On 2006-09-20, Lou Decruss > wrote:

> http://www.mozzco.com/mozzhisty.html

Thnx for the link.

On cheese, I've come to discover less is more when it comes to pizza.
I remember the very first time I saw a commercial pizza assembled. It
was back in the early 50s in the town of Stockon, CA. I was just a
tyke, but the pizza assembly station was showcased behind glass, as
pizza was an emerging phenomena. The cook laid out a big ol' round
crust, laddled on a goodly dose of red sauce, and began laying down
the cheese. Now, I'm not talking a sprinkle, here. I'm talking
overlaying the entire pizza with squares of sliced mozerella, like
tiling a pizza with Kraft American cheese slices, only using real
mozzy. There was no red showing at the final assembly. Man, that was
some cheese. Eating the pizza was a chore cuz the hot cheese strung
out further than my young arms could reach. But boy, was it good!

All these years later, I recall the best pizza I've ever tasted. A
now defunct pizza cave ...4 tables... run by a couple Iranian
brothers. It was the first place I ran into the minimum base,
all-kindza exotic toppings approach to pizza. Their crusts were
amzingly thin, with only the merest evidence of mozzy cheese and an
the best red sauce I've tasted to this day. They'd put whatever you
wanted on top of the their basic pizza. Artichokes, asparagus,
garlic, anchovies, feta cheese, mushrooms ...you name it. I'd get
garlic and feta. To die for. And only small bits of feta, for the
taste, not to glaze the pie. The garlic was fresh crushed, no doubt
with a press. It killed me when the folded.

There's still one place that does something similar. Il Vicino
Pizza in NM and CO. Almost paper thin crust, arugula, artichoke,
garlic, goat cheese topping and their killer microbrewed beer. ChrisD
knows the place. Yum! Anyway, I've come to prefer minimum cheese.
If I order pizza out, I always specify "half cheese". That wall of
cheese crap don't get it anymore. It's also a major contributor to
the "greasy pie" mentioned elsewhere.

nb