Giotto,
After I finished reading Peter Reinhart's book, American Pie, I wondered why, after devoting a sizable part of his book to his travels in Italy and praising the Neapolitan pizzas he sampled throughout the Naples area, his only tribute to the Neapolitan style pizza in the book was a single Neapolitan dough recipe and a few, rather standard, classic Neapolitan pizza recipes (Pizza Margherita, Marinara, Quatro Stagione, etc.). And all of those recipes were based on using all-purpose flour. I know he was aware of the extensive and widespread use of 00 flour throughout southern Italy, and that there are many 00 Neapolitan dough recipes that he could have used in the book. And possibly several others based on combinations of flours that try to "mimic" the 00 flour. It took me a while to come up with appears to be a logical explanation. When I saw who published American Pie, Ten Speed Press, I recalled that a fairly detailed and comprehensive book had already been written on Neapolitan pizzas, by Pamela Sheldon Johns, also published by Ten Speed Press. The book (of which I have a copy) is filled with recipes for Neapolitan (and other Italian) pizza dough and pizza recipes, including at least one calling for a combination of flours having characteristics similar to 00 flour. It made sense therefore that there wasn't a need to cover the same ground and step on a fellow author's toes.
It also occurred to me that potential readers of Peter Reinhart's book would not be particularly interested in trying to hunt down 00 flour when there are only a few sources in the U.S. and they are hard to find. I think that was the genesis of the use of all-purpose flour for the Neapolitan pizza dough recipe. I think keeping everything simple was also consistent with what most people want today--to make a passable pizza using commonly available ingredients and easy-to-follow instructions. So, it was logical to cover the obvious pizza styles, such as New York style, Neo-Neapolitan, deep-dish, etc., and, to the extent possible, use common ingredients and simple processing techniques. If I were to write a book on pizzas. it would be more like a textbook--full of technical detail and technique--and I would be lucky to sell one copy, and I'm not certain that I would buy a copy either.
I have several other books on pizzas and where they often fall short is in the pizza recipe area. It seems that cookbook authors have an unwritten code of honor about appropriating recipes of others, or modifying them, whether there is a credible potential copyright infringement issue or not. And coming up with completely original recipes that have undergone testing and fine tuning is not easy, and it is time consuming. You have to be a big-name chef with a loyal following to be able to sell books just on your name only. Consequently, most pizza cookbooks, at least the ones I have, tell you how to make simple pizzas, with pretty photos of pizzas and vegetables and cheeses, lists of ingredients that one can use on pizzas, and a few original recipes, reinterpretations or updating of old recipes, or recipes from their childhood or handed down by Aunt Mary.
Peter
