Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 101

B29 it fe i I mnnr niETXCmTOlVrv cJSaoSLShSti' 1 and Angalo Glangranda dig Into a grandma pie at Umberto's In New Hyde Park I i CO ft By Erica Marcus STATE WHITES rn merican pizza falls into two JjVl basic categories: thin and If 11 round thick and square But IpSLX in many Long Island pizzerias regular and Sicilian pies are joined by a third: Grandma A starting player in the local pizza lineup for the past decade grandma pie is virtually unknown west of Queens never heard of said Jeremy White executive editor of Pizza Monthly the leading pizza industry magazine Pizza Monthly it should be noted is headquartered in Louisville Ky But even closer to home grandma pie flies well below the radar Michele Scicolo-ne Manhattan resident Italian food expert and co-author of Any Way You Slice (Broadway Books) heard of it either is grandma she asked Variations abound but the basic outlines are as follows: a thin layer of 4ough is stretched into an oiled square pan temped sparingly with shredded mozzarella crushed uncooked canned tomatoes chopped garlic and olive oil and baked until the top bubbles and the bottom is crisp Sdcolone observed that grandma pie sounded a lot like alia (housewife-style pizza) kind of pizzas get in Italy if you were invited to And indeed among the men who left Southern Italy to find their fortunes making pizza on Long Island many cherished childhood memories of a pizza made at home by mama or grandma This pizza was modest thin-crusted strewn sparingly with chopped to-lpatoes from the garden and just a little cheese (because it was expensive) then baked in a pan (mama had no pizza oven) For such a recent culinary phenomenon grandma origin is curiously cloudy Interviews with many area pizza makers yielded only a vague sense that it started popping up during the A break came from Emilio Branchanelli owner of in Com-mack and Pasta-eria in Hicksville Local pizzerias popularize a simple home-style pie Now word of this Island specialty is spreading 1 1- i i i i 9 it i li irl il 1 li yt i Li i 1 5 started at in New Hyde he said guy who worked for Umberto made After a few phone calls Branchanelli came up with a name: Angelo Gian-grande now of Cugini Due in Albertson With the help of Giangrande and the principals at Umbertos and King in Elmont we pieced together at least one version of the history of this Long Island specialty: In the early 1970s a home-style pan pizza surfaced at of New Hyde Park Founded in 1965 by Umberto Corteo who came from Monte di Pro-cida near Naples now is a vast operation encompassing a pizzeria restaurant and catering hall But when Carlo Corteo arrived in 1970 to work with his older brother it was -a simple 60-seat pizza parlor Carlo said used to make the pizza for ourselves Umberto would say to me Make me that pizza that Mama used to Umberto served the pizza to friends who urged him to put it on the menu but he resisted the old Carlo said weren't so many pizza places and there were lines out the door at night Umberto said are we going to put another pizza on the menu? It will slow us Here the story moves about two miles south to Elmont The Corteos had opened a satellite pizzeria King that was the domain of another Corteo brother Joe In 1976 after Joe moved to Florida the restaurant was sold to two employees brothers Rosario and Sal Fuschet-to During the they in turn hired two other pizza makers first CiroCe-sarano then Angelo Giangrande who got their start at still selling grand- ma pie to Rosario said "but Ciro and Angelo saw its So when they arrived in Elmont they put the still-nameless pizza on the menu Some time between 1986 and 1989 a conversation occurred at King that would change the course of this very narrow slice of pizza history Cesarano and Giangrande were chatting with a customer Anthony Nocella about what to call the pie Cesarano recalled that the word came up Tippy said really more grandma You want to call it Another milestone in the spread of grandma pie: In 1989 Nocella (who died in 1999) accompanied Giangrande and Sal Fuschetto to a pizza-making contest in Farmingdale sponsored by Delicate Foods a wholesaler Giangrande recalled that over objections (like Umberto he was a bit of a traditionalist) he took the grandma pie It was a hit the pizza guys loved it everybody ate Giangrande said pizza was gone before the competition even By this time other pizzerias including had put grandma pizza on the menu But it really took off about 10 years ago a chronology that dovetails with the evolution of grandma pie sales at King From the beginning pizzas destined to be sold by the slice sat on high counters above the eye level of many customers but in 1994 King undertook a renovation: the installation of al glass-enclosed showcase much like a display that displaced the posted menu as the focal point of cus- deliberations we put in the said -King co-owner Rosario Fuschetto saw the grandma pie and asked that thin one? Let me have one of (Fuschetto regrets never having trademarked the name but was determined not to make the same mistake twice One of the most popular items at lus restaurant are fritter-like morsels fried to a golden brown and filled improbably with a creamy amalgam of capellini and white sauce In 1995 Fuschetto se-' cured a trademark for capellini which now appear on the menu bearing a government-certified See PIZZA on B27 UMBERTO CORTEO OF Corteo pinches a narrow rim around the dough's edge then sprinkles on whole-milk mozzarella His tomato topping is made from crushed canned tomatoes and chopped esh plum tomatoes CffiO CESARANO OF KING Cesarano's pie is the thinnest of the three and the most sparsely topped He uses whole-milk and part-skim mozzarella and a combination of crushed canned tomatoes with canned unpeeled cherry tomatoes i i ANGELO GIANGRANDE OF CUGINI DUE pie is thicker than Cesarano's but thinner than Corteo's He uses whole-milk and part-skim mozzarella and his tomato topping is made from crushed canned tomatoes that have beftn drained to eliminate excess moisture i i i I i il i-rT!.