Pizza crusts play a big role in the style and taste of your pizza. Whether you opt for the thin crust of New York or the thick crust of Chicago, the base of your pizza is of paramount importance.
The bottom of a pizza,
better known as the crust, plays as much a part in the taste as any topping you decide to put on it.
It is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of pizza, but history shows that the ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks ate items on something similar to our modern-day crust. And crust remains a huge factor in regional styles. Variations, keyed by crust, include New Jersey tomato pie, and Neapolitan, New York-style, New Haven “thin as a whisper,” California, Chicago, Greek and St. Louis.
Some believe that pizza comes from the Latin word “picea,” which described the blackening of bread. The pie of today is believed to have originated in Italy where peasants used wheat flour, lard, olive oil, cheese and herbs to create a flat bread covered with cheese. The first pies were crude pieces of bread baked under the stones of a fire. Flat round bread was used by the early Greeks as a plate so gravy and broths did not run. It is believed that had a hand in the creation of the pies of today.
Crust plays a huge role in today's pizzas as well. Today's two major categories for crusts are thick and thin. Pies in the thin category include hand-tossed, New York-style and Roman. Pies in the thick category include deep dish or Chicago-style and East Coast Sicilian. Crusts are normally plain, but there are variations such as cheese-filled, garlic-flavored and seasoned with herbs. And some pizzerias put their own twist on things. Cornmeal crust and Midwest-style are two examples. Midwest-style, also known as bar-style, is a thin-crust pie which is a bit crispy and salted on the bottom and cut into squares.
Thin-crust pizzas are paper-thin pies first introduced in America by Italian immigrants in the 19th century. A host of styles using the shallow bread crust, such as New York and St. Louis, have evolved over time. Neapolitan are smaller thin-crust pies, normally around 10 inches, that are baked in a wood oven. They normally have a puffy end crust. New York Neapolitan style, also called Neapolitan-American, is similar to the Neapolitan but bigger in size and normally cooked in coal ovens. New York-style is the thin-crust stuff most people think of as modern-day pies.
In 1943, Chicago-style was created by Ike Sewell at Pizzera Uno in Chicago. The flaky pie crust more than 1-inch deep allowed for a deep collection of toppings. It caught on in popularity and was soon being mimicked across the country.
Tomato pie is another version of thick-crust. To create tomato pie, you take a thick crust, cover it with some tomato sauce and a sprinkling of Romano cheese. However, unlike most pies, it is served at room temperature so it can be an acquired taste.
Greek-style pizza balances between the thick and thin categories, but probably falls more in the thick category. Ohio-style is a square thicker-crust cooked in a square pan.
