist and form a symbiosis with the lactobacilli.
And the yeast do keep one from baking up brick doorstops.
It's a common misconception that the lactobacilli only flavor the dough and the yeast does all the leavening. One of the byproducts of fermentation by the lactobacilli is carbon dioxide. In fact, they are likely equally responsible for the leavening. From the same source as above, we have:
460 And to the margin note right next (CONCERNING THE ABILITY OF BACTERIAL461 FERMENTATION TO RAISE A LOAF OF BREAD, WITHOUT YEAST): We've done the
462 experiments, it works quite well without yeast. The volume is somewhat
463 smaller, though. Markus Brandt has estimated the contribution of yeasts
464 and lactobacilli to gas production in a "normal" sourdough: about 50%
465 comes from lactobacilli and yeasts each. The yeasts are fewer in numbers,
466 but larger in size.
I may have the details slightly wrong, but I believe the production of carbon dioxide is related to the surface area of the microorganism. Yeast cells are much larger than lactobacillus cells and produce much more CO2 per cell, but the lactobacillus cells outnumber the yeast cells by something like 100 to 1. The end result is around a 50/50 contribution to leavening.
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Very interesting information here on the etymology of "barbecue." Most interesting and most pertinent to this discussion was the following:
By 1733 the word was being used for an open-air, social gathering featuring the grilling of meat. -
Oh, I agree it's come into the vernacular to mean grilling over charcoal briquettes -- most likely everywhere, including Boston. I just wonder when this started happening. Do many of us remember "barbeque" having the meaning "backyard grilling" back in the 70s?
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I grew up in the Northeast (Boston) but have roots and spent much time in two major barbeque epicenters (Texas and NC). According to my childhood memories (the 70s), whenever I heard the word "barbeque" in TX or NC, it meant the real thing. In Boston, when someone was grilling in the back yard it was called a "cook out." I never heard the word "barbeque" in Boston.
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One substantial style that was missing -- and without which I thought the BABBP was incomplete as a survey of American BBQ -- was mutton, which I believe is an Owensboro specialty. I'd love to see some of that next year.
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Watching Fat Guy pick a whole hog was definitely the highlight of the event.
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What are the advantages of using infused simple syrup as opposed to using infused alcohol? For example, how would these two drinks taste different:
2.0 oz : white rum
1.0 oz : lime juice
0.5 oz : mint-infused simple syrup
2.0 oz : mint-infused white rum
1.0 oz : lime juice
0.5 oz : simple syrup
Obviously, in a bar situation it makes sense to just do they syrup, because you're not tying up an entire bottle of booze with the infusion. I'm just wondering whether there are any flavor differences.
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Interesting to see such a diversity of opinions. I thought Mitchell's Whole Hog was operating at a level head and shoulders above what anyone else there was doing. Then again, I've spent a lot of time in North Carolina over the years and I understand the style very well. It's definitately not what most NYers would expect as "barbeque." Second to Mitchell's, I thought, was the brisket from K.C. Baron. Big Bob's I liked -- and certainly it is a more familiar style to most around here -- but I thought it was nowhere near Mitchell's.
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Oh, I agree that it's only a possibility. The facts, as I have read them, are that we know a number of places where sourdough microorganisms are not commonly found and can rule out as a source (e.g., flour, water, air), and we know one place where sourdough bacteria has been found and should consider a possible source (humans).
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Sam, it seems to me that, as the man says, the yeasts/bacteria have to come from somewhere. If it ain't the air or the flour, and I assume you don't think it's the water..... then what's left?
Other envirinmental surfaces, including yourself. It's actually hard to say where it comes from. One can say, "it might have come from here" only when the microorganism is found in that place. So, while we can't exactly say where the stuff comes from, we can reasonably well say where it didn't come from. The human origin is merely a possibility, but I do find it very interesting that the only place other than in sourdough bread that L. sanfranciscensis has been found is in humans. That there has been extensive testing of Italian flour with no L. sanfranciscensis found, despite the fact that it is found in all Italian sourdoughs, is extremely persuasive evidence against the flour origin hypothesis.
I have a hard time buying that humans are the source. Many of us have made starters from just flour and water, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who did everything I could to make sure the contents of my mouth and intestine had no contact with the starter.First of all, human bodies are literally swimming in wild yeast and bacteria. I don't want to gross anyone out, but to make an example: do you know why it's recommended to wash one's hands after going to the bathroom? It's not because you might have pee on your fingers. It's because the entire area of your body from your belt to the top of your thighs is swimming with potentially nasty microorganisms like E. coli, etc. I make this example to illustrate the fact that just because something mostly lives in your mouth or intestine doesn't mean it doesn't end up in all kinds of other places. If you scratch an itch around your belt, you've likely got some intestinal microorganisms on your fingers.
Many cookbooks encourage you to try to maintain absolutely sterile conditions at the beginning of the process. I'm not saying this advice is correct, but I am saying that I followed it and got a successful starter out of the deal.As I said before, many (even most) cookbooks writing about sourdough contain tons of bad information when it comes to sourdough. All you're telling me is that you went to lot of unnecessary extra trouble sand ended up inoculating your starter anyway.
Even where I live, in the desert, there are wild yeasts floating around.Everywhere you go there are tons of wild yeasts and other microscopic beasties living on just about everything. In reality, I don't think it's necessarily the case that the microorganisms are floating around in the air solo. Rather, they are likely living on the surface of tiny dist particles, etc.
Fairly old cookbooks (from the 20s, 30s an 40s) advocate saving the water in which potatoes are cooked and mixing that with the flour, as the wild yeasts are "attracted" to it.This is ridiculous, of course. You can't "attract" wild yeast with potatoes the way you attract flies with honey. Microorganisms don't work that way.
Some people make the mistake of putting their culture in too small a container. The best thing to use is a wide bowl which will expose the most surface of the culture to the wild yeasts.Again, this is based on the "from the air" hypothesis which is likely incorrect. I have personally had plenty of success starting a sourdough culture in a closed container maintaining the starter at 50 grams each of flour and water.
I thought I had already made this point, but if I haven't: It's not me saying that I don't think sourdough microorganisms come from the air or the flour. I'm not a sourdough microbiologist. What I am doing is repeating direct statements from someone who is a sourdough microbiologist.
I'd also like to make the point that people who focus on the wild yeast aspect of sourdough cultures are missing the point. The point is the lactobacilli, not the yeast, as the lactobacilli are the organisms that give sourdough its unique flavor, etc. The yeast are only important insofar as they are able to coexist and form a symbiosis with the lactobacilli.
Some strains are so strong that they will overwhelm other strains. You can take a mild sourdough starter, that has been maintained with little change over a period of years, to the San Francisco Bay area and within three or four months the nature of the beast has changed to that typical very sour culture that is dominant in that area and there is nothing you can do to stop it.This will largely depend on the methods one uses in maintaining the sourdough culture. For sure, there are techniques some people use which work just fine in one area but will not work when continued in another. The "save a bit of the dough for next time" technique, for example, strikes me as a starter preservation technique that will not work very well in another environment. However, there are other techniques which have been met with great success, not only in the laboratory but also in homes. For example, this has always been my technique: I maintain 100 gram starter with 50 grams of filtered water and 50 grams of flour. When I make bread, I take out all of the starter I can get with a spoon and use that to build a sponge or inoculate the dough. Remaining stuck to the inside of the jar is around 10 grams of starter. To this I add 45 grams of water and 45 grams of flour to bring the starter up to 100 grams again. This dilution creates a pH of around 5.0 - 5.5 which the optimal environment for growth of the sourdough culture microorganisms per Gänzle. The jar is always covered. I have successfully maintained several entirely distinct sourdough cultures in my home for years using this method.
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Maybe, yea. I always use a bit of my starter to inoculate a sponge (or whatever) that I use seperately to build the bread and refresh the starter in its storage jar. Other methods may be more susceptible to contamination.
Megu
in New York: Dining
Posted
Some interesting points made, and worth making. I will suggest, however, that Megu's and Bruni's use of "kobe beef" to describe waygu beef from America is not particularly relevant to a discussiuon of Megu as a restaurant or of this review as it relates to Megu as a restaurant. So, if there is significant sentiment to continue this fork of the discussion, please start a new thread in General Food Topics.