Pizza Today - March 2022 - 58

W
hen I sat down to
write about Tavern
style, I had a hard
time organizing
my thoughts. I thought about all the
differences between them and was trying to
figure out the best way to describe them all
and hit a roadblock. I was trying to unify
them when a light bulb turned on. Tavern
style, also known as bar pies, are not unique
to any one location. There are variations
across the East Coast and all over the
Midwest. The one characteristic that unifies
them is that they are all thin crust but even
how thin the pie is varies slightly. Some
pies are cut into squares, and some are not.
Some use cornmeal, others only use refined
flour. Some use fats, some do not. Some
are super low in salt to the point where you
question if there is any in the recipe. Some
are seemingly unleavened, and even the
doneness of the bake challenges the color
spectrum. Tavern very much is a style, thin
crust and crispy.
When Chicago pizza is
mentioned in conversation, a lot of
Americans think deep dish. Although
deep dish pizza may be iconic and delicious,
it is not the only style that Chicago makes.
Of all the native Chicagoans I have spoken
to, most of them say that pizza to them is
always the thin and crispy tavern style. Deep
dish is for the out-of-towners. Chicago
styles are known for their use of cornmeal
and the cracker thin is not exempt from
this. How much cornmeal is used varies
but cornmeal itself is a great way to make a
crispy pie.
Par baking the dough is another way to
add crispiness to a thin-crust pie. As much
as I love crispy thin-crust pizzas, they lose
that crunch very quickly as the pizza cools
down. Maintaining that crispiness is one of
the hardest traits to keep. Utilizing cornmeal
and a par bake or double bake method helps
ensure your pizza stays crispy for a longer
period of time. How would you do this?
Coat your dough ball in cornmeal and
roll it out with a rolling pin or use a sheeter.
Once you've reached your desired size or
thickness, dock it, place it on a peel and
slide it into the oven. Without any sauce,
cheese or toppings, par bake it just for two
minutes or just until it's no longer raw and
the bottom is just beginning to show some
58 / PIZZATODAY.COM / MARCH 2022
spots of color. Remove it from the oven
and stack them until ready to use. When an
order comes in, top it as you normally would
and then finish the bake until it's crispy and
the toppings are cooked. The par-baked shell
is not only quicker on the line when orders
come in because it's prepped and ready to
go but that double bake helps evaporate
out more moisture. Without the addition
of sauce on the first bake, there's no barrier
keeping moisture in. Chicago thin crust is
normally cut into squares.
Another type of tavern style
comes out of St. Louis. This may be
the funkiest style of pizza I have had. Super
crispy but with an overly sweet sauce and
then a processed cheese called Provel on top
of that.
Provel on its own deserves a mention. It
comes in a block and it's a processed cheese
composed of provolone, Swiss and cheddar.
It has a super low melting point and a high
flow rate so a small amount spreads a lot and
is quick to burn.
When you eat a St. Louis pie, you get
a crispiness mingled with the sweet sauce
and then this super sticky processed cheese
that sticks to your front teeth. It's not for
everyone but sometimes you just need a little
indulgence that isn't going to ruin your day.
And since it's thin crust, this pizza is it for
me.
The dough itself seems unleavened and
doesn't have the same coloration as a pie that
has a sugar content. Instead of using a New
York-style dough, I would use a low protein
flour similar to a Neapolitan or even an
all-purpose flour and omit any sugar or fat.
This gives you a different kind of crisp. There
is no cornmeal or Semolina and to make it
even crispier I always use the double bake
method.
This pizza is even thinner than the
Chicago version and without the durability
of cornmeal the dough can be fragile and
prone to bubbling in the oven. To prevent
this, I add a little bit of sauce on that first
bake to help keep the dough from bubbling
too much. Keeping in mind the low melting
point of the cheese, this will change how
long I bake the shell the first time as
compared to the second and final bake when
it has been topped. If it's a plain cheese pie,
I will bake the shell a minute or two longer
the first time so that the final bake is slightly
shorter making sure the cheese does not
burn. If the pizza has toppings, especially
a raw sausage, I will shorten the first par
bake and lengthen the final bake so that the
toppings have time to cook but it's not in
the oven long enough to burn. The moisture
from the toppings, as well as the coverage,
helps make sure the cheese does not burn.
This pie is normally cut into squares.
The other Tavern pie that stands
out to me is the East Coast pie. This
thin-crust pie is not always cut into squares,
not always round, sometimes oblong in
shape, and can be cooked almost to the point
of burnt but is considered normal. Toppings
and cheese are thrown on haphazardly and
usually to the edge. There is no cornmeal in
this pie and is thin but a little thicker than
the St. Louis style.
One of the main features of a tavern
style pie is always the crisp. For those that
have cornmeal and fat, they have a snap
reminiscent to a Ritz cracker. It's crispy and
it snaps but there's a density to it. Other
styles like the St. Louis and East Coast
versions have no fat or cornmeal and have a
snap like a saltine cracker. All of these styles
are " cracker " thin, but the type of snap is
what sets them apart. n
LAURA MEYER is Chef at Capo's and
Administrator and Teaching Assistant at
the International School of Pizza in San
Francisco
JOHN GUTEKANST owns Avalanche
Pizza in Athens, Ohio.
http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM
Pizza Today - March 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pizza Today - March 2022
