Modernist Pizza

Margaret Pilgrim · May 22, 2021

10 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

I understood that but felt that a liquid addition might be more in line with the recipe balance. I wonder how the end products would differ, method to method. Ah,,,,time for MC, or a side by side comparison..

Perhaps some input here.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Margaret Pilgrim (log)

Honkman · May 22, 2021

19 hours ago, weinoo said:

I don't want it to be any better

I guess, independently what dish or preparation we are talking about, that’s where we differ - I am always interested to change, improve. Doing the same is boring for me.

19 hours ago, weinoo said:

and there really are only a few basic toppings that matter

Not only with pizza but in general I think dishes where some people just focus on a few ingredients/toppings are a missed opportunity. I never understand when people always order their same pepperoni or margharita pizza when there are so many more unusual/more exciting variations

19 hours ago, weinoo said:

How much more fundamental does it need to be?

I guess if there are just a few key ingredients it is particularly important to really understand the chemistry and physics behind it

Duvel · May 22, 2021

12 minutes ago, Honkman said:

I guess, independently what dish or preparation we are talking about, that’s where we differ - I am always interested to change, improve. Doing the same is boring for me.

Not only with pizza but in general I think dishes where some people just focus on a few ingredients/toppings are a missed opportunity. I never understand when people always order their same pepperoni or margharita pizza when there are so many more unusual/more exciting variations

I guess if there are just a few key ingredients it is particularly important to really understand the chemistry and physics behind it

I think this is where the wording „your mileage may vary“ applies ...

I am fully with @weinoo on this one: how much better can you get your product if you purchase MP if you are already happy with it ?

I am not trying to sound arrogant here, but I am ~95% happy with my pizza (and so is my target audience - my family). I really like pizza: I have read a lot about it, I have sampled really a lot and I have made a lot.

For the last ~5 years years practically every Sunday night is pizza night, with ~3 pies on average. I have tailored „my“ pizza to what I like best. And I remember all my milestones: the preferment, the 550 extra fine flour, the long cold rise, the hydration tweaking, the sauce formula (including the drop of vinegar), the cheese mix, the transition from „oven floor“ to baking steel. By now, I make very consistent pies and - while me and my son do enjoy the classics with minimalistic ingredients - I am happy to experiment with new toppings (sorry, @weinoo 😉). But my formula remains the same.

I can see the advantage of MP taking the guess work out of whatever you want to achieve and shortening the learning curve to get to a great pizza. I will appreciate the unusual ideas on dough, sauce, toppings for sure. As a scientist I certainly also appreciate the insight into the why's and how‘s. That’s why I will follow the discussions on MP with great interest. But I will - at this point - not invest to achieve the last 5% satisfaction on my pies (which I personally believe are a matter of practice and maybe equipment, not knowledge). But - as I wrote in the beginning - YMMV ...

weinoo · May 22, 2021

1 hour ago, Duvel said:

And I remember

AHA - this is where I fall short!

1 hour ago, Duvel said:

I am happy to experiment with new toppings (sorry, @weinoo 😉).

NO No NO!

Okay, go ahead.

2 hours ago, Honkman said:

Not only with pizza but in general I think dishes where some people just focus on a few ingredients/toppings are a missed opportunity. I never understand when people always order their same pepperoni or margharita pizza when there are so many more unusual/more exciting variations

Well, in the restaurant business, focusing on just a few ingredients can lead to consistency, which as any great chef will tell you, is what she wants out of her kitchen.

Maybe people order that same sausage or margharita pizza (or sometimes sausage on only half the pie!) because that's what they like?

Some people even go back to the same pizza place again and again; after trying others that suck.

adey73 · May 24, 2021

On 5/22/2021 at 5:33 PM, Kerry Beal said:

Kerry did you know they had one of your machines?

Kerry Beal · May 24, 2021

1 hour ago, adey73 said:

Kerry did you know they had one of your machines?

Indeed I do!

**Chris Hennes** · May 25, 2021

On 5/22/2021 at 3:59 PM, Duvel said:

I have tailored „my“ pizza to what I like best.

For me this is our fundamental difference: I cannot possibly name what I like "best". I make Neapolitan(-ish... home oven limited for now...) most often, but it's not at all uncommon for me to use other styles. I have maybe a half dozen crust recipes I alternate between. Sometimes I add stuff to the tomato sauce, sometimes not (well, almost always black papper, I suppose). I change up cheeses, I change up toppings, and I like to experiment (sometimes resulting in... disappointment). I intend to use Modernist Pizza as a framework to focus a concerted effort to become well-versed in making Pizza in the broadest sense, however they choose to define it. I have spent the last several years baking extensively from Modernist Bread. Despite having baked quite a lot of bread before it, I have learned a ton, both from things where I think they got it right, and in things I think they got wrong. I can only hope that MP does to my pizza skills what MB has done for my bread.

Honkman · May 25, 2021

On 5/22/2021 at 4:59 PM, Duvel said:

By now, I make very consistent pies and

Complete agree YMMV - my goal in the kitchen in the end is to have good tasting dishes but not really by trying to be as consistent as possible

Edited May 25, 2021 by Honkman (log)

Duvel · May 25, 2021

3 hours ago, Honkman said:

Complete agree YMMV - my goal in the kitchen in the end is to have good tasting dishes but not really by trying to be as consistent as possible

Funny enough, consistency is the main goal of what all Modernist volumes strive for. Or call it reproducibility, in scientific terms. Taking the guess work out of the path to your desired (good tasting) dish.

weinoo · May 25, 2021

3 hours ago, Duvel said:

consistency is the main goal of what all Modernist volumes strive for.

And also the main goal of most restaurant head chefs, vis-a-vis what comes out of their kitchens.

As far as naming what one likes "best," - no, I can't name what style of pizza I might like best at any given time, though I can certainly try. Living in NYC, obviously a good "New York" style pie is easily obtainable (if one knows where to go). And great neo-Neapolitan isn't that hard to get either. Sicilian style, "grandma" style - yep, they're around too. Lotsa cheese - it's here. No cheese - it's here. Crappy toppings on shitty crusts - step right up.

But, and this is just in my case and YMM (certainly) V, I have come to philosophically accept that what I produce in my 100 square foot NYC apartment kitchen is often good enough. Certainly good enough for the people I'm feeding. Also, and not for nothing, I think it's a matter of age, wisdom (hah!), and just not wanting to bust my balls to make what someone else (I'm looking at you, NathanM) might think is the be all and end all of pizza - cause it really ain't, and that's just one person's, or one team's, opinion. Every once in a while, a pie might come out of my oven which is really great. After all, I'm using Italian 00 flour, really good fresh mozzarella, great parmesan, fine canned tomatoes, NYC water, etc. etc. A baking steel, a broiler, (stuff he already said helps to make the best pizza) etc. etc. And the magic happens...

So, by all means, buy the books. Work on your pies. Get that consistency - what all great cooks strive for.

Me? Well, I'm working on other stuff. I may even go to Le Bernardin with the $500 I'm saving!

Gnulio · May 25, 2021

Have you guys read the other books? Because probably they are the more complete books on the topics covered. If this is also the case, there won't be another reference book on pizza.

teonzo · May 25, 2021

It's always interesting to see how proper marketing alters the perceived value of a product in the eyes of people.

The first Modernist Cuisine set started as a jump in the dark, it was a risky adventure for sure. Can we still say that they are doing this for the good of mankind, loosing their own money? Let's see. Last time they gave some figures for the print runs of the first MC they went over 50.000 copies, it was quite some years ago so it's safe to suppose the actual numbers are sensibly bigger. But let's be cautious and say 50k. Currently it's sold for $562.50 on Amazon USA, but at the beginning the discount was much bigger. I remember pre-ordering the first edition on Amazon Canada for $420 (Canadian dollars). Let's be cautious and say an average of $400 (US dollars). Let's say half of this goes to Amazon or other retailers, I'm cautious here too, Myhrvold is not mister nobody for Bezos, so he should get a better contract than every other small publisher. Especially because to sell $400 in books usually you need 10-20 books, so the minion working at expediting needs to locate those 10-20 books, build the box, put the books in the box, close the box, attach the order sheet. With MC the minion just needs to attach the order sheet, the box is already prepared. Let's say the publisher gets $200 per set sold. Printing costs from China should be in the $30 zone, let's be cautious and say $50 including shipping. So it makes $150 for the publisher to cover the costs and hopefully make some profit. $150 for 50k sets totals 7.5 million dollars. Is there someone who thinks 7.5 millions are not enough to cover the costs? This is a cautious estimate, which means real numbers should be much higher.
I'm not blaming Myhrvold here, he took a shot in the dark, risked his money, it went really well (much above expectations) and he is making very good profits on this project. Kudos to him about this. But saying he is loosing money here for the good of people is like having rainbow glasses that do not show the real world. He made great profits with the first set and launched the other projects to keep profiting. If he was humanitarian he would have kept the same discount as the beginning for those sets, not what happened. Modernist Bread never saw those levels of discount.

Then there is the perceived scientific value: "OMG someone who worked with Hawking is studying food, we are saved!". Like there are no other researchers out there working on food topics. No, sorry, there are plenty of university researchers out there studying food matters. There are plenty of articles printed in dedicated magazines. There are books out there. Like this:
Handbook on Sourdough Biotechnology (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)
or this:
The neapolitan pizza. A scientific guide about the artisanal process (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)
(first 2 that come to mind)
A book that claims to be "scientific" should be totally clear about replicability. It's science basics: if you publish something then you need to give the specs so anyone else can replicate the experiments to see if the results are the same. First thing you need to do if you talk about bread is to give the specs of the flours for the various recipes. There are standards out there about this, mainly the W and P/L values, those are the 2 most important descriptors for flours around the world, it's what you find in all the other publications, it's what you need when talking with mill technicians. But on Modernist Bread you don't find this, you find suggestions for US producers. Which first of all is not that useful for the US readers, because producers can change the values of their flours without notifying anyone, or they can close the business and bye-bye. Second, it's useless for the readers outside the USA. This fact alone is enough to say that, on a scientific level, Modernist Bread is far from being scientifically correct.
After release date there were some discussions here, where I pointed out some awful errors. I still remember the one about pizza in a jar, the book claimed it was "under vacuum inside the jar" (no, sorry, it isn't), so "when you open the jar it expands" (no, sorry, admitting it was under vacuum then it should compress when opening the lid, just the opposite). Reading such things would have made me cringe when I was in high school, let alone after going to university. Let alone someone who worked with Hawking. This makes me question if Myhrvold ever read the full set before it went to print.
I borrowed Modernist Bread from a friend and read some pages here and there, I haven't found much scientific rigor on the pages I read, the style was akin to Discovery Channel, not to Scientific American. There's an abyss between the two. So much that I gave back the set after few pages, not much sense to keep reading, even less for buying it.
I asked around to some professionals. No bread bakers found it interesting/useful, which is weird since they should be the primary target. A couple restaurant chefs said it was really interesting, I asked what they learnt from it, they gave some answers, I pointed out the scientific discrepancies, they answered "ah, ok, who knows" (they attendend cooking high school, their scientific background is poor). I asked if they used some of the recipes, answer was "no", asked why, answer was "well, if I want to make a creative bread then I want to make my own bread, not to copy some from a book".
The ones who found Modernist Bread useful are mainly the advanced amateurs, not the professionals. The value is on giving them the tools to make a long list of creative breads at home. I suppose it's easy to know the demographic infos of your customers when you are friend with the tech giants.
I'm not surprised that Modernist Bread had those scientific holes. There are many differences between Chris Young and Francisco Migoya. Young has a scientific degree, Migoya not. Not to bash Migoya here, he is one of the best pastry chefs in the world. He knows tons of explanations about food, since he worked hard to learn them. But it's clear he lacks the necessary scientific basics. Migoya has a much more personal style in cooking than Young, but Young outclasses Migoya on a scientific level. Differences are evident between Modernist Cuisine and Modernist Bread.

Now there is Modernist Pizza. There was a big section on Modernist Bread about all kinds of pizza. That set was marketed as "here is the definitive knowledge about everything bread, including pizza". Immediately after its release they said "ok, now we are going out with Modernist Pizza". So this can mean 2 things:
- the stuff in MB needed to be corrected, so it puts MB on the low quality level;
- the stuff in MB was correct, so it will be repeated in MP.
It's like putting a neon sign on their foreheads saying "we are not that sure about what we are doing, but we are making money so we go on".
We will find tons of pages on how to improve pizza in your home oven, when, like others pointed out, the simple solution is buying the correct oven instead of MP.
I wonder if they will include "pizza al formaggio" from Marche/Umbria, after all it pre-dates Neapolitan pizza.

I'm curious to see what will be the next project. Modernist Patisserie would be too huge, if you want to cover all the sides of pastry then it would come out much much bigger than Modernist Cuisine. I suppose it will be something sectorial, like Modernist Chocolate. It should be definetely something pastry related. After all, if you hire one of the best pastry chefs in the world, what job do you assign him? Something on bread, where he has limited experience? Something on pizza, where he has even more limited experience? Or something pastry?

If you think I'm sour for buying the first edition of Modernist Cuisine and finding that crazy amount of errors ("we failed 8954895489 temperature conversions, but understand us, you need a cyclotron to make those conversions and it's difficult to use that machine"), then you are totally right.

Teo

chefmd · May 25, 2021

11 hours ago, weinoo said:

Me? Well, I'm working on other stuff. I may even go to Le Bernardin with the $500 I'm saving!

Le Bernardin is the favorite place to splurge when my son and I are in NY. You don’t need reservations if you come for lunch and show up a few minutes prior to opening.

weinoo · May 26, 2021

I love your post, @teonzo; obviously, I have nowhere near your level of knowledge nor the ability to explain as you did, but I never doubted that once there was money made, why not continue?

And yes, @chefmd - the lunch at Le B is quite wonderful, and could even be called a bargain.

chefmd · May 26, 2021

3 minutes ago, weinoo said:

I love your post, @teonzo; obviously, I have nowhere near your level of knowledge nor the ability to explain as you did, but I never doubted that once there was money made, why not continue?

And yes, @chefmd - the lunch at Le B is quite wonderful, and could even be called a bargain.

I read somewhere that if you do not order wine in Le Bernardin, your lunch is at cost or even less depending on what you order.

Margaret Pilgrim · May 26, 2021

2 hours ago, teonzo said:

I asked around to some professionals. .... I asked if they used some of the recipes, answer was "no", asked why, answer was "well, if I want to make a creative bread then I want to make my own bread, not to copy some from a book".

Bingo.

Gnulio · May 26, 2021

11 hours ago, teonzo said:

It's always interesting to see how proper marketing alters the perceived value of a product in the eyes of people.

The first Modernist Cuisine set started as a jump in the dark, it was a risky adventure for sure. Can we still say that they are doing this for the good of mankind, loosing their own money? Let's see. Last time they gave some figures for the print runs of the first MC they went over 50.000 copies, it was quite some years ago so it's safe to suppose the actual numbers are sensibly bigger. But let's be cautious and say 50k. Currently it's sold for $562.50 on Amazon USA, but at the beginning the discount was much bigger. I remember pre-ordering the first edition on Amazon Canada for $420 (Canadian dollars). Let's be cautious and say an average of $400 (US dollars). Let's say half of this goes to Amazon or other retailers, I'm cautious here too, Myhrvold is not mister nobody for Bezos, so he should get a better contract than every other small publisher. Especially because to sell $400 in books usually you need 10-20 books, so the minion working at expediting needs to locate those 10-20 books, build the box, put the books in the box, close the box, attach the order sheet. With MC the minion just needs to attach the order sheet, the box is already prepared. Let's say the publisher gets $200 per set sold. Printing costs from China should be in the $30 zone, let's be cautious and say $50 including shipping. So it makes $150 for the publisher to cover the costs and hopefully make some profit. $150 for 50k sets totals 7.5 million dollars. Is there someone who thinks 7.5 millions are not enough to cover the costs? This is a cautious estimate, which means real numbers should be much higher.
I'm not blaming Myhrvold here, he took a shot in the dark, risked his money, it went really well (much above expectations) and he is making very good profits on this project. Kudos to him about this. But saying he is loosing money here for the good of people is like having rainbow glasses that do not show the real world. He made great profits with the first set and launched the other projects to keep profiting. If he was humanitarian he would have kept the same discount as the beginning for those sets, not what happened. Modernist Bread never saw those levels of discount.

Then there is the perceived scientific value: "OMG someone who worked with Hawking is studying food, we are saved!". Like there are no other researchers out there working on food topics. No, sorry, there are plenty of university researchers out there studying food matters. There are plenty of articles printed in dedicated magazines. There are books out there. Like this:
Handbook on Sourdough Biotechnology (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)
or this:
The neapolitan pizza. A scientific guide about the artisanal process (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)
(first 2 that come to mind)
A book that claims to be "scientific" should be totally clear about replicability. It's science basics: if you publish something then you need to give the specs so anyone else can replicate the experiments to see if the results are the same. First thing you need to do if you talk about bread is to give the specs of the flours for the various recipes. There are standards out there about this, mainly the W and P/L values, those are the 2 most important descriptors for flours around the world, it's what you find in all the other publications, it's what you need when talking with mill technicians. But on Modernist Bread you don't find this, you find suggestions for US producers. Which first of all is not that useful for the US readers, because producers can change the values of their flours without notifying anyone, or they can close the business and bye-bye. Second, it's useless for the readers outside the USA. This fact alone is enough to say that, on a scientific level, Modernist Bread is far from being scientifically correct.
After release date there were some discussions here, where I pointed out some awful errors. I still remember the one about pizza in a jar, the book claimed it was "under vacuum inside the jar" (no, sorry, it isn't), so "when you open the jar it expands" (no, sorry, admitting it was under vacuum then it should compress when opening the lid, just the opposite). Reading such things would have made me cringe when I was in high school, let alone after going to university. Let alone someone who worked with Hawking. This makes me question if Myhrvold ever read the full set before it went to print.
I borrowed Modernist Bread from a friend and read some pages here and there, I haven't found much scientific rigor on the pages I read, the style was akin to Discovery Channel, not to Scientific American. There's an abyss between the two. So much that I gave back the set after few pages, not much sense to keep reading, even less for buying it.
I asked around to some professionals. No bread bakers found it interesting/useful, which is weird since they should be the primary target. A couple restaurant chefs said it was really interesting, I asked what they learnt from it, they gave some answers, I pointed out the scientific discrepancies, they answered "ah, ok, who knows" (they attendend cooking high school, their scientific background is poor). I asked if they used some of the recipes, answer was "no", asked why, answer was "well, if I want to make a creative bread then I want to make my own bread, not to copy some from a book".
The ones who found Modernist Bread useful are mainly the advanced amateurs, not the professionals. The value is on giving them the tools to make a long list of creative breads at home. I suppose it's easy to know the demographic infos of your customers when you are friend with the tech giants.
I'm not surprised that Modernist Bread had those scientific holes. There are many differences between Chris Young and Francisco Migoya. Young has a scientific degree, Migoya not. Not to bash Migoya here, he is one of the best pastry chefs in the world. He knows tons of explanations about food, since he worked hard to learn them. But it's clear he lacks the necessary scientific basics. Migoya has a much more personal style in cooking than Young, but Young outclasses Migoya on a scientific level. Differences are evident between Modernist Cuisine and Modernist Bread.

Now there is Modernist Pizza. There was a big section on Modernist Bread about all kinds of pizza. That set was marketed as "here is the definitive knowledge about everything bread, including pizza". Immediately after its release they said "ok, now we are going out with Modernist Pizza". So this can mean 2 things:
- the stuff in MB needed to be corrected, so it puts MB on the low quality level;
- the stuff in MB was correct, so it will be repeated in MP.
It's like putting a neon sign on their foreheads saying "we are not that sure about what we are doing, but we are making money so we go on".
We will find tons of pages on how to improve pizza in your home oven, when, like others pointed out, the simple solution is buying the correct oven instead of MP.

I'm curious to see what will be the next project. Modernist Patisserie would be too huge, if you want to cover all the sides of pastry then it would come out much much bigger than Modernist Cuisine. I suppose it will be something sectorial, like Modernist Chocolate. It should be definetely something pastry related. After all, if you hire one of the best pastry chefs in the world, what job do you assign him? Something on bread, where he has limited experience? Something on pizza, where he has even more limited experience? Or something pastry?

If you think I'm sour for buying the first edition of Modernist Cuisine and finding that crazy amount of errors ("we failed 8954895489 temperature conversions, but understand us, you need a cyclotron to make those conversions and it's difficult to use that machine"), then you are totally right.

Teo

First As a follower of your blog and has a great lover of your combinations of flavors , greetings and thanks for the many ideas you gave me. Really nice work.

Unfortunately, as a professional and consultant, I do not agree at all on the evaluation (it happens) of the books. I have never found it stated that they were books of a scientific level but that they were books that highlight how science affects the kitchen. Also at the end of all their books there are the scientific articles that they have consulted (like 300 for MB, you can find Gobbetti also) and the books where you can deepen the topics. I agree on the subject of flours, but this is a market problem, in the Italian market there is much more attention to the rheological characteristics of flours unlike, for example, our cousins next to us. I own both of the other books you posted, one is a compendium of scientific articles the other is a small excursus on Neapolitan pizza, beautiful books but which have a completely different target. I know several professionals in several quite famous restaurants who have raised the bar in both cooking and baking using these books (two of them are 3 michelin stars). This does not mean that they are the best from every point of view but overall, I think they are the most complete. On the subject of pizza it seems to me that even here there is a bit of resentment, in the book on bread there are about 30 pages and three types of pizza are briefly treated. It is also written that many styles are left out because they are not related to the book. The historical part is a small paragraph that is not in-depth and totally lacking in-depth information on the ingredients. So there is room in my opinion for Modernist Pizza. I don't understand the thing about pizza in a jar. I made doughs in jars several times and all of them were certainly at lower pressure than atmospheric pressure. On the little expansion after opening, I have also noticed it in brioches doughs and I believe it is due to the porosity of the dough which, upon reacquiring air, acquires slightly structure. Which does not happen if it is done in an envelope.I conclude by saying that Myhrvold is certainly not the type of person who carries out a project to lose money and I do not find anything wrong with that.

Raamo · June 1, 2021

I got confirmation I was one of the first 100 to order on the MC site:

Here's the perks, I wonder how good the discount on future orders is.

• Invitation to an exclusive virtual Q & A with coauthor and Modernist Cuisine Chef Francisco Migoya. He’ll give recipe recommendations, share some of his favorite pizza discoveries, and answer questions.

• A 2022 Modernist Pizza wall calendar.

• A signed bookplate by the authors.

• Discounts on future book orders through the Modernist Cuisine Shop.

btbyrd · June 1, 2021

Looks great.

fatmat · June 19, 2021

Wow... $382 for a pizza book!! I assume that I'm really stupid for failing to understand this.

Honkman · June 19, 2021

1 hour ago, fatmat said:

Wow... $382 for a pizza book!! I assume that I'm really stupid for failing to understand this.

Three books - and most of my scientific books always cost $100-200, so the price for these three books is high but inline with market prices

rotuts · July 17, 2021

Ooooooo!

Ooooooooooo!

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/best-pizza-city-us-modernist-authors/index.html

N.B.: Next ? Pastries and desserts

Edited July 17, 2021 by rotuts (log)

Raamo · July 17, 2021

1 hour ago, rotuts said:

Ooooooo!

Ooooooooooo!

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/best-pizza-city-us-modernist-authors/index.html

N.B.: Next ? Pastries and desserts

My wife is looking forward the next set :) She's the pastry chef around here.

rotuts · July 17, 2021

i look @ this

this way :

Mod Pastries

then

Mod Desserts

after all

What to Do

if this were your

Kitchen ?

for review purposes

weinoo · July 17, 2021

3 hours ago, rotuts said:

Ooooooo!

Ooooooooooo!

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/best-pizza-city-us-modernist-authors/index.html

N.B.: Next ? Pastries and desserts

After both of these, Myhrvold will next help you part with your money with his six volume tome on how to brew the best coffee and tea. But it will include both hot and iced.

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