Pizza Today - February 2020 - 16

Man on the Street
SCOTT WIENER

JOSH KEOWN

"Sauce On Top"

he world's highest rated
pizzeria is doing it all wrong.
Literally. The flagship pie at
Pepe in Grani, located just
30 km north of Naples, is called the Margherita ha Sbagliata, which means "Margherita Made Wrong." Among the pizza's
multiple abuses, perhaps the most egregious is its application of tomato on top of
the cheese. Most of humanity expects pizza
to follow a reliable pattern: dough as a base,
covered with tomato sauce, then topped
with cheese and various accouterments. By
swapping strata, the Margherita ha Sbagliata has caused quite an upheaval in the
Italian pizza community. Meanwhile across
the Atlantic, American pizzerias have seen
the trend of sauce atop cheese simmering
for decades.
Papa's and Delorenzo's of Robbinsville,
New Jersey (both formerly located in Trenton) have been applying coarsely crushed
tomato to the tops of their pizzas since at
least the 1950s. They even see it as a defin-

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ing characteristic, going so far as to refer
to their pizzas as tomato pie. In the pizza
stronghold of New York City, some of the
oldest and most popular pizzerias have
been layering in reverse since the 1920s.
You'll find the technique at John's Pizzeria
on Bleecker Street, Totonno's on Coney
Island, Arturo's on Houston Street, and
both Grimaldi's and Juliana's in Brooklyn's
DUMBO neighborhood. There's even a
1956 New York Times Magazine article in
which George Lombardi, of Lombardi's
Pizzeria, describes assembling his pizza
cheese-first because, "it melts right that
way."
All the pizzerias I've referenced thus
far produce round Neapolitan-inspired
pizzas, but the most influential saucy pie
of all time is the Sicilian pizza from L&B
Spumoni Gardens. Since the early 1950s,
L&B has been serving thick, square pizzas
covered with crushed tomato and pecorino
cheese. Whenever you see a Sicilian pizza
with sauce on top of cheese, it's a good bet

L&B was the inspiration. Just take
a look at the hyper-Instagrammed
squares at Prince Street Pizza in
Manhattan, the sesame-seeded
Freddy Prince at Paulie Gee's Slice
Shop in Brooklyn, and the luxurious five-day fermented Sicilian at
Metro Pizza in Las Vegas (it's even
called the 86th Street, the location
of L&B). Speaking of squares, let's
not forget two of the biggest pizza
style trends of the moment: Grandma and Detroit style. I genuinely
believe that the exotic sauce-on-top
look has boosted their popularity.
Applying sauce above cheese has
some clear benefits. By using the
cheese as a barrier between sauce
and dough, you can prevent excess
moisture from slowing the bake.
Tomato also prevents dry cheese
from burning. Think about how
Chicago deep-dish pizza is topped
by a thick layer of crushed tomato,
without which the 40-minute bake
might leave unprotected mozzarella
charred beyond recognition. I think
it's possible that America's early
Neapolitan immigrants may have
made the switch to troubleshoot
the dry heat and lower flame of
coal-fired ovens.
Beyond any practical justification, I also think that pizzas with
visible sauce just look nicer. Overly
cheesed pizzas carry the connotation of junk food to me whereas
pies with upfront sauce look classy.
What's even better is the fact that
tomato is much less expensive
ingredient to feature, so pushing it
to the forefront can even help your
bottom line.
If you serve a pizza with sauce on
top, post a picture to social media
with #sauceontop and tell us why! ■
SCOTT WIENER is the founder of
Scott's Pizza Tours in New York City
and SliceOutHunger.org.

http://www.SliceOutHunger.org http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM

Pizza Today - February 2020

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