The dough should hold together.
A Staten Island pizzeria owner spent months testing dough recipes, making more than 500 pies, to find one his customers couldn’t tell from the original — all before a New York state ban on a cancer-linked flour additive used in pizza and bread is now awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature.
John Caggiano, 54, who has run Il Forno restaurant in Pleasant Plains with his wife, Gwen, 50, for more than two decades, pulled potassium bromate from his kitchen after reading about its health risks — the chemical that makes dough more fluffy and chewy is linked to cancer in animals and is already banned in 40 countries including the European Union and Canada.
“I read all the information, and I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to be involved in providing pizza dough that’s bad for my customers,'” Caggiano told The Washington Post. “If it’s bad for them, I’ll change it.
“They are family. And you don’t feed your family anything that will harm them.”
Although the new flour costs twice as much, he refuses to pass the cost on to customers.
“This is not how I treat my loyal customers,” Caggiano said.
While some pizza makers may be sweating over a potential ban that Hochul may or may not sign, Caggiano has rolled up his sleeves, dusted off his apron and set to work on creating a new dough free of additives linked to kidney damage, thyroid problems and some cancers in lab animals. According to the National Institutes of Health.
During his downtime at the cozy four-table pizzeria, Caggiano became a pizza scientist on his own. He devoured trade magazines, binge-watched baking videos, and spent countless hours trying to decipher the code to bromate-free dough that wouldn’t leave customers feeling down.
The local pizza artisan — famous throughout Staten Island for his upside-down pie — tweaked recipes, firing pie after pie into the oven, and enlisting a trusted tasting panel of family and friends.
After hundreds of testing pies, he finally strikes gold with a hard-earned recipe that he keeps for himself.
“I actually like it better,” Caggiano said. “I told my wife that whether this law goes into effect or not, I’m in favor of it. I don’t want to penalize anyone else for not doing it, but it’s right for us.”
Customers who visit Il Forno already fall in love with Caggiano’s pizza-making skills, which he’s been honing since he was 15 years old.
“This pizza is so good!” One happy customer praised it in a review.
Another said: “What a gem this place is.” “I live in Jersey now, but I keep coming back.”
Now, his loyal fans assure him they can’t taste the difference.
“Once I tried it on them, they loved it,” Caggiano said. “It was airy, it was light.”
Before crossing the Verrazano River and planting roots in Staten Island, Caggiano owned a pizzeria in Brooklyn. But when the previous owner’s son decided not to take over the family business, he saw an opportunity and made the move.
And he never looked back.
“It was one of the best decisions I made,” he added.