Did You Know About Our Cheese?

            At Diana's, we only use 100% Canadian dairy cheeses on our pizzas, with the exception of the *by request only* Daiya shred, a non-dairy, non-GMO, vegan friendly cheese and the Buffalo Mozzarella which comes straight from Italy.  That sounds pretty straight forward, right? Doesn't every pizza ever made come with real dairy cheese? Nope, not in Canada, and it hasn't been that way for a while.  Let me explain.

            The other day I got a flyer in the mail from one of the pizza chains, advertising a new line of designer pizzas, with, of all things 100% REAL Canadian Mozzarella cheese.  Yes, it appears that they are now offering to put REAL dairy mozzarella on their pizzas, but not for the usual $5 a pizza price.  They are marketing this designer line of pizzas as ‘gourmet’ because they put REAL dairy mozzarella on them, so they’re more expensive.  Yeah, it's impossible to make a pizza with real-food ingredients for the low, low price they usually push their pizzas at. 

            This is no surprise to me, as a master pizza chef I've been educating people for years.  The facts are that pizza chains are not using real 100% dairy mozzarella.  Most use either soy or canola based cheeses.  Yeah, you read that right, cheese made from oil, not dairy.    The worst offenders use a cheese made from a petroleum based oil.  So the same stuff we put in our cars is what many non-food ingredient cheeses are made from.  But don't worry, this is a food grade version of petroleum, so you know, it's like the petroleum jelly they sell that you can use on skin.  Except I don't know anybody who uses that on their skin.  Mmmm, can I get extra petroleum jelly cheese on that pizza? Yeah?! I don't know about you, but I don't want to eat that.  Even if it looks like something I usually really like, like pizza.  Eating that kind of stuff gives me a really bad non-food ingredient hangover.  And I know I'm not the only one.

There is a lot of pressure in today's society to get 'the best deal' and 'the lowest price', for goods and services to the extreme that many feel that if they don't get the lowest price then it means they have been taken advantage of.  And who wants to feel that way? While there may be little or no difference between some goods and services I must be a beacon of reason when it comes to pizza.  Not all pizzas are created equal.

  At Diana's, we only use 100% Canadian dairy cheeses on our pizzas, with the exception of the *by request only* Daiya shred, a non-dairy, non-GMO, vegan friendly cheese and the Buffalo Mozzarella which comes straight from Italy.  That sounds pretty straight forward, right? Yeah, that's how we do.

Did You Know About Our Marinara?

At Diana's, we start our award winning marinara with premium, grade 'A' canned tomatoes. The best and most expensive in the industry, and I say that with pride! They are bright red in the can, naturally sweet and don't need any dyes, nor any added sugar.  Then we add our own blend of top quality herbs and spices and let it marinate before we use it on your pizzas.

Places that make pizzas to compete with the lowest price use grade 'C' or 'D' quality tomatoes which are orangey/brown in the can.  The acid level in these low quality tomatoes is so high, that it leaches tin flavour from the can into the tomatoes.  The more expensive of these low quality canned tomatoes have a vinyl liner inside the can to prevent the metal 'flavour' transfer.  MMMMmmm, yummeh.  People with hyper-sensitive palates like me can taste that.  I can't eat anything with low quality tomatoes, rather, I can't eat it without needing to chase it down with some kind of thick pink digestive aid. 

To mask the bitterness of the low quality tomatoes pizza chain places add copious amounts of sugar.  Sometimes it's actual sugar, mostly it's the equally inexpensive fructose syrup.  A lot of it.  The other ingredient they use in copious amounts is red dye.  Red dyes have been linked to increased aggression in children.  Google it.

If you're a parent and have ever noticed a behavioural change in your child 5-65 minutes after ingesting a $5 pizza, it could be the sauce.  If you've ever woken up in the middle of the night with intense heartburn after having a $5 pizza that day it could be the sauce.  Or it could be that a $5 pizza is made with more non-food ingredients than real-food ingredients and your body is telling you it doesn't like it. 

Consider that your body takes an average of 30-48 hours to digest a meal, when you have a pizza from Diana's, you feel great, when you have pizza made with non-food ingredients, you need digestive aids to help you cope.

At Diana's, we start our award winning marinara with premium, grade 'A' canned tomatoes. The best and most expensive in the industry, and I say that with pride! They are bright red in the can, naturally sweet and don't need any dyes, nor any added sugar.  Then we add our own blend of top quality herbs and spices and let it marinate before we use it on your pizza.

Do You Know About Our Dough?

        We make our pizza dough fresh in the Cucina every day using 7 simple ingredients and we only use Olive oil - YES it's more 4 times more expensive than the mainstream canola or soy oil but it gives our pizza crust that authentic Italian bread flavour.  And we only use Sea salt in our dough, because it's what the Olive oil deserves.  Did you know that each dough ball is hand rolled? Yup, you don't let a machine work over this nice of a pizza dough! And after each dough ball is hand rolled, we let it cold ferment (aka proof/rise) and develop it's flavours for a minimum of 30 hours before it's ready to be your pizza crust or flatbread.  

            Back in 2008 when I took my certified Italian Pizza School course, my Italian instructors talked at great lengths about the importance of using Olive oil over other forms of oil or fat, (*did you know some places use lard???It’s true, I don't want to scare you, but some places even use imitation lard which is really, really bad for your health!) and they also spoke at length about the importance of a high quality Sea salt.  They spoke about the importance of choosing a high quality flour, and allowing the dough to develop it’s flavours at a slowed pace. .

           All of this, they said, is of great importance to how your body digests the pizza, and if you skip these high quality ingredients, or one of the steps to allow the flavours to develop in your dough, your body knows it and will have a difficult time digesting the food.  Knowing that your body takes an average of 30-48 hours to digest a meal, it’s not something we want you and your body feeling bad or unsettled about later in the night or the next day.  Rather, we’d like you and your body to just enjoy all the goodness of all the ingredients that actually nourish your body and soul, not just fill an empty tummy:).   At Diana's, we know that we cater to those with discerning tastes, those who can appreciate an authentic pizza made with a great artisan pizza dough.  Next post I'll discuss ingredients we use at Diana's vs 'ingredients' mainstream places use.