The dough should go on.
A Staten Island pizzeria proprietor spent months testing dough recipes, firing up greater than 500 pies, to search out one his clients couldn’t distinguish from the unique — all to get forward of a New York State ban on a cancer-linked flour additive utilized in pizza and bagels now awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature.
John Caggiano, 54, who’s run Il Forno in Nice Plains together with his spouse, Gwen, 50, for greater than twenty years, pulled potassium bromate from his kitchen after studying about its well being dangers — because the chemical that makes dough crisper and chewier is linked to most cancers in animals and already banned in 40 international locations together with the European Union and Canada.
“I learn all the data, and I stated to myself, I’m not going to be caught up serving pizza dough that’s unhealthy for my clients,” Caggiano informed The Submit. “If it’s unhealthy for them, I’m altering it.
“They’re household. And also you don’t feed your loved ones one thing that’s going to hurt them.”
And regardless of the brand new flour costing twice as a lot, he’s refusing to move the expense onto clients.
“That’s not the way in which I do enterprise with my loyal clients,” stated Caggiano.
Whereas some pizza makers could also be sweating over the potential ban that Hochul could or could not signal, Caggiano rolled up his sleeves, dusted off his apron and started working making a brand new dough freed from the additive linked to kidney harm, thyroid issues and sure cancers in laboratory animals, in accordance the Nationwide Institutes of Well being.
Throughout downtime in his cozy four-table pizzeria, Caggiano grew to become a one-man pizza scientist. He devoured commerce magazines, binge-watched baking movies and spent numerous hours making an attempt to crack the code on bromate-free dough that wouldn’t go away clients feeling crust-fallen.
The native pizza craftsman — well-known round Staten island for his upside-down pie — tinkered with recipes, firing pie after pie into into the oven and recruiting a trusted tasting panel of household and associates.
After lots of of check pies, he lastly struck gold with a hard-won recipe he’s preserving to himself.
“I truly prefer it higher,” Caggiano stated. “I informed my spouse that whether or not this legislation comes into impact or not, I favor it. I don’t need to knock anyone else for not doing it, however it’s an excellent match for us.”
Clients who go to Il Forno are already in love with Caggiano’s pizza making expertise, which he’s been honing since he was 15 years outdated.
“That pizza is so rattling good!” one completely satisfied buyer raved in a overview.
“What a gem this place is,” stated one other. “I dwell in Jersey now, however I nonetheless return.”
And now, his devoted followers guarantee him that they’ll’t style the distinction.
“As soon as I attempted it out on them, they beloved it,” Caggiano stated. ‘It was ethereal, it was mild.”
Earlier than crossing the Verazzanno and planting roots on Staten Island, Caggiano owned a pizzeria in Brooklyn. However when the earlier proprietor’s son determined to not take over the household enterprise, he noticed a chance and made the transfer.
And he’s by no means appeared again.
“It was among the best selections I’ve made,” he added.
