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A Taste of Italy - Pizza Making Advice
Translated from Italian by Luisa Arico
Originally published in the May 2007 issue of Pizza&Food magazine, this article deals with one of the most essential tasks of our trade: handling dough. It’s important to use exact techniques in order to ensure good results and prevent workplace injuries.
The Refined Art of Handling Dough
There are many ways to handle pizza dough, all handed down
by tradition, but few people are aware that each one depends on
the dexterity of a person’s upper limbs. Each method has its own
peculiarities, and each one can be valid, as long as the following
rules are observed:
• Press the dough uniformly
• Use the same strength for the entire surface
• Push the gas toward the outer areas
• Stretch the dough using light, delicate movements
Ignoring these simple rules will produce one or more of the
following results:
• Reduction of rise
• Less time available for placing the toppings
• Bubbles forming during the baking
• Uneven baking, with areas that are more cooked and others
that are less cooked
• When cold, the product will have a tougher consistency and will
not retain its crispness
In the Italian dictionary, the term “manipolazione” (handling) is defi ned with negative connotations: It’s described as altering, modifying and adulterating food. In our business, the use of this term brings attention to the series of manual handling procedures that a professional pizzaiolo must make on the leavened dough in order to make sure that all of the work that precedes the baking stage is not done in vain. In other words, putting one’s hands on the dough is a simple action that requires precision, technique, gauging of the pressure and, above all, method.
Once the dough is made, after having divided each ball into the desired weight, and after having produced the correct leavening, the dough must be gently taken out of the box, placed in a pool of fl our and stretched.
Manipulation means to complete two very important processes, which must be executed in chronological order: first, to compress the dough and, second, to stretch the dough. To compress means to put pressure on the ball in order to push the gases produced during the leavening process toward the outer perimeter. The stretching is the process that produces a disk of the desired circumference. Both movements must be performed in a very short time and using very few motions. The first gadget introduced for this process was the rolling pin, which was used mostly to thin out the dough, but the strength with which it is used partially hinders the leavening process, forcing the pizza maker to bake it at lower temperatures.
Technology That Helps
Technology allows for greater crispiness, but also more
toughness and less digestibility of the pizza. The technological
evolution has introduced machines that perform a notable amount
of stretching work. Pizza stretching machines are a valid aid even
to the professional pizzaiolo, if used to obtain 50% to 70% of the
disk and not used to prepare the fi nished product. As I write this,
my imagination flies to the acrobat pizzaiolos, who should be justly
proud of their great personal abilities. Acrobatic performances with
the dough disk began in order to show the importance of dough
produced correctly. Today, however, it’s a vehicle to become a
champion. The dough used for this can no longer be baked nor eaten,
because it is highly salted in order to make the texture stronger.
During exhibitions, I have often stopped to see the physical effort
the pizzaiolos have to make with their hands to push the ball in
order to make the dough pliable enough to spin.
Workplace Injuries
Stressing the use of one’s upper limbs may worsen infl ammation
of the carpal tunnel. This problem should be addressed because of
this industry’s workplace injuries; it’s surely a cause worth taking
up by all the pizzaiolos who can no longer work due to this injury.
And what if, during competition, it would be possible to use the
pizza stretcher machine? This would extend the twirling time,
and so it would be possible to recognize any professional inability,
uniting showmanship with professionalism, and the passion for this
profession with a vision for its future.