A pizza story

A Pizza Story (Short 2008)

20082008
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5.0/10

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ShortWar

With a child's understanding but the heart of a warrior, 8-year-old Eliana Jennen embarks alone on a courageous quest to find her father, Capt. Lance Jennen, stationed in Iraq.With a child's understanding but the heart of a warrior, 8-year-old Eliana Jennen embarks alone on a courageous quest to find her father, Capt. Lance Jennen, stationed in Iraq.With a child's understanding but the heart of a warrior, 8-year-old Eliana Jennen embarks alone on a courageous quest to find her father, Capt. Lance Jennen, stationed in Iraq.

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Director
- Parthiban Shanmugam
Writer
- Parthiban Shanmugam(screenplay)
Stars
- George Lee Clark
- Janis Dunckel
- Allen Facemire

Director
- Parthiban Shanmugam
Writer
- Parthiban Shanmugam(screenplay)
Stars
- George Lee Clark
- Janis Dunckel
- Allen Facemire

See production, box office & company info

1Critic review

See more at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination

Videos1

Trailer 1:17

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Photos

Top cast

George Lee Clark

Police radio

Janis Dunckel

Sara Jennen

Allen Facemire

TV News anchor

Shayne Goldberg

Terrorist game player 3

Robert Hatch

CPT Lance Jennen

Tayloe Hatch

Terrorist game player 4

Greg Johns

Fantasy Father

Joy Laprade

Pizza lady

Madison Laprade

Eliana Jennen

Austin Nix

Terrorist game leader

Jack O'Neal

Terrorist game player 1

Kate Page

Fantasy child

Ryan Puszewski

Terrorist game player 2

Dulcé Sloan

Face mask lady
(as Dulce Sloan)

Bob Watson Jr.

State Trooper

Director
- Parthiban Shanmugam
Writer
- Parthiban Shanmugam(screenplay) (story)
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Details

Release date
- March 28, 2008 (India)
Country of origin
- United States
Language
- English
Production company
- Vennila Films
See more company credits at IMDbPro

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Color
Sound mix
- Dolby Digital

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Sauce Magazine - Review: A Pizza Story in Maplewood

Review: A Pizza Story in Maplewood

By Michael Renner // November 1, 2014

Editor's note: A Pizza Story has closed.

Once upon a time, there were three guys from Egypt who were passionate about eating. Though they worked at Washington University, their friendship and love of food got them thinking: “If we opened a pizzeria, we could eat all the pizza we ever wanted.”

Don’t quote me on that last part, though. What is for certain: The three-man brain trust opened A Pizza Story, the newest addition to Maplewood’s burgeoning restaurant row. Boldly advertising wood-fired Neapolitan pizza on the front window, it’s also one of the latest in the flourishing field of pizzerias touting the same.

You know how people say “Kleenex” for any tissue? It’s the same when “Neapolitan” is used generically for any thin-crust pizza baked in a wood-fire oven. But those aspiring Neapolitan pizzerias must follow the rules of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, the organization founded in Naples whose mission is to cultivate – and codify – the art of making Neapolitan pizza. The official requirements dictate pizzas must be baked in a wood-fired dome oven stoked to 900 degrees. Cooking time should not exceed 90 seconds. The dough can only be made with flour, water, salt and yeast. The flour must be of ultra-fine consistency and the salt has to be sea salt. There are dictates on the type of tomato and olive oil used. Then there’s the proper preparation of the dough and appearance of the final pie. The arbiters of Neapolitan pizza are as serious as my Sicilian great-grandmother, who routinely wore black and a scowl.

If A Pizza Story isn’t quite by-the-book authentic, it’s close. The two critical things about any pizza are not toppings but rather (and in this order) crust and baking temperature. True Neapolitan pizza is slightly larger than the diameter of a Frisbee, with a narrow, charred, slightly puffy, sauceless rim. The crust is elegantly tender and light, floppy in the middle and characterized by a bit of tug and chew. Here, A Pizza Story scored points, especially with its Margherita, the simple, defining pie of any Neapolitan pizzeria. Consisting of tomatoes, tomato sauce, pats of fresh cow’s milk mozzarella and verdant basil leaves, this was the best of the several pies I ate – the edible equivalent of a hardcover page-turner.

Other pies allude to literary genres, like the appropriately named Adventure, topped with toasted pistachios, sun-dried tomatoes, manchego cheese and green olives. Everything worked – the sharp burst of briny tang from the olives and tomatoes, the crunchy nuts, the piquancy of the sheep’s milk cheese. As one dining companion described it, “It’s like Spain on a pizza.” The only drawback was the swollen crust, looking like an over-inflated inner tube and pushing the toppings to the middle. A hotter oven may have prevented this: A Pizza Story’s pies spend an average of 90 seconds in a 750- to 800-degree oven, not the 900 degrees prescribed by the Associazione.

fantasy pizza at a pizza story // photo by jonathan gayman

The Legend and Fantasy offerings also were standouts: the former, spicy with slices of hot capocollo tamed by mild, nutty fontina and sweet caramelized onions; the latter, balanced by dabs of burrata and salty prosciutto di Parma, with the peppery bitterness of fresh arugula added right after the pie was plucked from the oven.

All pies arrived with hearth-blistered bottoms and properly charred collars. The crust was fluffy without being doughy, crispy without being crunchy. The tomato sauce was rich and applied with a light hand to avoid eclipsing the toppings.

There was a fine array of salads, soups, appetizers and pasta, which makes A Pizza Story a much more versatile dining spot than its name lets on. Onion ring-sized hoops of fried squid – no rubbery tentacles to wrangle with – were tender and lightly coated with a peppery batter. The accompanying puttanesca dipping sauce was quite good (it would make an ideal pasta sauce, too). There was nothing spectacular about the cheese or charcuterie plates – though neither is made in house, the cheeses were good and the meat was an assortment of chorizo, salami, mortadella and prosciutto. But the accompanying rosemary and sea salt house bread, a slight variation of its pizza dough, was so good it was gone in a flash.

Of the two pastas I tried – fettuccine all’amatriciana and shells ragu – I favored the latter, its savory shredded beef simmered in red wine and tomato sauce. The fettuccine, with its simple Roman-style crushed tomato sauce, was competent but the pieces of marble-sized diced pancetta proved too chewy at that size.

The wine list offers a handful of reds and whites, and the draft beers were mostly local. The bar experimented with a few classic cocktails, like the Baked Apple Manhattan, a deceivingly dry drink, despite its sweet aroma.

Among the trio of dessert offerings, panna cotta achieved a trifecta of sweet-tart-nutty flavor: creamy custard topped with berries reduced in balsamic vinegar and toasted pistachios.

I love that the owners – Muhammad Alhawagri, Sherif Nasser and Nael Saad – used a typewriter font for the APS logo, an homage to the building’s former long-time tenant, Jones Typewriter. Inside, the single-room space is divided by a long communal table fashioned from three Schlafly beer barrels and two large doors. Photographs of St. Louis street scenes, shot by Alhawagri, line the walls. In the back corner sits the double-insulated dome oven made of refractory concrete and covered in stucco, an updated version of what Alhawagri’s and Nesser’s respective grandmothers baked bread in back home in Egypt.

The pizza stories in this town scroll ever onward: from St. Louis thin crust to Sicilian deep dish, Provel to mozzarella, wood-fired to conveyor oven, pick-up to sit-down to delivery. A Pizza Story just happens to be the latest, delicious chapter.

Tags : Places, Reviews, Restaurants

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The history of the origin of pizza. Interesting facts

Pizza has a thousand-year history, it is still unknown who first invented this dish. Historians are still arguing about who could become the creator of pizza, however, no one has come to a consensus. Now pizza is considered to be an Italian dish.

Ancient man learned how to bake cakes. For this, coals and a stone were used, on which the cake was baked. All Mediterranean peoples used this recipe, and then olive oil began to be used. Then the cake was sprinkled with herbs and seasonal vegetables. The same cake served as a plate, which allowed it to become a universal dish in campaigns and work in the field.

The official prototype of pizza is the tortillas that were made in ancient Egypt. About 6 thousand years ago, yeast was invented, and sour dough began to be used in baking these cakes. There are mentions of historians that already in the 5th century, warriors prepared cakes from dough, dates and cheese on their shields. The legendary Etruscans used the same method. Then, according to some sources, this recipe was borrowed by Ancient Greece, and from there it came to Rome, where the official history of this dish begins.

It was in ancient Greece that pizza was prepared, which most closely resembles its modern look. The Greeks spread cheese, herbs, onions and other vegetables on raw dough, then poured olive oil on them and baked them in fiery ovens. This dish was called "plakuntos" and was found even in the annals of Plato. He mentioned that the cake was present at a magnificent feast.

For a time, pizza was thought to be food for the plebeians. This was due to the fact that it was very convenient to eat pizza before working in the fields, it satisfied hunger, allowed them to gain strength and did not require much time to cook. In this recipe, almost all available products were used - from vegetables to dried meat. But, later, from the sources of history it became known that the dish was very popular among the nobility. Their pizza had a slightly different recipe, but the essence remained the same - a tortilla with cheese, tomatoes, other vegetables and olive oil. Rustic pizza in Italy was called focazcia.

The ancient Romans already had a different name for the dish - “placenta”. They complicated the recipe by adding bay leaves and honey to the dough. Cato the Elder mentioned a cake with herbs and honey smeared with honey in his treatise On Agriculture. However, there is another version of the appearance of pizza in ancient Rome. It is believed that it was brought by the Roman legionnaires after returning from Palestine and was called "picea".

This theory is confirmed by the remains of a cookbook called "De Re Coquinaria", which was found in the ruins of Pompeii. The author of the book is Mark Gavius Apicius, who lived in the days of early Christianity. This book said that nuts, cheese, chicken pieces, mint, pepper, garlic and olive oil should be placed on the dough, then baked and served chilled in the snow.

There are a lot of rumors about the origin of pizza, so Norwegian scientists hypothesized that the prototype of pizza was invented by the Vikings, who cooked flatbread on ships using recipes similar to pizza. They had special pans that helped prepare this dish using meat, vegetables and fish.

The history of pizza as we know it today began in 1522. At that moment, tomatoes were brought to Europe, which at first were considered poisonous. Among people, tomatoes were called the "devil's berry", and for a long time the nobility refused to eat them. However, the Neapolitan poor soon realized that the product was quite edible and had good taste, and began to use tomatoes as a pizza topping.

Already in the 17th century, pizza was a pastry topped with olive oil, cheese, tomatoes, herbs and bacon. It was prepared by special chefs, who were called "pizzaioli". By the way, this definition for masters has been preserved to this day. Bakers of that time baked pizza from early morning, which was in great demand among sailors returning in the late evenings. At the same time, fresh seafood began to be actively used in pizza.

In the 18th century, pizzerias began to appear, which had a special oven and a marble bench for cooking. Tables were set up in the same room, and ready-made pizza was sold in the windows, which customers could take with them. Around the same period, pizza began to appear on the tables of the nobility. The wife of the king of Naples even ordered that a special oven be built in the summer residence for this dish, which she later treated to royal guests.

Pizza culture flourished in the 1870s, when many dwarf states united. A single state of Italy was formed, in which the fashion for certain things spread throughout the country. Ultimately, this led to the fact that pizza became popular not only in Naples, but also in all other territories. By the way, an interesting fact: the pizza recipe in different regions was completely unique. So, for example, Roman pizza to this day has a thin and crispy dough, while Neapolitan pizza is softer and more crumbly. Already at the end of 19th century, the dish became popular throughout Italy, more and more new recipes and types were invented, the nobility showed particular interest in the dish.

In 1905, the first pizzeria was opened in New York, which had its own recipe, called "American" or "New York pizza". A distinctive feature of this cake is the raised edges, which allow you to use even more filling. Now this recipe is no less popular than the original. In Japan, their own version of pizza was invented, which did not have a specific recipe, everyone could add whatever they wanted to it. The only condition was the presence of a topping of dry tuna, which stirred from the steam of hot pizza.

how the edible symbol of Italy appeared > WowItaly

Send your friends a ray of light from sunny Italy :)

The history of pizza will be of interest to all fans of this extremely popular national Italian dish. From the first bread baked back in the Stone Age, to a flatbread with cheese and bacon (!), from the Great Geographical Discoveries to the first pizzeria in New York, from Neapolitan street food for ordinary workers to gourmet food on the royal table ... Just like herself pizza, its history is a colorful blanket of highlights from .

And at the Pizza Masterclass in Rome , you will get to know real Italian pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven, not only in theory, but also in practice! Because cook it with your own hands! 🙂

The history of pizza: ancestors and relatives

The history of pizza goes back to ancient times. In Sardinia, archaeologists have found bread baked over 7,000 years ago! Flat bread was baked in clay ovens by the ancient Jews, Babylonians, Egyptians and Greeks. And in ancient Rome, the most popular food for peasants and warriors was focaccia - panis focacius , which translates as "bread baked in the hearth." It is focaccia that is considered a distant ancestor and relative of pizza.

Of course, these first “pen tests” cannot be called 100% pizza in the view of modern people. But they became the foundation on which the very idea of \u200b\u200bpizza arose.

The origin of the word pizza

The real history of pizza began in southern Italy. In 997 AD in the small port town of Gaeta, which is located between Rome and Naples, the first written mention of the word pizza was recorded. In the document, the son of a feudal lord promises twelve pizzas to the local bishop as an annual tribute.

That is, originally the word pizza had less to do with cooking and more with the world of finance and extortion . Until now, in Sicily and in southern Italy, the word pizzo (from the Sicilian about pizzu - beak) is called the tribute paid by small businesses to the mafia for "protection".

According to the Italian etymological dictionary, the word pizza comes from the Latin word pinsere - crush. According to other researchers, pizza comes from the Lombard bizzo or pizzo , which means "to eat something at a time or bite." Also, the word pizza is associated by origin with the Greek flatbread pitta .

One way or another, today the word pizza occupies the first place among the words of the Italian language , which have the greatest distribution and popularity throughout the world.

Naples - the birthplace of pizza

Great geographical discoveries played a big role in the history of pizza . After the New World was discovered, tomatoes were brought to Europe from South America (from the Italian pomo d'oro - "golden apple"). For their bitter taste, tomatoes were considered poisonous, and two whole centuries passed before they firmly settled on the table of Europeans.

Naples can be considered the only true birthplace of pizza. It was here that the combination of pizza (a flat, oven-baked bread) with tomato sauce and various toppings was born in the 17th century. Workers who spent most of their time away from home needed hearty and cheap food , which could be refreshed on the go. In response to their requests, pizza appeared, and it quickly gained great popularity among the common people.

Pizza for a long time remained exclusively Neapolitan street food, which was sold directly from the stalls. This was the case until the 19th century. The first pizzeria restaurant opened in 1830 in the center of Naples. It was called Pizzeria Port'Alba and is still working.

In 1843 the French writer Alexandre Dumas père visited Naples during his trip to southern Italy and Sicily, and described his impressions in the work Corricolo ( corricolo is the name of the Italian road wagon). According to Dumas, Neapolitans cannot be called an unhappy people, because they need pizza to eat. The writer also lists varieties of pizza : with olive oil, lard, anchovies, tomatoes, onions, cheese.

Until the end of the 19th century, cheese and bacon were the main fillings for pizza as the most high-calorie ingredients.

Another product of great importance for the emergence of modern pizza is buffalo mozzarella cheese ( mozzarella di bufala ), which is produced from the milk of black domestic buffaloes in the Campania region (its capital is Naples). Buffalo mozzarella differs from mozzarella made from ordinary cow's milk, with a more delicate texture and pronounced taste. And only such mozzarella is used as part of the classic Neapolitan pizza.

How Margherita Pizza Came to Be

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Italy remained politically fragmented for many centuries, and the “Italian boot” consisted of many patches. The long-awaited unification happened in 1861. And in 1889 King Umberto I, son of the first king of united Italy Victor Immanuel II, and Queen Margarita visited Naples. Legend has it that the traveling couple got bored with the refined cuisine of the aristocrats and wanted to try some dish of the common people. The most famous pizzaiolo in Naples Raffaele Esposito , the owner of the pizzeria Brandi (by the way, it still operates in Naples), was commissioned to present such a dish to the royal table. And he created a special patriotic pizza in honor of the arrival of Queen Margherita ... in the colors of the Italian flag! For this pizzaiolo chose green basil, white mozzarella cheese and scarlet tomatoes. Today we know this type of pizza as pizza Margherita (pizza Margherita).

Pizza Margherita celebrated 130 years since its birth in 2019!

Patriotic and, most importantly, delicious pizza impressed the queen and became one of her favorite dishes. Perhaps this is nothing more than a beautiful legend, since similar pizza is described in various sources at least 50 years earlier. One way or another, but the royal flair around the history of the origin of Margherita pizza only benefited its popularity.

Pizza Margherita, prepared in accordance with the canons and using certain ingredients, can be called "real Neapolitan pizza". For its preparation, finely ground wheat flour, yeast, water, sea salt, olive oil, San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella are used.

How pizza spread around the world

Pizza, born in Naples, started the triumphal procession of pizza around the world. At the end of the 19th century, Italians moved en masse to the United States, and pizza began to conquer other continents. Italian immigrants sold pizza in their shops, and the first pizzeria on American soil was opened in 1905 in New York .

Pizzerias opened in all major US cities where Italian immigrants lived - New York, Boston, Chicago (there even appeared its own Chicago style of pizza). The Italian national dish gained real popularity and widespread distribution after World War II , when American soldiers visited Italy and "tasted" pizza. And since the late 50s, the era of frozen pizza, which is sold in supermarkets, as well as pizza chains such as Pizza Hut and Domino's Pizza, and pizza delivery services at home begins.

In the Soviet Union, the first pizzeria under the Pizza Hut brand appeared in Moscow in 1990.

What a real Italian pizza should be like

Through the efforts of Americans, pizza has gained worldwide popularity and has become one of the most popular types of fast food. But and American commercialization didn't destroy the soul of real Italian pizza (nor did cinema destroy the theatre) because the difference in flavor between wood-fired and microwave-thawed pizza, between man-made pizza and assembly-line pizza, obvious.

In 1984, a special " pizza police" - Associazione Verace Pizza napoletana (AVPN) . Its goal is to preserve, disseminate and maintain the traditions and standards of making authentic Neapolitan pizza . To be called "real Neapolitan", the pizza must be round in shape and no more than 35 cm in diameter. The height of the dough in the middle should not exceed 0.3 cm, and the edges (the crust, which is called cornicione) should be raised. The dough is kneaded by hand from a combination of fine flour, yeast, water and salt. Pizza is baked at a temperature of 430-480 ° C in a wood-fired oven for 1-1.5 minutes.

Would you like to be at the pizzaiolo site and bake pizza with your own hands in a wood-fired oven? We invite you to pizza master class in Rome !

Cost of the group pizza workshop: 45 € per person
Cost of a private pizza class: 60 € per person (subject to booking from 2 people)
SUMMER OFFER! From June 10th to September 3rd: Pizza outdoors with stunning views of the Roman bridges ! Cost of the group workshop: 35 € per person

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