Monday, April 20, 2009

Is Water the Secret Ingredient for New York Pizza?

Does water make a difference when you make pizza?

Some say absolutely. Others insist that water does not make any difference at all.. Some contend that they need to import their water from New York in order to make great pizza. Water is to some, the secret ingredient.

I have recieved numerous emails about this topic. Some are very fanatic about New Haven water. One friend, who left Connecticut and moved to North Carolina. insists that New Haven water is so special, she asks all of her visitors to bring gallons to her.

In Hawaii, Anthony Romano, noted pizzaiolo, of Antonio's insists that the water be treated to make his pizza taste special.

This issue has been debated and discussed. There are numerous opinions. Who is right?

Enter the Food Network's Food Detectives. They assembled a panel of New York pizza professionals to settle the matter once and for all.

This episode features Tony Muia, owner/operator of "A Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour", comedian Mario Cantone, Joey Ciolli of Grimaldi's and John LaFemina.


Here are their results:




So there you have it!

Please comment here, I'd love to hear what you think.

albert
Pizza Therapy

4 comments:

Gridman said...

The results would have been more conclusive if each judge voted secretly from the others.

As it stands, each subsequent judge would feel more pressure to conform with the others. That's a common form of bias that should have been compensated for.

pizzatherapy said...

That is a great point Gridman. Certainly the results were not totally scientific. It would have been more fun with blind voting.

But you can't argue with the results.

albert

Gridman said...

Agreed. I think it does point to a "real" factor.

Anyone who comes to Phoenix and tastes the water will tell you it could ruin any baking. :-) And it is different from summer to winter and they change the chlorination.

If it had been blinded and unanimous it would have been a real slam dunk, though.

Since I live near Grimaldi's and they have their magical water transformer, I'd love to try a couple of their pies made with and without to see if it is really that noticeable.

pizzatherapy said...

Rodolpho comments:

Dear Mr. Grande;

I just saw the video on your site about the difference water makes, I have been making pizzas for over forty years in italy as well as Canada and other european countries and I would have to agree that the water does make a big difference what they do not get to is the specifics of "why" does it make a difference and what is in the water that makes the difference and do they use a direct method or indirect method?

The biggest difference in the water that makes the difference in flavour and reaction to the flour is the PH level of the water I am sure if you take the PH levels of the three different waters used in the video you will find a difference.

I hope this helps some of your pizza afficionatos and by the way I did work at Da Micheles in Napoli many years ago and their pizza is made using an indirect method and in Napoli they call it "criscito".