All Pizzas Are Not Created Equal Part IV

Today I'll talk about the various levels of quality of meats that you find out there.
Pepperoni: This is by far the #1 topping of choice in North America and there are various grades of quality out there. At Diana’s, we use a premium dry cured pepperoni, comprising of a mixture of 50% beef and 50% pork, our cost is over $4.50/pound. There are pepperonis out there that are less than $0.50/pound, and I don’t want to gross you out, but suffice to say we all know what cheap hot dogs are made of, it’s not much different. I wouldn’t feed these pepperonis to my cats, much less my dogs whom I’ve even seen eat some pretty gross stuff.

Chicken: There’s 100% white meat, and there's dark meat, then there’s mixtures of each. Then there is ‘whole muscle chicken’ which is exactly what it sounds like: whole muscle as opposed to chicken meat that has been ground up and reformed to look like pieces of whole muscle chicken. At Diana’s, we only use the top quality 100%, whole muscle chicken breast, which has gone through an extensive scanning process to ensure all the bones have been removed and we hand slice it before it’s ready to go on your pizza.

Beef: Here’s a scary fact for you. Years ago, we were shocked to find that the leading ‘beef topping’ used at many pizza places does not contain any beef. Way, way down on the ingredients list, past the yellow dye #68, past the fillers and by-products, you’ll find ‘beef  flavouring’. At Diana’s, we start with 100% lean ground beef, then we cook it and drain the fat off, then it’s ready to use. From there we add a special blend of taco spices to create our ‘Taco Beef’ and that becomes the base for our ‘Hot & Spicy Beef’ which we add Frank’s Hot Sauce and let it marinate for at least 24 hours before it’s ready to use. All of our beef is 100% real beef, there are no ‘beef toppings’ or ‘beef flavouring’ allowed at Diana’s.

In the summer season we source as many fresh vegetables as possible from a local farmer including, green peppers, red onions, Roma tomatoes, zuchinni, spinach and Basil.

A few months ago we purchased an Aerogarden hydroponic garden and we set that up in the dining room to grow fresh Basil for our Marguerita pizzas. It grows Basil very well, which is great because the shelf life of fresh Basil is very limited, usually only lasts 3-4 days after it’s been cut.

Perhaps one of the things that make us most unique is that we’re always adding and looking for top quality unique toppings to expand the palette and create interesting yet tasty pizzas for you, our customer. Even though neither Pierre nor I compete in baking competitions anymore—it’s a huge honour to be on the judges’ side:), we are always open to your suggestions and on the lookout for something spectacular to share with you.

All Pizzas Are Not Created Equal

There are a few ways to make a pizza, but unfortunately many places create their pizzas to fit a low price model ie; $5. When a place is tied to a low price model, they then need to source ingredients that can sustain that price model.


Typically for the industry, food cost is 30% of the pizza, so for a $5 pizza that’s $1.50 to create that ‘zza, including the box. We talk a lot about ingredients when we do our pizza making class and everyone agrees that despite all the marketing they’ve seen, you really can’t make a top quality, gourmet pizza for $1.50, even at home when your labour is free.


What Makes Diana’s Pizza so Different?
This is a great question. For the simplest answer we can begin by comparing our pizza to almost every other pizza out there. Our pizza is better because we start with only top quality ingredients, and while many places repeat the quality mantra, we begin creating our superior, gourmet pizza from the crust up. Our crusts are only made with olive oil while other places use canola or vegetable oil and even lard. Olive oil is healthier and when you use it in pizza dough it gives the crust a great bread flavour. We also only use an organic sea salt in our dough and in our sauce while other places use table salt. Sea salt is a more natural salt, while table salt is sodium chloride, something many doctors and nurses tell us to cut down on. The organic sea salt we use is 90 times more expensive than cheap table salt, but we feel you’re worth it. But the best way to answer this question is to study the ingredients that are used to make a pizza.


Diana’s Definition of Gourmet Pizza:
Healthy food made with the best ingredients; low fat 100% dairy cheeses, lean meats, fresh veggies, sauce made from ripe red tomatoes grown in the sun belt, whole wheat crusts, white crusts made with premium unbleached flour. Most are made with enriched flour & canola oil. Some are made of lard. We could buy an 18 gallon jug of canola for the same price we pay for a 3 litre jug of Olive oil, but I recommend Olive oil because it’s more beneficial than canola or vegetable oils and it adds that great bread flavour.


Guaranteed Quality Spices vs. cheap spices:
Many spices are grown in 3rd world countries where access to clean water and education about proper food handling are serious issues. Villagers typically get paid by the pound so sticks, stones and other foreign matter that I don’t want to completely gross you out, but the truth it’s not just a big difference in prices on guaranteed quality spices versus cheap ones. There’s also a big difference in the amount of spice per gram. Choose a brand / company that work with villagers to insure maximum quality & pureness. When you use the best quality spices, recipes requires less quantity to create great and satisfying flavours. Plus you can be certain that your recipes will always turn out as intended, every time. We only purchase the best quality of spices at Diana’s Gourmet Pizzeria, yet the cost is only 1% of the total cost of the recipes. Most of the flavour is provided by the least expensive price per serving. When you buy the best spices, less is truly more.

More on this next post....