500 Year-Old Pizza VS Today

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Reddit Comments

I had so much fun making this video. Hope everyone has fun watching!

👍︎︎ 58 👤︎︎ u/jmaxmiller 📅︎︎ May 25 2021 🗫︎ replies

This video is awesome. Who knew there was so much shade being thrown about pizza from the very start?

👍︎︎ 10 👤︎︎ u/Emptymoleskine 📅︎︎ May 25 2021 🗫︎ replies

Another Scappi recipe. I’ve made the previous one but I’ll have to pass on this one since I’m horrible at handling dough. Managed to make Cato’s Globi explode for example(no, I’m not joking).

Though Scappi was enough of a madman that I’m kinda tempted regardless.

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/BearbertDondarrion 📅︎︎ May 25 2021 🗫︎ replies

As usual, an excellent episode! Next time someone asks what I like on my pizza I’m just gonna say, “butter.”

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/GoodLuckBart 📅︎︎ May 25 2021 🗫︎ replies

My mother grew up in the countryside of what's now Poland (Silesia), and a good eighty years ago she'd help her gran make bread for the farm. They used to do this thing where they'd take small bits of bread dough, flatten them like a pizza, put bacon and a bit of sugar on top and bake them as a kind of baker's perks. Sounds really tasty, especially if you like candied bacon.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/WessenRhein 📅︎︎ May 26 2021 🗫︎ replies

With that much butter, it seems like an easy croissant recipe.

However, speaking of pizzas, I'm gonna have to ask:

Pineapple?

👍︎︎ 7 👤︎︎ u/Supermunch2000 📅︎︎ May 25 2021 🗫︎ replies

As a Jojo fan, I now get why poor Narancia just wanted some Neapolitan Pizza. 😭😭😭

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/ShemtovL 📅︎︎ May 25 2021 🗫︎ replies

Shots fired! Gave me a giggle.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/WineForLunch 📅︎︎ May 25 2021 🗫︎ replies

Watching right now! Might have to bake today now...

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/AcowCatlersDownfall 📅︎︎ May 25 2021 🗫︎ replies
Captions
Pop quiz hot shot! What's the Pope's favorite pizza topping?   I actually don't know but in 1570 it  might have been rose water and sugar and that's what we're making today. A 16th century Italian pizza served in the Papal  Court which calls for exactly those ingredients. So thank you to Bright Cellars  for sponsoring this video,   as we slice into the history of  pizza this time on Tasting History.   So this recipe comes from the Opera di Bartolomeo  Scappi which I did an entire episode on and I'll   put a link up here in the corner so you can watch  it, or I'll put one in the description as well.   The entire book is filled with recipes that are  quintessentially Italian Renaissance that kind of   mixture of sweet and spice that our palette might  just be like what and this one is is no different. Another way to prepare flakey pizza. Bring together three pounds of fine flour and two  ounces of yeast starter, four ounces of bread   crumb that is soaked in warm water, and enough  salt. When the dough is made let it rest covered   in a warm place to rise as is done with bread.  Then knead it again on the table for a half hour,   adding in little by little two pounds of fresh  butter. Knead until all of the butter has been   worked into the dough and it has become soft.  Split the dough up into two or three pieces,   and with each piece make the pizza in a tort pan  which has fresh butter in it. Bake it in an oven   with melted butter on top. Make several holes on  top with the tip of a knife so it will not puff   up too much. When it is nearly done sprinkle  with sugar and rose water. This pastry should   be baked slowly and serve it hot. So does  that sound at all like a pizza to you? No,   not really, but frankly the definition of pizza is  kind of weird. I mean look at Chicago style pizza,   it's basically soup. Anyway for  this recipe what you'll need is:   4 cups or 480 grams of bread flour, a  quarter cup or 60 grams of high yeast biga. This will need to have a much higher yeast and  flour content than your typical sourdough starter   so it might take you a little while to to make  that, or just add in more yeast. If you just want   to use dried yeast I'd use about a teaspoon. 6 tablespoons or 60 grams of bread crumbs   soaked in one cup or 240  milliliters of warm water, an additional half cup of  water, 2 teaspoons of salt,   1 pound or 400 grams of  unsalted butter cut into pieces. So usually during Scappi's time butter would have  a lot of salt in it. More than we'd be used to but   he specifically in this recipe calls for fresh  butter so my thought is that he's not adding the   salt because the salt was added as a preservative.  I don't know that but he also calls out salt   individually in the recipe so we're doing unsalted  butter, and just adding salt where we need.   Two tablespoons of melted butter, one tablespoon  of sugar, and one teaspoon of rose water. Now you'll notice that these are not the exact  quantities that Scappi called for because   he must be making a pizza to feed well the  entire Papal Court which he probably was.   I cut everything in half and it's still  a lot of dough. So first whisk the salt   into the flour, then add your yeast and soaked  breadcrumbs and then mix everything together. Then add in the additional half cup of water but  only as much as you need to make it form a dough. This dough ends up being super, super  sticky once you add in all of the butter. So   don't add any more water than you  need to to get it to come together.   If you need to add more later on you  can but it's going to be really sticky.   Then knead the dough for about 10 minutes  until the dough starts to smooth out. Then put it in a lightly greased bowl  and cover allowing it to double in size.   Now depending on the yeast it could take two  to four hours to rise. Mine took about four,   but it was so worth the wait. Plus it gave me  time to pour myself a glass of wine courtesy   of today's sponsor Bright Cellars. Now if you've  ever watched this show before you will know that   occasionally I do enjoy a glass of wine, and  one of my favorite things about wine is trying   new wines, but whenever I go to the store I always  end up getting the same wines that I know because   I already know that I'm going to like them. So  the cure to my wine monotony I found is Bright   Cellars. You take a seven question quiz on what  you enjoy, and then they send you a box of wine.   Aso if ever you don't like one of the wines that  they send, they will send you a replacement wine   in your next box so you got nothing to lose. I  told them what I like and they sent me a wonderful   selection of full bodied juicy red wines like this  syrah, It's called Pet Name and Jaime chose it. Jaime liked the name so that's why  he  went with it, but I like a syrah. Que sera, sera. Whatever would be you know. Oh that's nice. It's got a lot of fruit  in it. Those plums, those blackberries,   it's everything I like. The quiz worked. Also don't give your cats wine but do let  them play  in the box the wine comes in. So for viewers of Tasting History  Bright Cellars is giving you   60% off of your first 4-bottle box. Just click the link in the description   and take your quiz to get started. Now  back to your regularly scheduled pizza.   Once the dough is risen punch it down and turn  it out onto a lightly floured surface. Stretch   it into a square or rectangle and scatter a few  pieces of butter on top. Then fold it over to   cover the butter then knead it until the butter is  fully incorporated. Then do this again, and again,   and again until all of the butter is incorporated.  Pro tip, use a stand mixer if you got it. Also as you add butter into this dough  it is going to get super, super sticky,   and if it comes too sticky to work with  which it probably will at some point,   just add some more flour. One  or two tablespoons at a time.   Just to keep it you know in dough form rather  than like liquid butter form Hmm.... fattening. Once all the butter is incorporated and the  dough is silky smooth divide it into 3 pieces. Then let it rest preferably in the refrigerator  for about a half an hour and while you wait   preheat your oven to 350 Fahrenheit or 175  Celsius. Then butter the bottom and the sides   of a large pie or cake pan. It's going to work  best if you have one of those false bottom cake   pans it's just easier to get out, but you don't  need it. What you do want to use is the biggest   frickin pan that you can find because even halfed  which is what i'm doing this recipe calls for a   lot of dough. You can also half what I'm doing  which is a quarter of what Scappi's doing because   I mean if you don't have a 10 inch  cake pan which is what I used, half it. Once the dough is rested roll it  into discs the diameter of the pan   and form the pizza by layering the dough pieces  in the pan on top of each other. Then top it all   off by brushing on a layer of melted butter. Then  using a knife poke some holes all over the top to   keep it from puffing up too much. Then set the  pizza on a lined baking sheet and bake for an   hour and 15 minutes. Now that is a long bake time  but it's because it's a lot of freaking dough but   that gives me time to top off my glass of wine and  tell you how we got from this pizza to this pizza.   So when tracking the history of pizza we really  have to figure out where to start because if   your idea of pizza is just some flatbread  with stuff on it then the ancient Greeks,   Egyptians and Indians had pizza, but I don't  consider naan with some oil on it pizza. In the 6th century BC Persian  soldiers under Darius the Great baked   flatbread on their shields and  put cheese and dates on top Closer, but pizza?   I mean they didn't call it pizza, and frankly if  you're going to call that pizza then you have to   call pancakes that have syrup and berries on  it pizza, and then where do you draw the line? Is tostada a pizza? No I don't think so. Well then when does pizza become a thing?  Well the very first mention of pizza using  the word pizza comes from 997 in Gaeta Italy. It was found in a contract between  Bernardo the son of Duke Marino II   and the Bishop of Gaeta and basically if  Bernardo wanted to use the Bishop's mill then, "Every year on Christmas Day... you and  your heirs must pay us duodecim pizze (twelve pizzas)... and similarly  twelve pizzas and a couple of chickens   on the day of holy Easter of resurrection." So even before our papal pizza today, Bishops were  eating it. Very popular dish amongst the clergy. Now the first recipe for something called pizza  comes from 1524 in the Manuscritto Lucano, and then some years later in 1570 we have five   pizza recipes in Bartolomeo Scappi's  Opera which we are making one of today.  Scappi is also the first mention of  that link between Naples and pizza. "To prepare a tourte with various  ingredients, called pizza by Neapolitans." Though some of the ingredients  include pine nuts, dates, figs,   raisins, and cinnamon. None of which are  available at Domino's, maybe at Papa John's. Though now that connection between  Naples and pizza is very important because Naples is often credited with being  the birthplace of what we know as pizza today, but it was not papal pizza  like we are making today,   it is poor people pizza. It was it was a food for  the poor or the Lazzaroni as Alexandre Dumas said. And he didn't seem to hold them in high  regard but the pizza that they were eating   sounds a lot more like what  we would know as pizza today. "The lazzarona usually only eats two things: pizza and watermelon... pizza is round in shape,  and is kneaded from the same dough as bread.  It comes in different widths, depending on the  price. A two-farthing pizza is enough for a man;   a two penny should fill a whole  family. The pizza is with oil,   the pizza is with bacon, the pizza is with lard, the pizza is with cheese, the pizza is  with tomatoes, the pizza is with small   fish." The word pizza has lost all meaning  at this point in the video. Now he mentions   cheese and tomatoes, And those I would  think are pretty important to pizza today. And for more on the amazing  history of tomatoes specifically you should watch this video up  here. I'll put it in the description   on the history of tomatoes aka the badass  name wolf peach. It's a really good video. Now the Lazzarone mostly ate these pizzas on   weekdays as they saved up their money  so they could buy macaroni on Sundays, though macaroni did not necessarily  look like macaroni as we think of it.  And if you still had trouble saving up  enough then you could get a discount pizza   if you were fine with day  old pizza which I usually am. Dumas even says, "There are week-old  pizzas for those with small purses; these can, if not pleasantly,  at least advantageously,   replace seafood biscuits." Week  old pizza? Before refrigerators? The cheese is old and moldy. I'm guessing it was one of these pizzas  that prompted Samuel Morris the inventor   of the telegraph to describe pizza as  "A species of most nauseating cake...   covered over with slices of pomodoro or tomatoes,   and sprinkled with little fish and black  pepper and I know not what other ingredients, it all together looks like a piece of  bread that had been taken reeking out   of the sewer." That was probably just a piece  of Chicago style deep dish. Ooh fighting words! Now in general the pizza was  not looked on with high regard,   and Dumas even says, "You can't eat  a pizza without risking suffocation."   Was Dumas a drama queen or severely  gluten intolerant? You decide. Though I do wonder if Dumas actually mixed  up this week old pizza with pizza Aotto   which was basically you got fresh  pizza today but you had to pay for   it eight days later like layaway, or the  payday lenders of 19th century Naples. Now these pizzas tended to  be small kind of personal   sized pizzas that were sold on  the streets by street vendors. Though there were some more reputable  locations where you could eat pizza   including a tavern that was founded  in the 18th century called Pizzeria   di Pietro e basta cosi which  translates roughly to the most   stereotypically Italian sounding name ever Peter's  Pizza Place, and that's enough. How great is that. And it is in this shop later  renamed Pizzeria Brandi where we get pizza's most famous origin story.   It's probably well- it's definitely not completely  true, it's probably somewhat true but here it is. In 1889 Umberto I King of a recently unified Italy and his wife Queen Margherita decided to branch  out from the French cuisine of the palace, and headed to Naples where they  commissioned Rafael Esposito,   the then owner of Pizzeria  Brandi to make three pizzas: one with lard, one with fish, and one  with basil, tomato, and fresh mozzarella. Queen Margherita tried the first pizza and said   this pizza is too fatty. She tried the second  pizza and said this pizza is too fishy. Finally she tried the third  pizza, the one with mozzarella,   tomato, and basil and she said  this pizza is just right, and thus was born the pizza Margherita. It even  had the three colori, or colors, of the italian   flag: green basil, white mozzarella and red  tomatoes. Again probably not entirely true,   well that's definitely not entirely true, but  there might be some truth to it, but Naples   says that this is how it happened and the story is  just too good not to accept without question, but   even with the Queen on board. Pizza still stayed  a food of the poor and thank god it did because   those were the people who brought it to America. In the late 19th and early 20th century   poor Italian immigrants brought pizza  to the streets of New York City. Now pizza was being sold all over the streets  of New York especially in Little Italy but   the first place that is credited with the first  pizza because they went and got a license,   that's why, is called Lombardi's on  Spring and Mott street in Little Italy,   and that is just one block from  my first New York apartment. It was so small, great area,  but it was so small that my   bedroom door could not open all the way because I  had a twin bed in there, and that got in the way.  So could you really call it a  bedroom if it can't fit a bed, hm? But pizza still really hadn't taken off outside  of the Italian American community. For that   we would have to go to war. When our brave boys returned home  from fighting in Italy in WW2   they brought back a love of Italian food,  and one of those Italian foods was pizza. It was the perfect food for the new  suburban lifestyle. It could be made at home   or it could be made for delivery and pizza places  started popping up in cities all over the country. In 1958 Pizza Hut opened. Pizza the Hutt! And in 1960 Tom and James Monaghan  bought the Michigan pizzeria Dominic's and changed the name to Domino's. This is also when frozen pizza was becoming  popular, and I do love a frozen pizza. To this day   I cannot do Halloween- Halloween has to start  with a Red Baron pizza. I do not know why,   but every Halloween I eat myself an  entire Red Baron pizza all by myself,   just as I did when I was a little kid. I was a chubby kid. I was a  big kid. I wore husky pants but   man I do love a Red Baron pizza.I  only do it once a year now though. What's interesting is that back in Old Italy pizza still hadn't really gotten out of  Naples, and a few other places like Sicily   but when American tourists started showing  up in Italy and they wanted pizza in Pisa the other parts of Italy had to step up  and start making their own kinds of pizza,   and it didn't go great at first. Some of the  country was so bad at mimicking Neapolitan pizza   that the city of Naples founded AVPN, or  the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana   which laid the groundwork for what makes  pizza, pizza. But I think that it was   a little too late. The cat was already  out of the bag because here in America we were making sushi pizza and pizza bagels, and  we had really done whatever we want with pizza. Heck you could even come over  to my house later tonight, and have yourself a pizza with  rose water and sugar, because   I'm pretty sure my pizza's about done. S So in an hour and 15 minutes open up the oven   and quickly brush on the rose water and sprinkle  with sugar. Then let it bake for another 15   minutes or until it's baked all the way through,  and then your papal pizza is ready to eat. And here we are Scappi's pizza from the Italian  Renaissance. Now this is a real pizza work. So   it smells amazing. I mean it smells like fresh-   it kind of smells like croissants. I let it cool,  you need to let it cool before you cut into it, because the butter needs- so much butter.  Here we go. Let's give this a- let's give   this a taste. I don't think it- maybe it over  rose or i'm not sure. It's gonna be fine. Hmm. Hm! That's delicious. It's not pizza. xD I mean that's fantastic. The rose is so subtle.   Let me just taste some of the  top. The rose is so subtle. There on the top. That's wonderful. Wow I would make it thinner next  time. I do like a half of my recipe. I really- I   really think that that's probably the way to go.  This is nice, but oh my god. It's so much bread.   You know we're not gonna eat this but is  it pizza? I mean it's called pizza, but   I think it would be like if somebody said hey  are you a doctor, and I said yes I'm a doctor,   and then they found out I'm a doctor of you know  like the oboe performance or something like that.   I mean yeah I'm a doctor but "not a doctor" by the  way, I'm not a doctor of anything. So that's just   a story but this is some really good pizza, just  you know don't tell your friends that it's pizza.   They'll think you're crazy. Instead tell them  this is pizza which is also delicious, and this   is what i'm going to have for dinner tonight. I'll see you next time on Tasting History. *chomp That's pizza. That's Pizza!
Info
Channel: Tasting History with Max Miller
Views: 868,280
Rating: 4.9269228 out of 5
Keywords: tasting history, food history, max miller, pizza, historic pizza, pizza history, history of pizza, pizza recipe, medieval pizza, renaissance pizza, italian history, scappi, bartolomeo scappi, scappis opera, scappi pizza, pizza margherita, pizzeria brandi, lazzaroni
Id: h6XvMKdD2tY
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 19min 5sec (1145 seconds)
Published: Tue May 25 2021
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.