Mancino's of Big Rapids

Mancino's of Big Rapids

Mancino's of Big Rapids - Since cheese has been added to the Neapolitan tomato pie, pizza has been one of the most popular part of international cuisine. It enjoys a good reputation for its versatility and great diversity, there are probably more versions than there are countries in the world.

Mancino's of Big Rapids - The original version of Italian pizza, the margherita is made with high protein flour similar to the one used for making bread. The topping consists of tomato, sliced mozzarella, basil and extra-virgin olive oil. These ingredients are the basics of almost every other pizza variation.

Neapolitan pizza is traditionally made with hand-kneaded dough not thicker than 1/8" in a stone oven. The oven is heated to over 905 F and the pizza is baked for 60 to 90 seconds in it. This really hot oven makes sure the dough gets crusty without burning and the toppings don't dry.

The Neapolitan pizza is quite restrictive regarding the way of producing it, but there are other variations in Italy worth a mention. Pizza rustica for example is made with 1/2" thick dough in a big pizza pan and is cut with a pizza cutter. This pizza is sold by the weight and mostly is for take-away. Pizza restaurants, or otherwise known as pizzerias, sell the original thin crust circular shaped version.

Pizza has been one of the staple foods of the 20th century, just like hamburgers or french fries, it is soaked deep into collective consciousness. Most notable variations of the original pizza are the Chicago-style deep pan and the New York style. Chicago style is made in a deep pan instead of stone oven.

The New York style pizza is a big, often 18" pizza cut into 8 slices. A strong, protein rich flour is used and topping is often only cheese and tomato sauce. It is also referenced to as regular or, with unnecessary redundancy, cheese pizza. By definition pizza always has cheese on top.

Family pizza is often called large, or big pizza. It's 12" to 18" inches in size and is cut into 6 or 8 slices. The regular size is 8 to 12" in diameter which is easily consumed by an adult male on his own. Largest pizza ever spun by hand was 33" in diameter and was made of a 17 oz dough. It took two minutes to flatten the dough to that size.

Pizza is a really popular dish all over the world, it has been consumed in dozens of different variations, but however big or small it might be, the original will always be Italian.