PrintWhy Can't You Get a Good Slice Outside New York City? 'Wired' Magazine Says It's the Water
What makes these slices so good?
From the latest issue of Wired:
"Water," [Mario] Batali says. "Water is huge. It's probably one of California's biggest problems with pizza." Water binds the dough's few ingredients. Nearly every chemical reaction that produces flavor occurs in water, says Chris Loss, a food scientist with the Culinary Institute of America. "So, naturally, the minerals and chemicals in it will affect every aspect of the way something tastes."
Batali himself encounters the water problem at his upscale New York restaurant Del Posto, where he makes traditional Italian food. The tap water in Manhattan is far different from that of the motherland. His solution: create his own mineral-water composite. Working from a chemical analysis of l'acqua italiana, Batali's team basically clones the H2O that gives the food in Italy its — well, its gestalt. He plans to do this at Pizzeria Mozza in L.A....
I've never bought the water theory. My take has been that New York pizza is good because there are so many pizzerias, leading to a competitive atmosphere. You've gotta be on your game here to get raves.
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39 Comments:
I'm going to have to agree with Adam, I think competition has really upped the ante and here's why:
1) Long Island pizza is delicious (e.g. Umbertos, King Umberto's, Gino's) and it doesn't use NYC water
2) Pizza in Binghamton, NY, where NYC water is also not used and where I went to college for 4 years, is terrible. How many real pie joints are there in Binghamton, not counting the sheet pie proprietors? Probably not more than 5.
I'm not doubting science here, but let's be serious, good pizza is good pizza, water should not be an excuse. NYC Water isn't magic, I've had plenty of awful slices in this city.
NYC Food Guy at 6:49PM on 04/23/08
ohmigawd come on.
I don't think Bianco would tell you it's the water... :)
Prairie at 7:53PM on 04/23/08
Local pizza chain Famiglia has a shop open in Logan Airport. They claim that they actually get the water to make the pizza shipped from NYC. Too bad the slice still sucked.
NYCviaRachel at 8:24PM on 04/23/08
But wait, who said I can't get a good slice outside NYC? I for one know of a little place far away called Philadelphia...
rrakes at 9:02PM on 04/23/08
Bullshit. If the water were even remotely important, people would just make up a batch of salts that matches NYC tap exactly and then mix it into distilled water (as is sometimes done for beer cloning).
Luther at 9:07PM on 04/23/08
I'm a born and raised Californian. I've lived in SF Bay Area and Los Angeles. I am a lover of pizza as well as baked items (cookies, breads, etc.). To me, New York City's food tastes better than CA. I've always thought it's the water. The bread, bagels, pizza, cookies, etc. tastes better here. Call me crazy!
Decca at 9:25PM on 04/23/08
I live in NYC but grew up in Dutchess County and take enormous offense to the title of this post -- it could only be written by someone born and bred in NYC proper or from far away.
NYC water comes from the Catskills and the exact same water is available to the excellent pizzerias north of NYC. If anything, the competition factor in NYC causes it to produce pizza superior (generally speaking) to that of pizzerias in Westchester/Rockland/Dutchess Counties but those counties' proximity to NYC combined with (assuming the premise of this post is true) the water allows the entire NYC region to produce many excellent slices.
alktraz at 9:26PM on 04/23/08
I always thought it was the flour that made an Italian pizza such a marvelous thing to eat. I've never experienced a pie in the States that even comes close to the tastiness of an Italian one.
Carosone at 10:48PM on 04/23/08
@alktraz: your comment is exactly what Adam is saying. He is quoting what Wired Magazine is reporting is the difference (water), but his comment located below that quote is that he thinks the water theory is wrong.
kathryn at 1:01AM on 04/24/08
And if you're on your game, it doesn't matter if you're makin pizzas on
Mulberry St. or Highway 89A in Sedona,(cmon Adam,where's the posting?)the pizza is gonna be great!
pizzamavenla at 1:09AM on 04/24/08
if the water had anything to do with it, then all NYC pizzas would be crap. The water in NYC (and most other big US cities) is more a chemical experiment than what is known to the rest of the world as H2O.
Difference? Historically there have been many Italians in that area and they have build up a tradition for the NYC pizza (compared to real Italian pizzes, these are still not that good).
kimusan at 1:46AM on 04/24/08
kimusan: I don't think you know WTF you're talking about regarding NYC water. It's actually some of the best water in the nation, coming from a very clean watershed north of the city. So while I don't believe the H20 theory vis a vis pizza quality, I am not going to sit here and let you impugn the Big Apple's water when it's clear you've done no actual research before leaving a comment here.
Adam Kuban at 5:27AM on 04/24/08
It's quality of the flour not the water. Quality bread flour, some whole wheat and high gluten and then watch it rise.
djzouke at 8:20AM on 04/24/08
Must...defend Binghamton..LOL. True, most of the pizza places there serve the local variant of "sheet" pizza, but one of the best pies I've ever had used to come from a local place (now closed, sadly) called Marnelli's. The whole place was like it had been airlifted from Brooklyn and dropped in downtown Binghamton (where, btw, the local water is barely drinkable).
Personally, I think that the flour is the key to it all when making pizza.
Captainfirst at 9:09AM on 04/24/08
I absolutely believe in the pizza/water theory, and it goes well beyond New York City. Ask anybody who is not from Washington DC but who happens to live there now where to get good pizza, and the likely response is blank stares or rolled eyes. Washington has bad water, and I can't tell you how many times I've bit into DC's "best" pizza, only to taste the dirty, chemical taste of the tap water.
Grill_Baron at 10:34AM on 04/24/08
Grill_Baron - I find it hard to believe that Matchbox, 2 Amys, Red Rocks, etc, have disappointed you that badly. Sure they have their off days, but they are still great pizza.
It has nothing to do with the water folks, it has everything to do with the love that the pieman puts into the pizza and the quality of ingredients being used.
Prairie at 12:05PM on 04/24/08
You know this topic really has me angry. I can't believe people believe this.
It's a very, very, romantic idea. But the whole notion is crazy.
The OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of places serving pizza in New York City are awful. Awful. And I don't think they are getting THEIR water from Michigan.
Prairie at 12:13PM on 04/24/08
OK, now we can start talking about bagels and H20. There is, or was, nothing like a NY/LI/NJ slice, and as to DC, where I live, the 2 Amys is more reminiscent of New Haven. I agree that the competition in a densely populated area like the Greater metropolitan, makes for better street food like pizza, gyro, and hot dogs.
nickdanger at 1:23PM on 04/24/08
Newark NJ has the best water ever. Much better than NYC. I don't notice much of a difference in breads/pizza. The water theory is only partially valid. If you have water that tastes like crap (goto Vegas or Florida and you'll find out what I'm talking about), it makes the dough taste that bad. You have to remove the calcium and chlorine from the water. That's what Chris Bianco does by filtration. Aside from that, the yeast you use is way more important along with the rise time you use. You can make some really bland dough from NYC water and you can make some really tasty dough from any water. California may not have the great water but San Fran. sure has some tasty sourdough bread. That's because they use a good sourdough culture.
benlee at 1:56PM on 04/24/08
It's pretty clear that the premise is wrong. Trenton, New Haven, and Phoenix don't get their water from the Catskills.
sloppy at 2:11PM on 04/24/08
All I know is that I moved from a city that had great water to a city where the water is ranked 100th in nation. The weird thing is that my former city had 3x higher bottled water consumption rates per capita than in my current city. It just goes to show that perception shapes reality.
On the topic of pizza, I hate to assume a relationship between good pizza and water quality, but given the sad state of pizza here and the sad state of water quality, I'm thinking I'm in my own little hell.
wookie at 2:14PM on 04/24/08
Oh, puh-leeze! Baltimore has some of the best pizza and believe me some of the worst. Any chain pizza place just isn't going to be as good as a mom and pop one. Also I think East vs West plays a large part in it. The sauce is different in California and I couldn't find a decent thin-crust pizza between San Diego and San Francisco. Maybe the water factors in somewhere, I don't know. But for the record the greatest pizza I ever had was in that litlle place across the street from Nathan's in Coney Island.
RichardCrystal at 4:07PM on 04/24/08
When I lived in Long Beach (LI), the water was so awful that I would bring jugs of Brooklyn water back with me whenever I visited my parents. The pizza, however, was pretty damn good.
BaHa at 4:33PM on 04/24/08
Totonnos?
canonizer at 4:44PM on 04/24/08
how could the chemical composition of the water NOT effect the quality of the pizza. the simpler the dish, the more impact the water will have on it, and pizza dough is flour water salt and yeast. water is a HUGE component.
there are many other issues eg sauce, cheese, oven temp, mixing technique, - and no one is saying that the right water automatically amkes a good pizza - that would be a logical fallacy not being claimed anywhere - ie saying it can't be the water because i've had bad pizza in NYC, makes no sense
and for those posters who said otherwise i have read of several places in cali that do mix their own water/mineral mix to approximate NY water.
thewnyc at 4:53PM on 04/24/08
taste is a funny thing and not always caused by what we think it should be :
"Sedative traces found in NYC water"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-nyc--water_N.htm
everyone loves sedatives and a good slice or two does give one a sense of calm & happiness & general well-being so ...
sigmund_freud at 5:15PM on 04/24/08
sigmund: w00t. I need to drink more water, then, apparently. I'm a nervous wreck half the time.
Adam Kuban at 5:25PM on 04/24/08
1. No one has claimed that the tap water tasting *better* makes the pizza taste better, but just that the unique characteristics of the water may play a part in the consistency and taste of the dough.
2. Brooklyn and Manhattan do not share the same water source. Brooklyn water is cloudy, discolored, bitter and metallic. Yet, Brooklyn pizza is much better than Manhattan pizza.
hennybee at 6:35PM on 04/24/08
All of NYC, execpt for a small corner of distant Queens, gets its water from the same source.
d_m_u_n at 6:43PM on 04/24/08
OK folks... pizza at DeLorenzo's on Hudson St. in the Chambersburg neighborhood of Trenton, NJ is some of the best I've ever had- rivaling the crisp and delectable pies in Florence and even as good as Lombardis.
marb17 at 9:05PM on 04/24/08
My, my...it takes more than H2O to make good pizza. It's takes the embodiment of beliefs and soul to create magic and mozarella. The alchemy of alimentary proportions. IMHO, it boils down to these simple rules - high turnover = more production by the pizza man, seasoned ovens = better flavor and product, and lastly, NYC Dept of Health codes = everyones' on their toes, including Mr. D of Midwood. Guess who's favorite dishes are these inspectors lingering over?
hungry_traveler at 9:12PM on 04/25/08
Nanuet Hotel
Nanuet, NY
ears516 at 10:01PM on 04/25/08
As I've been saying online for 4 years, the water thing is 100% myth. I get emails about this several times a week. According to Maggie Glazer, the myth that baked goods are better in NY because of the water goes all the way back to the 1700's when in the rest of the country people used well water and not municipal tap water. Half the time this wasn't too far from the latrine. In other words the original comparison was comparing NY water, which comes from a pretty good aquifer system upstate, to other systems that would be comparable to what the 3rd world uses today. This rumor says more about how rumors and 'common knowledge' are passed down through the ages than anything about your local water system's shortcomings today. As anyone who's read my recipe (http://slice.seriouseats.com/jvpizza/) or tasted my pizza here in Atlanta knows, it's not the water...
varasano at 1:03PM on 04/26/08
FYI, NYC water now is way different than it was when I was a kid growing up in the Bronx. There's way more chlorine now and it just doesn't taste as good.
varasano at 1:05PM on 04/26/08
i'd say it's the italians.
that and all the tough customers in ny.
norman at 8:23AM on 04/28/08
h2o? maybe-I think it's a northeast us thing: I've traveled all over the US and there's nothing like NY/NJ/PA ( I live in Central PA) pizza. California pizza just doesn't have the sauce flavor or the great foldable crust.
benlee: FYI-San Fran's great sourdough is from a decades-old starter, but there are also specific cultures/spores present in the air out there. They've even been named for the city!
foodiemama at 2:08PM on 04/28/08
Slightly OT...but when I was in NYC for my first wedding anniversary 10 years ago, I had a pretzel from a street vendor that I could swear tasted like smog. Not exactly a good thing, not exactly a bad thing...but distinct and unforgettable. So I don't know if you can rule the water thing out...though I agree that bad pizza is probably due more to user error than bad water. =)
akk328 at 2:43PM on 04/28/08
It may help those engaged in this melee to know that there is no one "NYC" water. Upper Manhattan and the Bronx get it from one source and reservoir system. Manhattan south of 110th St or so (I'm not sure where the boundary line is exactly) get it largely untreated from the Delaware River and southern Catskills through a different reservoir system. Brooklyn and Queens get it from another source, and I don't know where Staten Island gets theirs from. As many have pointed out, you can get good pizza from places other than the lower 2/3 of Manhattan and outside NY City. I'm sure there is water so bad that you can't make good pizza from it, but it's clear that you can do fine with lots of different kinds of water. For what it's worth, Phoenix gets its water from the Colorado River, the source of a lot of Southern California's water. The City of L.A. gets theirs from the Owens Valley, east of the Sierras.
gustoct at 3:09PM on 04/28/08
I disagree with the water theory. The best pizza I have had outside of NYC was in North Carolina - two brothers who moved down from the bronx to open up a place. It's how you make it as well as the ingredients.
exvaxman at 1:22PM on 05/04/08