Thinking back over your life, there’s probably been times that pizza, in one context or another, played an important role during or throughout certain rites of passage. As a kid, maybe the first time you took part in helping to make dinner was to spread the cheese or toppings on a homemade pizza; or enjoyed the fun of crafting mini-pizzas with biscuit dough, Ragu sauce, and a bag of shredded cheese. (Who hasn’t put their kids to work doing that one?)

It could have been just the regular familiarity of Pizza Night for dinner – tired after a long week at work, Friday nights were made easier for mom and dad by calling up for delivery. (In my house, Saturday afternoon was our pizza day – dad brought it home from his half-day at work every weekend, along with the Sunday paper. Those were the days!)

Those are memories that are entwined in our childhood memories – of families spending time together, arguing over which delivery place made the best pizzas, do we get half-cheese/half-pepperoni? Anyone have any coupons? And who’s going to get the last piece (I’ll wrestle you for it!).

A few years later, maybe with your first taste of teenage freedom – your after-the-game high school hangout was at a local pizza parlor. You may not have even liked the pizzas they made – but if it was where ‘the gang’ could be found, you’d usually be there, too. That might be where you forged lifelong friendships with schoolmates, or got up the nerve to ask a girl for your first date. Maybe you even fell in love over a pizza and a couple of cokes. And maybe your wedding rehearsal dinner included a local Italian restaurant and a lot of hot ‘pies.’

For most of us, the word “pizza” conjures up not just an immediate craving – but also some great memories. It’s been a staple in the Average American Life for over 100 years (first coming to America in the late 1800′s, by the way) – and depending on where you first tasted it or where you live, you might have even had some loud discussions about where the best pizza can be found. New York? Chicago? Boston?  It’s all a matter of taste, of course. And the innumerable ways it can be prepared – with variations of crust, shape, sauces, cheeses, toppings, stuffings, dips, served hot, eaten cold, and whatever other new ideas pizza masters can concoct – is one of the reasons the pizza is so universally loved.

Because that’s the truth, isn’t it?  Pizzas aren’t just admired – they’re Loved. It’s a relationship that most of us formed early and developed through our lives – becoming one of the constants, something you can always depend on. So our advice is – when you find a pizza that hits the spot – remember that place. Tell your friends. So that that pizza will live on . . . to make others as deliciously happy as you.

(Is it time to order a pizza yet?)

In all honesty, if you’ve ever stayed for the show and watched the hand tossing of your pizza crust, you’d have to admit that it is enjoyable to see. Pizza tossing goes beyond that though. It transcends the mere pleasure of watching the chef toss the dough up in the air with bated breath as you watch and wait for that moment when he either catches it or misses it. Hopefully, he doesn’t just scoop it off the floor and start all over when he does miss it!

Seriously though, hand tossed pizza dough has several merits that have given rise to the continuance of this time-honored tradition. Each of the following results of hand tossing a pizza can account for its ongoing popularity in authentic pizzerias:
• Hand tossing is gentler on the dough than rolling it out.

• The pizza dough doesn’t lose its moisture content as quickly with hand tossing versus rolling or pressing the dough out. This means that dough that is hand tossed leads to a softer-on-the-inside and crispy-on-the-outside pizza crust.

• The whirling of the dough through the air actually helps to turn the dough into the round shape that is needed to make the pizza.

• Hand tossed pizza dough offers an uneven crust with some spots slightly thicker or thinner than other places on the pizza crust. This is one of the reasons that true pizza lovers enjoy authentic hand tossed pizza – each delicious mouthful of pizza dough is somewhat different than the one before it.

• Hand tossing is easy to accomplish. The flow of air rushing past the dough doesn’t dry it out much – just enough to make it less sticky so that it is easy to toss without sticking to the pizza chef’s hands.

• The outermost edges of the pizza crust on a hand-tossed pie are lighter than those created by rolled or pressed pizza dough.

• Customers enjoy watching pizza dough being tossed and caught in the air – a great reason to return to a pizzeria where customers can watch pizza tossing in action.

• Hand tossed pizza simply tastes great!