Oakland Pizza Vs Brooklyn Pizza

The pizza in New York goes culturally deeper and further back than any pizza on the West coast, that's for sure, but there's something that San Francisco offers the world of baking that is lost in New York.

Before I jump into the idea of pizza, I'm going to briefly discuss the chemistry of baking, or at least what little I know about it. Rise comes from living cultures, typically yeast, and chewiness and bubbles come from gluten, or the marriage of flour and water. So anything bread like needs those three things: flour, water, and bacteria.

Flour is available everywhere, and unless you're harvesting it yourself or working directly with the farmer, your options are limited to the grocery aisle. I still recommend going out of your way to find good baking flour, but for the most part restaurants and bakeries are getting all the same stuff: bags of refinery produced powder.

As far as the living culture necessary for a good rise, the same product is not readily available everywhere you go. In fact, regional bacteria is the reason Belgian beer is so unique and Alaska has such an acidic pancake. That brings me to my first pizza contender.

Pizza in The Bay

San Francisco is famous for its sourdough starter. Sourdough starter is the result of fermenting dough, allowing it to marry with not just yeast but lactobacilli, a lactic and amino acid culture. The reason the sourdough in San Francisco is renowned, and different from what you can get anywhere else, is the presence of lactobacillus sanfranciscensis in the air. That cannot be transported in gas form, unfortunately (or maybe it can, I'm no expert). At the very least, it's free and unlimited so long as you are in the San Francisco area.

Just a quick aside: Sourdough starter does not inherently lead to the sour taste of a sourdough loaf. In fact, a proper schedule of fermentation and refrigeration actually dulls the sour taste and livens up the wheat's natural flavor.

Great starter leads to an amazing gluten structure and a strong wheat flavor. This is something every pizzaiolo should strive for, but don't take my word for it. Pizzaiolo in Oakland is locally and nationally renowned for perfecting the "California-fied" (shudder) pizza. Don't let that disgusting word dissuade you, this pizza crust is amazing. They use a wood oven, they accomplish an amazing crunch, the wheaty flavors are married, and most importantly, the chewiness of the dough is phenomenal.

In an attempt to recreate the Pizzaiolo pizza Margarita, I spent three days in the kitchen working starter into dough. Following the recipe from Peter Reinhart's American Pie, and with a little help from my father's decently maintained SF sourdough starter, I was able to accomplish an almost identical if not identical dough. This dough I believe is only possible in the SF bay area. Unfortunately, the effort and control required to produce this dough dissuades the majority of pizza shops from even trying.

Of course, in a city where pizza reigns supreme, every shop will do their best to make the best slice.

The New York Slice

Why is New York pizza considered not just better than everywhere else, but impossible to recreate anywhere else?

That third element: the water.

NYC tap water, as my friend puts it, is amazing and not worth dumbing down with a purifier. The water's unique, difficult to recreate chemical mix is perfect for pizza. Somehow it marries with flour to make perfect gluten for a thin, tough to break crust that holds a heap of toppings while staying crispy.

Of course, every pizza shop worth its weight in 99 cent slices has to boast some other element. Whether its the freshness of the toppings, the unique oven, or the historical significance, every shop needs something worth hopping on the subway for.

But is the pizza inherently better because of the water? Would the addition of a sourdough starter help or hinder the crust's strongest qualities? Will the tap water in New York, like the tap water in San Francisco, kill the bacteria necessary for a good rise?

My experiment into pizza dough will conclude in a few weeks, but my intention is to have sourdough starter from SF chilled and shipped and to see what the NY tap water will do to it.