Fandom High School

"The island decided to mess with me," Raiden grumbled. "I had a place all picked out for us in Santa Monica, did quality control and everything," by which he meant he ate a ton of pizza, "but now we're back in Maryland, so I guess we'll have to go to Tokyo instead." Because that progression made sense.

"The pizza scene in Asia in general is really interesting. It's sort of a developing scene, with people trying out new forms and flavor combinations, and it leads to some really exciting ideas. And some kind of weird ones--every now and then a pizza from somewhere like Domino's Japan will go viral among Westerners. So today we're going to go to what's considered one of the best pizzerias in Tokyo, Pizzeria da Peppe Napolistaca Kamiyacho, to try it out for ourselves! Let's go!"

Once Raiden's students had gathered at Portalocity this week, he ushered them through said portal onto the streets of Berkeley, California. "All right," he said with an enthusiastic clap. "As pizza continued its journey across the United States, it inevitably reached the west coast, and California-style pizza was born. No one can really agree on the origins of California-style pizza, as it was more or less simultaneously invented by three different restaurants: Ed LeDou's Prego in San Francisco, Wolfgang Puck's Spago in Beverly Hills, and Alice Waters' groundbreaking farm-to-table Chez Panisse--" Raiden held out his hands in a 'ta-da' sort of gesture toward the restaurant they were standing in front of "--right here in the funky college town of Berkeley. Prego doesn't exist any more and Spago only does dinner--and doesn't currently serve pizza. Chez Panisse doesn't serve pizza in the main restaurant, either, but they do have a few on their cafe menu, so that's where we'll be dining today.

"Now, California-style pizza is distinguished by its thin, crispy crust and creative use of ingredients you didn't used to find on pizzas, like goat cheese and chicken. It really helped people to realize the sky is the limit, toppings-wise, and that's why we salute it. You can find California-style pizza all over the country these days, most notably at the chain California Pizza Kitchen, but for now, let's head into the Chez Panisse cafe and have some lunch--uh, don't...don't look at the prices. I'm covering this. And after that you can explore the town of Berkeley!"

"Today," Raiden told his students, "we're following pizza in its journey to the United States, which is where it really took off. You see, Italian immigrants brought their food with them to the US, but like many immigrant groups they not only had to adapt to the ingredients available here, they had access to a wider range of ingredients, so they could do all sorts of new and interesting things. So don't listen to anyone who ever starts snitting at you about 'authentic' food, because it's a scam. But I'm wandering off the point.

"One of the things these Italian immigrants brought with them was, you guessed it, pizza, and in New York is where it really started to take off. I'm not about to start an argument about which is the best kind of pizza--they're all winners to me--but New Yorkers get really heated about it. They favor a thin-crust pizza sold in large slices people like to fold. It's a thing. Today we're going to Harlem to try out Patsy's, opened in 1933 by Pasquale Lanceri and recently featured in a hit movie. A bunch of these old New York pizzerias have their own individual claims to fame, and Patsy's is that they claim to have been the first to sell pizza by the slice. The first in New York, maybe, but remember, that's how pizza was originally sold in those open-air stands in Naples. Ah, but that doesn't matter. C'mon, let's go try some pizza and explore Spanish Harlem.

The students would have received a message today asking them to meet at Pizza Planet in town, where they would find everything set up for them to assemble their own pizzas, with a moddable variety of toppings and even some different sauces like pesto or a white sauce.

"I thought for our last class, we could cook the pizzas in a proper pizza oven," Raiden said. "And then, of course, you can eat them! Like a pizza party! Try out whatever you want, go wild, have fun! Pizza is an endlessly customizable art form, after all."

When the students arrived for class today, they would find ingredients at their station: dough, sauce, mozzarella, and an assortment of your usual moddable pizza toppings. They would also find a very excited Raiden. "It's time to put it all together and make pizza!" he exclaimed. "At the restaurant, we have special ovens that get very hot and hold the heat very well. I've gotta get Castor to get one for our house back home, because all we have there--and what I'm guessing most of you have access to--is a regular household oven. But there are some tricks we can use to make it more like a pizza oven.

"If you look inside your ovens=-careful, they've been preheating for an hour--you'll see a baking steel, which is a heavy slab of, y'know, steel. All that mass is going to retain heat better and help the pizza cook more evenly. You can also use a baking stone, or special bricks, or a combination of those. The long preheat is key, too. It lets all that mass heat up evenly so it's ready for you when you need it. You'll also notice that the racks are placed close to the top of the oven, but not at the very top like they would be to use the broiler. On to the pizza!

"The first step is going to be shaping the dough. You don't have to toss it into the air and spin it, although that does look cool. Just follow along with me as I show you how to do it and you'll be fine." Once Raiden had walked them through that, he said, "And after that you can put the dough on the pizza peel and build your pizza there! You'll want to add sauce and cheese and whatever toppings you like. I'm particularly partial to sausage, myself, but there are no wrong choices here! Follow your heart. Then you're going to carefully slide the pizza off the peel onto your baking steel, and bake until it's golden brown and bubbly around the edges and all that cheese is melted and delicious.

"Are there any questions? Does anybody need any help with their pizzas? Please let me know!"

Raiden thumped a cheese-making kit identical to the ones the students would find at their workstations down in front of him and declared, "Let's make cheese.

"Making cheese is easier than you probably think, at least in its most basic form. To get different kinds of cheese you need different environments, and just the right kind of bacteria, and...honestly, a lot more time than most of us have. But you can knock out a mozzarella pretty quickly, and great news! That's just what we need for our pizzas! The only thing is, you're going to want to buy whole, pasteurized milk but not ultrapasteurized milk, because ultrapasteurization denatures some of the proteins we need to activate for our cheese." What? Raiden could use big words, if they were food words. "You can also, of course, use raw milk if you can get it, and some say it makes a better cheese--personally I say all cheese is good cheese--but I don't want any of you to die or have a very bad time of food poisoning, so I'm going to say use raw milk at your own risk. Let's get started."

After everyone had opened up their cheese-making kits and verified that they had everything they needed, Raiden proceeded to walk them through how to make mozzarella cheese step by step. When they were done, and hopefully had their beautiful mozzarella children in front of them, he said, "We're not quite ready to assemble our pizzas yet, so I thought we could eat our fresh cheese on a nice caprese salad. Obviously it'll be better in a few weeks when the fresh garden tomatoes are in, but it'll be good now, too! Here's how you assemble one..." And then, once he'd walked them through that, he said with a laugh, "And you probably don't need me to tell you how to eat one!" But if anyone did he'd be happy to help them figure it out. "Enjoy!"