Why Are Pizzas So Popular These Days?
By George Carageorge | Torino Food Distributors

Over the years we have observed a tremendous change in the way the pizza industry has prospered through the efforts of some extraordinary creative efforts by pizza operators and restaurant chefs. The variety of ingredients, the quality of preparation and the partnering of fillings is part of the reason why Australian chefs have great success overseas in culinary competitions.

They have distinguished themselves and created a market for their food that sets them apart from the chain style pizzas and anyone else who wants to try to match or compete with a fast food style pizza.

While there is a market for the so called traditional style pizza that can compete with the chain pizzas, like a Supreme, ham and pineapple etc., the myth of unhealthy pizzas and fat contents of pizzas is only a recent event in the evolution of pizza. Original pizza goes back centuries and was far more simple, healthy and universal. Pizza as we know it in our Western style, fast lane life style is a recent event and isolated to a only a few mainly Western countries in the world. Even in southern Europe, the middle east, Asia and Africa, fast food style pizzas are popular and have even been adapted to local eating habits. The Western influence however is affecting the increasingly affluent countries, like China, Korea, Japan and a few others. Believe it or not they import a lot of the ingredients frozen and ready to go from Western countries.

Those who advertise pizzas as fat free, low carb, heart healthy, etc., are in fact not far from the truth if we understand where the first pizzas came from hundreds of year ago. I will tell you about it. Note however the current ones are not really fat reduced or fat free if they use 21st century production style ingredients. But the public, who are relatively ignorant about food, fall for it all the time... it’s fashionable.

I think we here in Australia have really gone a long way to making the pizza a real food of real quality in some areas. Gourmet is a very overused word, a hackneyed cliché, because so many people who use it don’t understand what it means or the legitimate application of the meaning gourmet.

The original pizza type fare was healthy and it was a really good and simple type food. To understand why I have made this statement we need to understand where the original pizza came from.

Pizza can be traced back to the Egyptians, Greeks and Messapotanians. It was a woodfired fare that was made, it is believed, from leftovers. Dough may have been left over from bread making. And in the dying embers of the mornings bake, leftovers from the evening meal the day before were wrapped in the dough (the original Calzone), baked and used for lunch for shepherds, and blue collar workers. It was a poor man’s fare. As the Romans colonized the Middle East they brought this concept back home to Rome. It is interesting to note that the idea did not spread to the northern colonies of Rome, like Gaul and England.

Archaeologists have found evidence of this type of food in Turkey; they found evidence of olives, fish in bread type cooked sandwiches. One makes the assumption that they used whatever was handy... it was not a dedicated or specialised meal. In other words, it was the original fast food.

Part 2: The Haute Cuisine Side of Pizza
The Italians took what they learnt from those they conquered and developed it further using their own local ingredients. As we know now the woodfired oven was the only one available in those times, so the imparting of the wood burnt flavour to the cooked fare only added to the mystique of the traditional woodfired pizza.

The Italians stole the tomato from the Spaniards, who also stole it from the South Americans when they colonised the Americas. The tomato was an exotic fruit that the South American Indians used in pagan rituals and sacrifices according to archaeologists. We know there were different varieties as well. The Italians took to the tomato and made it the universal food it is in the 20th century and beyond. Tomatoes are now so widely used in food it’s hard to imagine they are a relatively new food to the Western world. We use tomatoes everywhere now. How the did the Greeks get on without it in their Greek salads?

Buffalo mozzarella made by the Italians is another strange but recent addition to the Italian culinary range. It is very healthy for you, being made from really low fat by-products in the original versions. It has developed a cult of its own, somewhat undeserved because it is a really simple food made from an animal that is not a native of Italy. One can only assume the water buffalo came from Africa. There are stories in the history books of homeless peasants milking animals in the swamps around Naples after they had been released or escaped from domestic captivity as beasts of burden. This is where buffalo mozzarella originated.

So we have now established that the real, modern, woodfired pizza as we know it now used these ingredients as starting point. We assume leftover dough was sparse and was rolled it thin to get it crisp and make it go farther (the now thin crust). Tomato sauce was stolen from the Indians. Buffalo mozzarella was the poor man’s stolen dairy additive from the swamps of Naples. All was used and as an afterthought they may have thrown in leftovers, like sausage, anchovies, olives, herbs like basil or oregano, sardines, etc., and created ....pizza

We have now arrived at the real modern gourmet pizza. Is this a good thing or have we gone too far from the original idea and concept of a pizza. Purists would argue that the modern innovations in pizza cuisine have gone too far, with too many exotic weird and unpronounceable names. I disagree.

I think it’s a good thing, but only as long as we maintain the individuality of the location that prepares their own creation. By this I mean I am dead set against chain woodfired gourmet type pizzas. Every chef has his own signature on a dish or plate and you can’t transfer that signature across 20, 30 stores or more it isn’t a good idea for a chain operation. The smart chefs know this and don’t even think about it.

Oh yes you can do it over a few locations where an executive chef can maintain some control over preparation, supply and cooking, but over numerous multiple locations with staff movements and different cooking techniques, it’s almost impossible to maintain quality and uniformity. It ends up being just another mess of weird food stuffs being thrown together and cooked like any chain store pizza. But sometimes it works for a while, till the public gets wise.

However, let’s look at the creations of some of our fantastic local chefs and see how far they have come from the original. I have to be careful here not to let out secrets so I won’t give recipes, just some of the ingredients.

Figs, pork belly, prosciutto, goat cheeses, chilli, roasted vegetables, caramelised fruit like bananas or pineapple are a few of the more out there ingredients. Cheeses like gorgonzola, Italian Fontina, truffle infused pecorino, Taleggio, fresh buffalo mozzarella, fior di latte, white anchovies are among some of the more exotic types of fillings that appeal to the MORE mature palate, but not the mass markets. Nevertheless the client following is strong and adds a great deal of respectability to the humble pizza fare and the restaurants that pursue the more authentic style of woodfired cuisine seem to get the notoriety and accolades. Food journalists are always looking to sensationalise items and matters we are already aware of.

The downside is that the pizzas cost more and they sell less than the traditional ones, but the food is unique. This uniqueness, however doesn’t last long as everyone tries to copy everyone else and pretty soon every pizza restaurant wants prosciutto or soppressa or squid ink pasta or shaved grana padano or whatever they can copy from someone else.

These restaurants that stay original and unique don’t give their pizzas fancy names, they just describe it on the menu the way it should be and if ingredients become scarce or change they can vary their menu. Then there are the restaurants that give their pizza names...sometimes I think the clientele can’t even pronounce the food let alone know what it is. Some call them after cities or movie stars or descriptive like “flaming star” for a really hot spicy one.

This is good too because it creates an illusion of a theme for the customer so they can anticipate what they are getting. The themes and variations are endless and the ingenuity of these highly creative and passionate chefs has promoted the cause of pizzas and Italian type fare. I really think though that some of these restaurants try to be everything to everyone by having a really large menu with lots choices.

The problem with this is of course you get less turnover of product ingredients if they are not used on all or the majority of pizzas. For example: tomato sauces are fine as they are used on all the pizzas, but something like coconut curry sauce isn’t. So how do you keep it fresh? Answer: use a simple menu of really high quality, fresher ingredients that turnover regularly.

All this does not mean that the traditional style for fast food pizza is not dead and buried. Our experience is that these days most clients are using really good stuff too, not just the so called traditional style restaurants. Smoked meats like lamb, chorizo, salamis with herbs, full leg hams are being used in increasing frequency, not manufactured meats that do not look or taste anything like the product they say they are.

Other items being used are flours like gluten free, or extra fine OO Flour, Italian style, real aged Parmesans, both local and imported. There is still a huge following among the old and new operators to make their own sauces from whole peeled tomatoes. This is always the best but much more time consuming. Authentic type ingredients from both Australia and imported are widely used by many clients irrespective of price where quality is paramount. For example: Greek Kalamatta olives are still much more widely used than say the sliced and food-dyed cheaper varieties from Spain used by some chains.

Olive oils instead of vegetable oils are used in increasing frequency in marinades, dough and cooking to enhance the quality of the ingredients being prepared too.

All this adds up to some really good trattorias and pizzerias taking advantage of our high quality ingredients in a modified traditional application using gas or electric ovens, either brick or conveyer style, to produce super quality products.

Sometimes even this though is not enough. Factors like locations or socio-economic factors like the demography of an area determine the type of pizza and ingredients used. Working class suburbs can’t afford $23 pizzas, but they will buy a large supreme pizza that feeds 3 people for $10. Obviously you can’t use leg ham, or prosciutto di parma, or grana padano, so it’s obvious that there is a market for all types of pizzas wherever you are.

So to finish off, here are some unusual ingredients to ponder on. Beef fillet, Thai spices, roasted chilli peanuts, goats curd, roast potato, Moroccan spices, mint yoghurt, refried beans, teriyaki sauce, spicy peperoni, feta cheese, crispy bacon, Cajun spices, figs, field mushrooms, cherry tomato, sour onions, balsamic sauces, truffle oil, Kumara, salsa Verde, pancetta, fennel salami, Asian pesto, black caviar, smoked eel, chilli jam, caramalised french shallots, pickled walnuts, roasted pine nuts, chives, coriander, red onion, Balmain bug meat, scampi, porcini powder, saffron roasted eggplant, crispy fried almond and sesame oil roasted garlic slivers, black tiger king prawns …enough? Phew...who eats this stuff? The truth is that all this stuff, together with some of the other stuff noted earlier in the article is put together so well by the chefs who prepare it that it really works out well. Remember though, prep time is all important and good chefs will spend up to 8 hours of prep time to serve for 4 hours each night or session. This food will be really good.

Finally, here at Torino Food Distributors we carry much of this exotic stuff at reasonable prices, such is the increasing demand. Sometimes it’s harder to keep everything, but we research all the products we sell and try to be knowledgeable about them. Something like 2300 product lines that specialise in the pizza application are carried or sold by us. We either import them direct, work with business partners or buy from local manufacturers. We are now evaluating organic products at the high end, like goat’s cheese, fetta’s parmesans, yoghurts and anticipate strong demand.