restaurant take turns shaping, saucing, and baking the
pizzas, this time Mathieu himself made each one from start
to finish, ensuring that the method used was as consistent as
possible.
On top of those measures, I also decided to present each
sample in two forms: as a completed Margherita pizza and
as a simple disk of dough baked on its own, to eliminate any
variability that differences in topping distribution might add.
Key to a Good Tasting #4: Stay Organized
Who better to taste pizzas than New York’s foremost pizza
cognoscenti, Ed Levine and Adam Kuban? In addition,
Alaina Browne of the Serious Eats team joined us, along
with my wife (as a reward for her good advice), and—
through a miraculously fateful act of good networking—
Jeffrey Steingarten himself, the very man who had
unknowingly started me down the path of pizza (and,
indeed, of food writing, period). Before arriving at the
restaurant, I drew up tasting sheets for my panel to fill out.
Each pizza was to be evaluated in four categories, and each
category was rated on a scale from one to ten:
- Dough Toughness: Is it tender like cake or as chewy as
leather? - Dough Crispness: Does it crackle, or is it flaccid?
- Oven Spring: Did it form large, airy bubbles, or is it
compact and dense? - Overall Quality: How do you like it?
The first five tasters (including myself) arrived promptly