Boy, how to start? In my youth, I worked in a pizza parlor, and thought I knew how to make pizza. Wrong. This is THE book folks. The first half of the book is about the man's search for the greatest pizza, and the second half is how to do it. Reinhart was already one of the most famous bakers in the U.S. (and the world) but this time he has written the book that you must have if you are serious about pizza. I read the book, had doubts, but did exactly what he suggested. Lord, what a difference. People were actually yelling after the first bite. Now I need a better oven. The one I have only goes to 450 F., and hotter would be good. Just the same, my pizza is now not just better, but a LOT better. Money well spent.

If you want to make wonderful pizza at home, don't let the negative comments about this book put you off from ordering it as I did for too long. The editing oversights are insignificant when you consider what you get out of this book. And, seriously, how hard is it to use Google or Wikipedia to learn about instant yeast or high-gluten flour or focaccia?

My husband and I live in a pizza-challenged suburb of Atlanta. Thanks to this book, I have come as close as I believe possible to duplicating the wonderful thin-crusted pizza my husband and I enjoyed in Italy. Whatever type of crust you enjoy, however, you are sure to find the the way to reproduce it in this book.

If you skip Part 1, The Hunt, you will miss out on the adventure, and you may also miss the point of the photography. The black and white images taken with slow shutter speeds totally complement the nostalgic sentiment of the journey and may spark memories of your earliest pizza experiences. I believe the style of the photography was a deliberate choice as the photographer credited can produce exceptional images of this genre. marencaruso.com

The recipes I have tried have been great. My quibble is one that I have with many cook books. The instructions are complete and accurate, but they are not laid out as clearly as they could be. I recommend that you read each recipe completely before you begin to make sure you understand the total time required. My favorite surprise, at least I hadn't seen it mentioned earlier, is that the weight of flour is included. If you have a food scale, use it. It's much faster, more accurate, and less messy than measuring!

Buon appetito!

If you want to make wonderful pizza at home, don't let the negative comments about this book put you off from ordering it as I did for too long. The editing oversights are insignificant when you consider what you get out of this book. And, seriously, how hard is it to use Google or Wikipedia to learn about instant yeast or high-gluten flour or focaccia?

My husband and I live in a pizza-challenged suburb of Atlanta. Thanks to this book, I have come as close as I believe possible to duplicating the wonderful thin-crusted pizza my husband and I enjoyed in Italy. Whatever type of crust you enjoy, however, you are sure to find the the way to reproduce it in this book.

If you skip Part 1, The Hunt, you will miss out on the adventure, and you may also miss the point of the photography. The black and white images taken with slow shutter speeds totally complement the nostalgic sentiment of the journey and may spark memories of your earliest pizza experiences. I believe the style of the photography was a deliberate choice as the photographer credited can produce exceptional images of this genre[...]

The recipes I have tried have been great. My quibble is one that I have with many cook books. The instructions are complete and accurate, but they are not laid out as clearly as they could be. I recommend that you read each recipe completely before you begin to make sure you understand the total time required. My favorite surprise, at least I hadn't seen it mentioned earlier, is that the weight of flour is included. If you have a food scale, use it. It's much faster, more accurate, and less messy than measuring!

Buon appetito!

I won't say too much about the book since so many people have already described the book so well. I have successfully make about 12 pizzas since reading the book and studing the recipies. They are very straight forward even for some one with out a lot of baking experiance. Please check out my pizza photos that I added for your viewing pleasure.

The only thing that would have made my reading of the book even better would have been a map of Italy to show exactly where his travels took him during his research for the book. That extra detail would have really added to first section of the book for me (not being familar with Europe).

Other wise it was great.

coming from a novice cook-(a late starter for sure), i found the book an interesting read since i have been flying in and out of the areas he mentioned as well as being a good source of ideas, even for a beginning cook. it appears to have the depth to keep experienced cookers occupied, and those with proper ovens and stone inserts and the patience to "age" the dough. being single, i've had to cut all his recipes in half and convert to metric.

This is a great book if you are looking for a little history and a lot of information on different styles of pizza as well as some great recipes. You really can't go wrong when purchasing any book by Peter Reinhart. I highly recommend "The Breadbaker's Apprentice."

The recipes and techniques in this book are, by and large, excellent. I spent over three years working in a pizzeria and have struggled since then to recreate really good pizza in my home. Reinhart's sauce recipes, and (most important) his dough recipes and techniques have closed the gap between simply being able to make pizza at home that my friends and family are excited about, and being able to make pizza at home that *I* am truly happy with. I concur with the reviewer who says that his Chicago deep-dish recipe won't get you restaurant-quality fare (it's far thicker and meatier than a Lou Malnati's crust, for instance), but I will say that it makes for a plenty good deep dish pie at home.

Unlike most of the other reviewers, however, I can't recommend the opening chapter on his "personal pizza journey." Bookended by tired you-can't-go-home-again sentimentality, it fixates on his quest for a very narrow class of pizza (excepting the forays into utterly bizarre and inaccessible raw vegan fare, etc.) It's great for New Haven pizza fans, I suppose, but just about anybody else passionate about pizza is going to find his biases difficult to swallow.

Even as a Chicago Pizza Guy, I can understand how he failed to embrace the deep dishes he tried. It's not his thing. But what is inexplicable and unforgivable is the fact that, after traipsing around into all manner of random, one-off, or impossibly elitist pizza shops all around the world, he went through Chicago without the merest mention of the Chicago thin pizza, which in my book is the city's secret pizza weapon. The man wrote about Chicago pizza apparently without eating the likes of Aurelio's, Jake's, or Rosati's. That's unforgivably sloppy, and makes me wonder what else he glossed over in other cities.

Maybe it's unfair to blame Reinhart for being what he is--a gourmet, confirmed bread freak with a deep spiritual streak who wants to be entranced and romanced by restaurant owners with a large Italian vocabulary or a willingness to babble about putting one's soul into a pizza. And he does point out the brutally obvious by way of disclaimer--pizza preference is a deeply personal thing. That said, it doesn't make for terribly compelling reading, either. So I say, stick with the recipes and leave the stories aside, lest you dismiss some good recipes on account of the flakiness of the opening chapter.

(For all his talk about cheese, there's really a very simple approach to getting great pizza cheese. 1 part romano to every 2-3 parts mozzarella, grate it yourself, done.)

Follow his pizza sauce recipes for a sure way to watered down sauce and wasted tomato puree and spices.

Follow his pizza sauce recipes for a sure way to watered down sauce and wasted tomato puree and spices.

This is definitely the best book about pizza that I have ever read. We tried nearly all the recipes and found the thin-crust ones more to our liking. Pizza lovers, rejoice! You will never go hungry again for information on pizza!

I found this to be a fairly serviceable treatise on the topic of pizza. The author, a baking instructor, had a longstanding interest in global pizza hunting, and always made it a point to sample the local pies wherever he traveled. Eventually, he got around to putting it all into book form, wherein he takes the reader on a condensed recap of his far ranging pizza (and foccacia) travels, from Philadelphia, to Texas, to NYC, to New Haven, to Italy, to California, to Chicago, etc., in his quest for perfect pizza.

The author then provides the reader with a basic dough recipe covering each of the (as he classifies them) major types of pizza: Napoletana, Roman, Neo-Neapolitan, New York-Style, Pizza Americana, San Francisco Sourdough Style, Grilled Pizza dough, Chicago Deep-Dish, Sardinian, etc. He then goes on to provide some basic tips for sauce, cheese, toppings, and some philosophical guidelines to help achieve balance in a given recipe.

I already knew most of what little information he provided about sauce and cheese and toppings - the primary focus in this book is primarily on dough making & handling, followed by baking methods, and there's some very helpful information here for amateur home cooks who've always wanted to learn the basics of home pizza making, either in a pan, atop a pizza stone or with a full fledged hearth insert.

I've been making pizza at home for years, and even I learned a few helpful tweaks to my technique ... and I've added a few famous pizza establishments to visit to my life itinerary.

My Nits ? I have a few.

1) IMNSHO, dusting as peel with cornmeal before using it to slide a pie into a home oven is just not practical technique for most home cooks, because it makes a mess of one's oven. The cornmeal and/or flour scorches, and causes one's kitchen (unless you're fortunate enough to have a powerful exhaust system) to reek of scorched flour and/or cornmeal. That's a technique intended exclusively for commercial pizza ovens that are easily and frequently swept out, and where keeping costs low is the golden rule. Try sweeping out a home oven, and you'll not only make a mess of your floor, but probably set your broom ablaze on the electric heating elements or gas burner. Personally, I've found that a much easier and cleaner technique for home cooks to use is to assemble the pizza on parchment paper, and bake it directly on a well heated pizza stone. Ignore the author's direction to remove the parchment after a few minutes - doing so is unnecessary, and only serves to cause your oven to lose 100F+ of precious heat, when it needs it the most. The crust doesn't come out quite as crispy after the initial baking, but if you want a crispier crust, it's a simple matter to keep the oven hot a little while longer, and rebake slices for 2-3 mins to order ... the crusts crisp up very nicely upon rebaking.

2) I'd have liked to have seen a lot more photos. This book only has a precious few of them, all of them black and white, and all of them of decidedly poor quality and exposure. In fact, the photography is downright inept.

3) I think the author aimed a little low in this book, with regards to heft. He could have, and IMO should have, squeezed more material into this book. To me, it read too quickly, and when I'd finished it later the same day, I felt it was a bit thinnish ... I wanted more regions covered, more recipes, and a lot more photos (esp competent ones).

4) I think the author could have included a 'putting it all together' chapter, where he could layout the nuances of how a home cook (i.e., most of the readership) could do a pracitcal in-home pizza party for, say 20+ people ... with nesting rising pans, pre-cut parchment, a cooling rack with screens, mis en place, and how to pre-bake and re-heat in a party settings, and how to store the equipment when not in use. Instead, the author just concludes with his list of dough recipes, and then assortment of topping combos to try.

Other than thhose 4 nits, this book is recommended. Add a point/star if you've always wanted to try making your own pizza from scratch, and this book succeeds in helping you take the plunge, or if the book inspires you to take your existing pizza dough technique to a new level (as it did for me).

Basic homemade pizza is fairly easy, and you can always strive incrementally for new levels of perfection.

I found this to be a fairly serviceable treatise on the topic of pizza. The author, a baking instructor, had a longstanding interest in global pizza hunting, and always made it a point to sample the local pies wherever he traveled. Eventually, he got around to putting it all into book form, wherein he takes the reader on a condensed recap of his far ranging pizza (and foccacia) travels, from Philadelphia, to Texas, to NYC, to New Haven, to Italy, to California, to Chicago, etc., in his quest for perfect pizza.

The author then provides the reader with a basic dough recipe covering each of the (as he classifies them) major types of pizza: Napoletana, Roman, Neo-Neapolitan, New York-Style, Pizza Americana, San Francisco Sourdough Style, Grilled Pizza dough, Chicago Deep-Dish, Sardinian, etc. He then goes on to provide some basic tips for sauce, cheese, toppings, and some philosophical guidelines to help achieve balance in a given recipe.

I already knew most of what little information he provided about sauce and cheese and toppings - the primary focus in this book is primarily on dough making & handling, followed by baking methods, and there's some very helpful information here for amateur home cooks who've always wanted to learn the basics of home pizza making, either in a pan, atop a pizza stone or with a full fledged hearth insert.

I've been making pizza at home for years, and even I learned a few helpful tweaks to my technique ... and I've added a few famous pizza establishments to visit to my life itinerary.

My Nits ? I have a few.

1) IMNSHO, dusting as peel with cornmeal before using it to slide a pie into a home oven is just not practical technique for most home cooks, because it makes a mess of one's oven. The cornmeal and/or flour scorches, and causes one's kitchen (unless you're fortunate enough to have a powerful exhaust system) to reek of scorched flour and/or cornmeal. That's a technique intended exclusively for commercial pizza ovens that are easily and frequently swept out, and where keeping costs low is the golden rule. Try sweeping out a home oven, and you'll not only make a mess of your floor, but probably set your broom ablaze on the electric heating elements or gas burner. Personally, I've found that a much easier and cleaner technique for home cooks to use is to assemble the pizza on parchment paper, and bake it directly on a well heated pizza stone. Ignore the author's direction to remove the parchment after a few minutes - doing so is unnecessary, and only serves to cause your oven to lose 100F+ of precious heat, when it needs it the most. The crust doesn't come out quite as crispy after the initial baking, but if you want a crispier crust, it's a simple matter to keep the oven hot a little while longer, and rebake slices for 2-3 mins to order ... the crusts crisp up very nicely upon rebaking.

2) I'd have liked to have seen a lot more photos. This book only has a precious few of them, all of them black and white, and all of them of decidedly poor quality and exposure. In fact, the photography is downright inept.

3) I think the author aimed a little low in this book, with regards to heft. He could have, and IMO should have, squeezed more material into this book. To me, it read too quickly, and when I'd finished it later the same day, I felt it was a bit thinnish ... I wanted more regions covered, more recipes, and a lot more photos (esp competent ones).

Other than that, this book is recommended. Add a point/star if you've always wanted to try making your own pizza from scratch, and this book succeeds in helping you take the plunge. It's fairly easy, trust me. It only gets challenging when you try to reach, incrementally, for progressively higher levels of perfection.

I have been making pizzas for twenty years, always searching for improvements. Having no formal training in dough preparation, this book seemed to be the answer. Peter's writing is easy to read, with interesting experiences in Italy matched with excellent dough recipes and his take on the pizzas he and his fellow hunters experienced.

Highly recommended.

This book is divided into two equally interesting and useful sections. The first is Reinhart's quest for the perfect pizza. He discusses in detail his culinary experiences both in the US and abroad.

The second section is recipes. He has at least 5 recipes for crusts, many of which are very good. The crust recipe he recommends for frozen pizza is actually one of my favorites (prepared without freezing). The section on toppings is also great. He outlines some new ideas for pizza (at least new to me) and gives his perspective on more traditional recipes. For example, he suggests that it is not necessary to cook pizza sauce as the high oven temperature will make it more dense during the baking process. This advice has saved me time and results in a superior sauce. His pizza with red onion, pecorino, and pistachios has become one of our favorites.

Definitely a worth-while book. Not overly technical, but it does provide extremely useful tips for a successful pizza-making experience.

This book is divided into two equally interesting and useful sections. The first is Reinhart's quest for the perfect pizza. He discusses in detail his culinary experiences both in the US and abroad.

The second section is recipes. He has at least 5 recipes for crusts, many of which are very good. The crust recipe he recommends for frozen pizza is actually one of my favorites (prepared without freezing). The section on toppings is also great. He outlines some new ideas for pizza (at least new to me) and gives his perspective on more traditional recipes. For example, he suggests that it is not necessary to cook pizza sauce as the high oven temperature will make it more dense during the baking process. This advice has saved me time and results in a superior sauce. His pizza with red onion, pecorino, and pistachios has become one of our favorites.

Definitely a worth-while book. Not overly technical, but it does provide extremely useful tips for a successful pizza-making experience.

as a culinary professional, i found this book inspirational and informative. i have sucessfully implemented some of the recipes and many of the ideas in the book in my day to day prep as well as staff meals. everyone appreciates a good slice of pie, and this book will show you how to make it in your own kitchen, professional or not...

This book will help you cure any pizza dissapointment you may be suffering from. Peter Reinhart starts off with the story of his quest for the perfect pizza. In doing so, he takes us to sites of the pizza's origins in Italy where he cooks along side chefs in little pizzarias. Then Reinhart tracks the migration of pizza to America, where we learn about the contributions of New York and New Haven, CT, and then on to more recent contributions in other parts of the U.S. The second half of the book treats us to a variety of incredible and authentic recipies for pizza dough, sauce, and everything on top. Armed with this book I have held several pizza parties in my home and wowed many a guest with pizza much better than I can find in about 90% of the pizzarias around. And when they point to me for compliments, I point to the book that taught me everything.

This book will help you cure any pizza dissapointment you may be suffering from. Peter Reinhart starts off with the story of his quest for the perfect pizza. In doing so, he takes us to sites of the pizza's origins in Italy where he cooks along side chefs in little pizzarias. Then Reinhart tracks the migration of pizza to America, where we learn about the contributions of New York and New Haven, CT, and then on to more recent contributions in other parts of the U.S. The second half of the book treats us to a variety of incredible and authentic recipies for pizza dough, sauce, and everything on top. Armed with this book I have held several pizza parties in my home and wowed many a guest with pizza much better than I can find in about 90% of the pizzarias around. And when they point to me for compliments, I point to the book that taught me everything.

I can't comment on Reinhart's other recipes, but his Chicago deep dish is not even close to the authentic item.

The dedication on the fly leaf reads: 'To Sonia- May your pizzas be perfect!' and I certainly wish it had been written directly on the book and not on a bookplate......Alas, Peter Reinhart has not been able to make a book or demonstration tour to Hawaii...yet...!, but thanks to the efforts of another foodie friend and baker extraordinaire at least I got the signed book plate! I love cookbooks with 'meat' in them.....stories, anecdotes, history and background rather than one with just recipes. I love it when the author takes you along for the ride.........! I have enjoyed every bit of this search along with him......and the pizzas and focaccias I tried have all worked out....Thank you Peter for a wonderful trip to the world of great pizzas and the revelation of the focaccia col formaggio di Recco!!!!!

The dedication on the fly leaf reads: 'To Sonia- May your pizzas be perfect!' and I certainly wish it had been written directly on the book and not on a bookplate......Alas, Peter Reinhart has not been able to make a book or demonstration tour to Hawaii...yet...!, but thanks to the efforts of another foodie friend and baker extraordinaire at least I got the signed book plate! I love cookbooks with 'meat' in them.....stories, anecdotes, history and background rather than one with just recipes. I love it when the author takes you along for the ride.........! I have enjoyed every bit of this search along with him......and the pizzas and focaccias I tried have all worked out....Thank you Peter for a wonderful trip to the world of great pizzas and the revelation of the focaccia col formaggio di Recco!!!!!

Mr. Reinhart, thank you for opening the world of pizza for me.

I never realized how little I understood as to what great pizza is. The "hunt" section was extremely helpful in setting me up for the receipes so that I could understand just what I would be making. I am embarrassed to admit that I thought dough was just "dough" and that sauce was just "sauce." Foolish me.

With his excellent descriptions of what makes a great pizza dough, and what makes a great sauce, and the importance of the proper cooking temperature,I'm pretty sure that my family will be amazed at how I got so good so quickly.

As to comments on the book's ragged page edges...The edges reminded me of the edges of vintage books from the 1800's that I have read. Thus the ragged edges tell me that this book will become a valuable "vintage" book that I will treasure.

...is right here in this book. A world tour of pizza and all
it's styles. His personal journey and recipes of all the styles
of doughs, sauces and complete pizzas he talked about in the
first half. As a note to the person that complained about the
ragged edges of the book. I contacted the publisher and that's
the way the book is published. It's ragged edged on purpose.
Doesn't bother me at all. The book is fantastic!!

My wife grew up in Philadelphia. She recalls a pizza from her youth, a fabulous pie whose secret recipe died with the chef. After reading this book, and taking a few liberties with Reinhart's sauce recipe, I turned out a pie that my wife says is the closest thing she's ever tasted to that pizza from the old days. Prior to this book, I'd never been able to make a decent pizza at home. Peter Reinhart is a genius obsessed. If you want to make real pizza at home, you need this book.

This is a great book from Peter Reinhart. It is full of stories, recipes and helpful tips to make wonderful pizzas.

In addition, I want to evaluate the publisher with One Star, and the distributor Amazon.com with One Star.
When I received the book, it has the edge of all pages irregular, poor finished quality, and when I returned to Amazon.com to exchange for a well-done book, Amazon.com sent another book with the same problem, meaning they do not read why I returned the first book, it seems that they operate in automatic mode.
Amazon.com sends to you an apology letter template which keeps the idea that they do not read why are you sending back the item; it feels a very impersonal treatment to all your inconveniences.

Other reviewers have gone into details about what a great book this is and I don't disagree with most of those positive comments. There are a few things to realize about this book though.

First, Peter Reinhart is a bread expert. Therefore he openly states that, for him, the crust is by far the most important aspect of any pizza. So most of the book focuses on the crust.

Second, the book is all about thin crust pizzas. Reinhart travels the world sampling every kind of thin crust pizza you could imagine, waxing poetic every step of the way. But Reinhart's treatment of Chicago style deep dish pizza is both brief and inaccurate.

After admitting that he doesn't much care for it ("it just doesn't do it for me"), he recounts his vists to a few popular Chicago pizzerias, including a trip to Lou Malnatti's with Kathleen Kennedy and Gino's East with Rick Bayless. Amongst the discussions of the finer points of the "cornmeal-flavored doughs" all these supposed experts apparently missed a key point. There is no cornmeal in the crust from either of these pizzerias! No wonder Reinhart's recipe for Chicago deep-dish pizza dough bears no resemblence to the real thing.

You might wonder whether to believe some random reviewer on Amazon over Peter Reinhart. How could I know more about the Gino's East and Lou Malnatti's crusts than the world class expert?

Easy. I ordered these pizzas through the mail, and read the ingredient lists that came with them. Neither includes cornmeal. It would have been nice if Reinhart had bothered to do the same before publishing his book.

What gives these crusts their characteristic flavor and texture is a substantial amount of corn oil. If you make these doughs with all that oil, you then need to let them dry out a bit before piling toppings on them and cooking them, or you will get a mushy crust. The drying can be done in the refrigerator overnight or at low temperature (150F) in the oven.

To summarize, this book is an authoritative guide for anyone interested in thin crust pizzas. But if your primary interest is deep dish pizza, beware that the topic gets short shrift here.

I love pizza, period. I tried in vain for about 18 months to find a dough recipe that pleased both me and my husband. Finally, I broke down and asked about a cookbook to help me in my quest. This book was the recommendation.

Not only are the crusts delicious, but so are the other recipes. I LOVE the Crushed Tomato Sauce. It's so easy, but so tasty and different. I also make the Sweet & Sour Onion Marmalade on a regular basis, but eat it on top of crackers with cream cheese. It's awesome!

There are so many great recipes in this book (so many even besides pizza) that's it's worth every penny.

Since I am an avid bread baker, I have had two of Reinhart's bread books for a number of years. Both are excellent, so I bought his pizza book. It is great!! Being a bread baker, Reinhart spends a lot of time on recipes for pizza doughs; classic Neopolitan, New Haven, New York and Chicago deep dish, among others. Before I read his book, I didn't know they were different.
I was born and raised in New York City and now live in the midwest. Since moving here, I had missed the pizza I grew up on. No more!! Since getting Reinhart's book, I have been able to make excellent New York style pizza at home. I have also tried New Haven style pizza and it is really good.
Reinhart strikes a good balance between "classic" pizzas and innovative ones. By that, I mean that he gives recipes for classic pizza sauce and toppings as well as several innovative sauces and toppings. The classic pizza sauce is uncooked and is also excellent for Italian dishes such as lasagna.
Before getting American Pie, I had never made pizza at home. The book has inspired me to now make pizza almost every week.

Thanks to Peter Reinhart, I was able to make wonderful pizzas with the better crust and tastier sauce compared to the pizzerias in my area. I got other pizza cookbooks (Art of Pizza Making and Scicolone's Pizza) but American Pie has proved to be the winner.

I've made pizza from plain flour and yeast, commercial all-in-one packages, and even tried a bread machine recipe, but the taste and consistency were never as good as a real Pizzeria-made pizza. I beleive in the saying that crust is 80% of a pizza, so I bought this book and tried the first recipe for Neo-Neapolitan pizza dough. Because I'm lazy, I used a bread machine to knead the dough, and topped it with sauce and cheese I picked up off the shelf. To my pure delight, the dough was fantastic. It came out of the bread machine "sticky" just like the book says real pizza dough should be. I cut the ball in half, covered each piece with olive oil, and placed both in plastic bags to rise slowly overnight in the refrigerator, as indicated. The next evening I shaped the dough by applying flour to the backs of my hands as the book said, and baked it on a pizza stone in a conventional oven. The results were incredible. I repeated the feat at my girlfriend's house the next night with the second ball of dough, and she demanded that I leave the remaining pieces at her house for her to eat the next day.

I should mention that I divided the recipe in half because I don't need to make 4 balls of dough at once. And I did make two slight modifications to the recipe: 1) I dissolved the yeast in 105� water for 2 minutes before adding it to the bread machine, then added the olive oil followed by the dry ingredients; and 2) I added 2 tablespoons of gluten to the mix. I buy my flour and other supplies from a local baking store, and they recommend adding gluten to get a better rise. So I just do that out of habit, and it seemed to work perfectly for me. I followed this up with the New York-style crust, which also resulted in a perfectly sticky ball of dough. I may be making pizza every Friday night for the next 10 years, because you can whip this dough up on Thursday night in about 20 minutes, using a bread mixer on the Dough setting. I'm sure I could get gourmet-oriented and try some of the great sauce recipes, and buy some fresh mozzarella cheese, but the pizza tastes great with ordinary sauce and toppings, so for now I'm sticking with these dough recipes for their savory crusts.

It's hard to pin down why Pizza is so passionately loved by most people. And even if you are only a sporadic Pizza eater, you probably have a favorite place to eat it. Be picky about your Pizza - why not? And bread baker Peter Reinhart seems to be very picky about it too. I liked that.

The message No.1 of this book is probably found in the "The hunt" section of the book - Reinhart's account of his numerous trips through Italy and the USA: The recipes are just the beginnig of a good Pizza. Then the work of your own passion begins. The more Pizzas you make, the more your own personality will be expressed through it. And with time your Pizza will be like a signature (if you are that ambitious). And only by love and passion for Pizza your work will be great. Pizza as a metaphor for soulfoulness.

Only minor criticism: In the recipes for the dough he dropped his habit of including baker's percentages and used the semi-optimal cup-system. Why? It puzzles me. Mysteries still exist. I needed to convert the recipes to weights to get them right. They are very good. I claim that I am now capable of producing a better Pizza with my home oven with baking stone than most of the Pizzerias in my neighbourhood.

My search for making good pizza at home began with THE ART OF MAKING PIZZA by Dominick DeAngelis. I gave the book a good review, but since reading Reinhart's AMERICAN PIE, I have to say, unless you just don't have the extra money for this book, skip THE ART and get AMERICAN PIE. You may find that AMERICAN PIE is the only pizza book you need.

Comparisons against THE ART are difficult for me to avoid. DeAngelis basically instructs on making one style of pizza - what Reinhart would call a New York style or Americana. Reinhart teaches you to make Napoletana pizza, New York style pizza, Americana pizza, Roman style (thin crust) pizza, grilled pizza (Yes! It's what it sounds like!), Chicago deep dish pizza and a few breads that you may not consider pizza at all, like pita, carta di musica and focaccia. DeAngelis INSISTS that you need to use high-gluten flour (good luck finding it locally) and complains of the inadequacy of the home oven. Reinhart uses (mostly) available ingredients and writes the book knowing that it's going to be used within the limitations of a home kitchen.

But until recently, I've had problems with the recipes. I've tried the Napoletana crust, the Americana crust, the focaccia, the carta di musica, and the prebaked crusts. Despite following his recipes (nearly) to a "T," the dough just did not act as described in the book. It was not as elastic as described, and could tear apart from its own weight. Despite this, if I could get the dough formed into a crust at all, the results were still pretty good! There are two pages on "Ten Tips for Making Pizza Dough." These may be the two most valuable pages in the book, and should be expanded and not relegated to the reduced type size. The recipes call for "instant yeast." I've never found anything in the store called "instant yeast." The ten tips include substitutions for active dry, which I could find everywhere. I tried the following these instructions with no improvement. I had to research "instant yeast." With help from Alton Brown's I'M JUST HERE FOR MORE FOOD and other sources, I discovered that the stuff in the store called "yeast for bread machines" was in fact, instant yeast. Reinhart should discuss this more. Differences in yeasts may seem common knowledge for someone as himself, who is, by all accounts, one of the nation's leading experts on baking, but can confuse the home baker to whom the book is directed.

I finally discovered my problem, again, with help from Alton Brown while watching his bread episode of GOOD EATS where he used the same Kitchenaid mixer as I and momentarily ran the mixer to high to spread the dough when it wrapped around the dough hook. I was dutifully following Reinhart's instructions to knead on medium-low, and my Kitchenaid Artisan really needs medium, if not a bit more to knead. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that I tried to half the recipes (most make a half dozen 12" crusts) and the dough just spun around on the hook for a ride, not kneading at all. Once I corrected this other day, I got the most incredible New York style pizza out of my very oven that would compete with any I've ever had from a pizzeria. Oh - and be warned, depending on the size of your garlic cloves, you might find his sauces to be pretty garlicky.

Of the many doughs, my wife actually liked the prebaked freezer crusts the best. I don't think Reinhart intended this and offers the recipe as an alternative to the popular par-baked crusts in the supermarket. They are great to have on hand when you want a pizza, but could not plan ahead to defrost a dough before you left for work in the morning.

The first third of the book is the author's travels around the world studying the art and types of pizza. He waxes quite philosophical. I expected that this wouldn't appeal to me, but it ended up drawing me in, and I stayed up late finishing the section. He dispels some popular myths. Pizza is NOT traditionally made by spinning it in the air, and it was not invented in America.

My brother's copy of AMERICAN PIE also had the artsy, rough-cut pages, so we think that's normal.

Again, this is the only book on pizza you'll probably ever need. My only suggestions are to add more "diagnostics" should you have problems. Although I usually eschew the idea that a cookbook need glitzy color photos, a few black and white showing, for example, what a focaccia is supposed to look like, would be very helpful. (Some of us have lived sheltered lives!) I am still trying to find my personal holy grail, though: the Pizza Hut thin crust!

I'm looking forward to getting Reinhart's BREAD BAKER'S APPRENTICE. If it's as good as AMERICAN PIE, it will serve as several Christmas gifts this year.

A must read for pizza hunters, pizza makers and restaurant entrepreneurs. Peter Reinhardt has the rare talent to explain the role of provincial food memories in re-creating your perfect pizza, the challenges of producing flavors of universal appeal and the energy and passion needed to make consistently memorable pizza.

Explore the magical world of pizza - college-town pizza, pizza vesuvio, seven-foot long pizza, DOC standard pizza, grilled pizza, deep-dish pie, New York pizza and pizza on sheet-music-thin crust. The book is full of hunger inducing sentences - "The crust was perfectly crisp, the cheese nicely caramelized, the edge slightly charred and the sauce nice and tangy." With those kinds of descriptions, you'll know where to get great pizza, what makes it special and how to make it. While I'm a pizza hunter - I've eaten pizza in over 14 counties - I made the grilled pizza and it was wonderful.

If you follow the recipes and business sense outlined in this book, your guests will leave your establishment or home-table with a comforting and satisfying smile on their face. To paraphrase Peter Reinhart: They will dream about your pizza. They will crave it. They will surely regret not being able to find anything like it.

If you aren't afraid of being seduced by pizza and wish to create magical moments, then Peter Reinhart's American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza will be a great read..

This is a great book about the author's search for pizza, something with which we can all identify! On the way you will learn some facts about pizza -- for instance, that it was not invented in Chicago after WWII (as I thought), and that it has ancient and modern Italian associations. And as you share the author's journey, you will think about the emotional attachments to your own past food experiences, and think about how those experiences may bias your taste and thoughts about what good food is.

I did sense just the teeniest bit of... how to say it... elitism? inherent in the author's perspective on his quest for pizza. The world the reader joins is not one of working class food, but of high cuisine, with the attitudes and and the social connections that go with it. There may be just a bit of flaunting of this sensibility throughout. I'm not quite sure that I've sorted out whether this is real or imagined on my part, or if there is any way for the author to have avoided it given his background; but the book is still great and very enjoyable.

I've been baking bread for the past eighteen years. Shortly after retiring ten years ago the doctor put me on a low sodium diet. I soon discovered that low sodium bread is not available, anywhere, so baking all of our bread became a top priority. Although becoming proficient at bread baking, my pizza attempts were a constantly humbling experience. Nothing ever turned out right.

When Peter was writing this book I became aware that he was looking for recipe testers and volunteered. Shortly thereafter he emailed me a set of recipes which would be the foundation for the second half of the book. I followed his instructions verbatim and was amazed at the results. Every recipe turned out primo. With practice they got even better. The ultimate compliment came when my grand kids told their mom that Grandpa's homemade pizzas are better than any pizzeria pizza. Now if you've got grand kids you know that's huge. And to show their appreciation, the grand kids bought me the book for Christmas.

In conclusion, if you're a bad pizza baker and want to become good or a good pizza baker and want to become better, this is the book for you.

If you what to read the most exciting book of all time get American Pie, it's obsiqious!!! Reinhart is a real life Indiana Jones!!! I was on the edge of my seat with this page turner!!! Reinhart if you read this what about a book about sicilian meat lovers pie?? That would be a hell of a read. I'd like to get a stack of those of perfect pies that would be the grazzle of the millenium!!!! Cheers to Peter aka "Supreme" Reinhart the greatest writer of all time!!!!! I give this book a full 8 slices!!!

After reading and using the recipes in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, Peter Reinhart became one of my favorite cookbook authors. American Pie is a beautiful book, with entertaining stories about his quest for the perfect pizza, and the best recipes for pizza you can hope for. Reinhart is "the" father of Bread, and all his books are masterpieces not to be missed by serious or amateur bakers wishing to accomplish the very best results.

Peter Reinhart became my baking idol after baking from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice". I couldn't imagine that he could write a book that could top that one, but he did with "American Pie".

Once you try grilling pizza you'll never go back to spending 1 hour preheating your baking stone. It is the best way to make a pizza. Don't let it intimate you...the dough want fall into the fire. I was able to achieve great results with a gas grill.

Everything that I've tried was delicious and can't wait to try the rest of the recipes.

Pizza. Short word full of memories. Peter Reinhart brings us along his culinary journey to find the perfect pizza. Travelling through Italy and the US he lets us sample the different types of pizza: Roman, Napoletana, New York style, etc. As a keen reader of his other works I know that this guy knows what he is talking about. It is hard not to dribble over the pages! The book instructs you on how to make the different types of pizza crusts, sauces and toppings, as well as how to get the best results out of your oven. Highly recommended for anyone that loves simple food made with love!

I'm a pizza fan (eater and amateur baker) and I've endlessly explored the possibilities of reinventing pizza at home. I thought I was doing a pretty good job until I made the pizza crust Peter Reinhart has in his book "the bread bakers apprentice". I was hooked on pizza. After that, I bought a couple of books including Pizza Napoletana, American pie, Figs table...in view of further expanding my knowlege. What I love most about this book is that Peter Reinhart gives you an incredible overview about the different aspects of regional pizza. I've learned to appreciate and respect all tipes of pizza while conserving my favorites. With this book, you learn that the important thing is to respect each countries version of pizza, the quality of the ingredients and the feeling you put into it. Tradition and memories play an important part in the liking of any pizza. I strongly recomend this book. I do put in a note of warning: don't expect to find a picture book. You'll have to rely on the authors colorful narrating to create the picture in your head. At fist, when I flipped the books pages, it was a drawback, but when I started reading it........ Wow.... I realy don't miss the pictures all that much....To resume my comment: If you're realy into pizza, the technical and philosophical aspect of it all, this book will be a treasure of your library..........buy and enjoy

Peter Reinhart, takes you on a journey around the world in search of the best pizza. His travels take you back to the roots of pizza in Italy, then back to the US and across America, the book concludes with recipes for the best of the best that you can replicate at home.

Reinhart's quest for the perfect pizza has resulted in the holy grail of pizza books.

Reading it will give you an understanding of what makes a good pizza good as well as how you can make excellent pizza at home. Reinhart has the ability to describe what dough is supposed to look and feel like at its various stages of development; he helps you develop a sense of what's happening.

I've made all of the doughs he describes--except the sourdough--and they all taste good. The descriptions of what to expect from each dough gives various reasons for why you might make one over the other. Eventually, Reinhart, says you will find a particular kind of dough that you focus on.

The book itself is beautiful, ragged edged pages and excellent typography.

There really isn't another book like it. It is what all good baking books wish they could be: A combination of clear instruction, insight, knowledge and explanation that results in food that tastes good.

I have loved pizza for more than 50 years and Peter Reinhart's American Pie is nearly as good as any pizza I've had from San Francisco to Naples. His recollections of pizza from his youth to his travels around the U.S. and Italy in search of the best pizza kept me turning the pages while my mouth watered for another "perfect" pizza. I learned of new pizza destinations, even nearby, and new versions to try at home. But most important I learned what it takes to make great pizza. It might be the reason why so many people who make their own in my backyard wood-fired oven say it is the best they've ever eaten.

I'm sure there are other books devoted to the pizza, but this is the one which all true foodies will want. For starters, it's written by Peter Reinhart, a major American authority and writer on bread baking. Then, there are connections in the story to culinary luminaries such as Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Mario Batali, Rick Bayless, Paul Bertolli, and David Rosengarten.

The first half of the book is a quest to find the best American pizza, after an incident in Reinhart's home town of Philadelphia when he has a pie from a fondly remembered local restaurant, and it simply does not come up to his fond memories of the pizza of days gone by. As one would expect, the quest begins by a visit to sample the pizzas of Italy in Genoa, Florence, Rome, and Naples, the legendary home of the pizza archetype.

Upon returning home, the author and his wife visit famous pizza locations in New York City, New Haven, San Francisco, Los Angles, Chicago, and Phoenix. In case the Food Network has not caught onto this fact yet, some of the very best pizza is made at Pizzeria Bianco by Chris Bianco, a James Beard Best Chef of the Southwest award winner.

The author is not so gauche as to make a pronouncement on the best pizza in the country, but comes to the conclusion that a local `best' is the conjunction of a perception of what the best pizza should be and a very good pizzaioli who can produce a pie to meet those expectations. One of the most difficult problems for maintaining a good pizza in the U.S. is keeping a dedicated pizzaioli at work at that position and not to treat the job as just another station for a chef to master and move on. Even food meccas like Chez Panisse have problems keeping up the quality of their crusts in the face of staff rotation.

The second half of the book is dedicated to recipes and techniques for making pizzas at home. Given the great variety of wood, coal, gas, and electric ovens used to make pizza commercially, it's hard to imagine that with a reasonable amount of dilligence, people cannot get very good results from their home ovens. The biggest difficulty is that the typical home oven cannot manage more than about 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Reinhardt offers three methods to improve your chances with a home oven, both with and without the convection oven.

As Reinhart is a recognized expert on bread baking, I find no basis for my questioning his recommendations. And, since many of his colleagues believe the crust is five times more important for the quality of the pizza than all the toppings put together, I have to believe Rienhart's advice will be a golden addition to your pizza skills.

If there is any question in your mind up to now, be aware that this book deals only with the real deal. There are no short cuts here. The recipes part has chapters on:

The Family of Doughs including Napoletana, Roman, New York, Chicago, Sardinian, and Focaccia dough
Sauces, including tomato, pesto, and specialty sauces

Pizzas, including Mapoletana, neo-Neapolitan, Roman, Grilled, Sardinian, and Pita.

The classic American pizza represented primarily by New York City is a neo-Neapolitan pizza, but people in Chicagoland live and die by their deep dish pizzas. This is the source of Reinhardt's conclusion that one's perception of the best is affected greatly by what you grew up with.

If you don't like chatty books and you just want the recipes, this may not be the best book for you, but if you want the history, the general techniques, plus an excellent presentation of all the classic recipes, this is the book for you, especially at the very reasonable list price for a very well composed hardcover book.

Highly recommended.

As a person who can devour pizza five nights a week, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this Pizza Pie masterpiece. Peter Reinhart takes his reader around the globe with insights on pizza as well as marvelous recipes. He does the leg work, while you the reader, reap the benefits. As I turned each page, I wanted to try my hand at each delicious delight. Oh the cheese, the sauce, that crust! Mr. Reinhart gives his reader a new perspective on an old favorite. It's as if he is right there with you, in your kitchen, handing you the ingredients and reminding you why pizza is more than just a delicious comfort food. This book makes a great gift for any pizza lover or food connoisseur. The author's writing is captivating and the photos are irresistible. Enjoy!

I bought this book, having never seen it before, because of my appreciation for author Peter Reinhart's other excellent works, as well as a desire to make good pizza of my own. I have Bread Baker's Apprentice and Crust & Crumb, and because these books are specifically about bread, I assumed that American Pie would be all about the crust. This was a gross misconception on my part; this book is much more than a tome on pizza crust.

The book has two sections. The first is a fascinating account of all Reinhart went through to find what he regards as the perfect pizza. This includes details of a trip to Italy as well as places within the United States where he found excellent pizza on his pilgrimage. The second, larger section deals with the recipes (formulas) he has created, and this section is broken down further into three sections -- dough, toppings and sauces, and finally complete pizzas.

Do yourself a favor -- do not skip the first section and plow right into the recipes and formulas. While you may be more interested in getting down to business, you learn a tremendous amount about what the author regards as a great pizza, and more importantly, you learn just how serious the author was when he set out to find what he calls the perfect pizza. As is typical of his other works, Reinhart writes with unwavering passion, pouring everything he's got into the writing. Finally, many of the pizzas he mentions in the first section are recreated in recipe form in the second section, and it's really fasinating to recreate one of the pies in your own kitchen.

The dough section is a collection of approximately a dozen excellent formulas for crust. Each recipe sticks to Reinhart's trademark method -- slow rise, usually an overnight rising. I have not tried all of these, but those that I have tried have not disappointed. I'm getting rid of my old crust recipe.

The toppings and sauces section contains two recipes for nice sauces, neither of which I have attempted yet but will. Where it gets interesting is his "Specialty Toppings" section -- there are things there that I would never dream of putting on a pizza, such as pureed butternut squash, as well as tried and true items such as sauteed mushrooms and garlic oil. While some of these will not appeal to everyone, there is something interesting bound to tempt everyone.

Included is a brief breakdown of baking scenarios and how to deal with them -- home oven/no stone, convection oven and stone, etc. He covers all the bases.

Finally, the actual complete pizza forulas he gives reflect his quest to find a pizza that meets his unwavering standards. Many of the recipes are clearly a result of his trip to Italy, such as Pizza Vesuvio, and others are accounted in his domestic travels. Again, I have not tried them all (and with eggplant as an ingredient in some of these, it's doubtful I ever will), but those I have tried are so far and away better than what I made before.

All this said, an underlying thought I had was that the search for the "perfect pizza" was Reinhart's search. He was going for what *he* considers a perfect pizza, and that could very well be different than that of many of his readers. He seems to prefer a thinner, crisp crust that is mildly charred, with a good crunch and a finely tuned sauce and toppings combination. If you prefer a thick, chewy crust, you may feel like he is "off the mark" in his search. It is important to remember this when working your way through this book and finding your own "perfect pizza".

If you like pizza and want to make pizza of your own that is just flat-out outstanding, this book will serve you exceptionally well. Even if you don't find what you would consider "perfect pizza" here, you'll find something that's a great foundation.