Peter Reinhart - American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza

For a long time, I thought the best pizza in the country was from Mamas in Bala Cynwyd, just outside of Philadelphia. And then something happened.

I grew up on Mamas, even worked there briefly as a delivery boy, and found warm comfort in its stringy cheese and crisp, yet floppy crust whenever Id been rejected for a date, lost a basketball game, or got together with high-school friends for a Saturday-night poker game. My family was equally hooked, and we often picked up a Mamas pizza for dinner when my mom wanted a break from cooking, especially if going out for Chinese food, our other favorite pastime, seemed like too much trouble. We knew the owners of Paganos Pizzeria in West Philadelphia and often went there when we wanted an actual restaurant experience to go along with our pizza, pasta, and broasted chicken (they were pioneers in this now rarely seen pressurized frying system). But as good as Paganos pizza was, it never measured up to Mamas for deeply felt satisfaction, a culinary balm of Gilead. More than forty years after eating my first Mamas pizza, almost always made by Paul Castelucci (though I never knew his last name when I worked as a delivery boy), the business is still in the family, and the pizzas are now supervised, but not made, by Paul Jr., Pauls son. Mamas is still extremely popular, with long waiting times not only for pizza, but also for fabulous stromboli, hoagies, and cheese steaks.

My brother Fred, who now lives forty-five minutes from Mamas instead of the five minutes of our childhood, continues to make the pilgrimage whenever he needs a fix. He brought us a Mamas pizza when my wife, Susan, and I were in Philadelphia for a big food event. Susan had sprained her ankle at the airport just after we landed, forcing us to cancel our dinner plans so she could keep her foot on ice. When I called Fred to explain our plight, he said, No problem, Ill pick up a pizza and some cheese steaks at Mamas and well eat in. I loved the idea. It had been years since my last Mamas pizza.

The pizza arrived ninety minutes later, accompanied by Fred and his wife, Patty. I rushed through the greetingshug, hug, great to see youwhile Patty comforted Susan. I was captivated by the aroma of the pizzas and cheese steaks, and my mind floated away to distant times. It was like a long-lost friend, triggering painful and joyful memories that were flashing like a deck of cards rifled in front of my eyes. Id deal with those later. For now, as far as I was concerned, it was about opening the pizza box, unwrapping the butcher paper from the cheese steaks, and getting everyone to stop talking and start eating. We divvied up the cheese steaks, which tasted even better than I remembered them to be, and then, at last, passed around slices of the pizza. I took a bite and stopped, the pleasant image-streaming of food memories suddenly interrupted by a mental disconnect. I shook it off and took another bite expecting an automatic memory flash to kick in so I could resume my forty-year flavor retrospective. Instead, I got a blast of Whoa!

There was definitely something amiss. The words just came out without forethought. Fred, theyve changed the crust.

No they havent.

Yes they have.

No, they havent. Maybe its you.

I dont think so. The crust is thicker and there are no air bubbles in the lip. Definitely not the Mamas I grew up with.

I think its you.

No, it isnt.

Fred took another bite. Well, it does seem a little thicker than usual. I heard they were breaking in a new pizza guy. But, I gotta tell you, its still pretty close to usual.

Maybe it is me, I thought. It wasnt just that the crust was a little different. The cheese and sauce certainly still resonated with old memories, and even if it wasnt the best Mamas, it was close enough that it should have elicited, within my usually tolerant margin-for-error forgiveness code, at least a sigh of pleasure. But something had changed within me. My expectations, an internal bar of standards that is both conscious and subconscious, had been violated. A slow wave of realization set in, one that I couldnt suppress even though I tried.

Maybe, I said to myself, it was never as good as I thought it was, just the best Id been exposed to during my sheltered youth. I knew it was something I couldnt say out loud because Fred and Patty still lived here, while I was going back to Providence and might not have another Mamas pizza for years. Yet I couldnt shake the thought.

Since 1990, when I left the communal setting of a religious order in which everyone lived a vow of poverty and thus had limited restaurant experience, I have had the privilege of teaching and writing about food, especially bread. Ive traveled around the country and beyond, belatedly pursuing knowledge about my taste passions. These passions are simple, not of the great gourmand type. I have learned that one of my inherent gifts is the ability to recognize flavors and textures of universal appeal and show people how to reproduce them. As a result of this gift, I have carved out a career as an educator, writer, and product developer. Which brings me back to pizza.

I have had a steady stream of students who have their own sets of childhood food associations that have driven them to the gates of learning. Food memories, as James Beard and M.F. K. Fisher have shown us, are powerful and compelling forces. Wherever I teach, if I want to get a lively conversation going, I need only ask, Where do I find the best pizza around here? Nearly everyone has a pizza story and a strong opinion. Pizza, it seems, lives in everyones hall of fame.

In 1976, I worked in Raleigh, North Carolina, as a houseparent in a home for what we euphemistically called undisciplined teenagers; in other words, juvenile delinquents. There was a pizzeria on Hillsborough Street called Brothers Pizza, and although I barely remember the details of the place, I do remember the experience of it. I took the kids there whenever we needed to decompress from the latest dramatic event in our house, and there were always, always dramas. That pizza, and only that pizza among all the pizza shops in town, was a panacea, our emotional salve. It had a crispy, crackly crust, like hot buttered toast, comforting and satisfying. It was perfect. The cheese was stringy and slightly salty. Was it the best pizza Id ever had? No, but it was perfect pizza, a peerless match of textures and flavors that fed more than our stomachs and palates. But if I had it now, all these years later, I imagine it would be like having a Mamas now. It would be good, perhaps the same as it always was, but it wouldnt be the pizza of 1976, when teenage boys and girls from shattered families, with broken hearts and raging hormones, felt safe enough to confess their fears to me and to one another as they ate their pizza. That pizza, out of that context, could never be that perfect again.