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The dough must go on.
A Staten Island pizzeria owner spent months testing dough recipes, firing up more than 500 pies, to find one his customers couldn’t distinguish from the original — all to get ahead of a New York State ban on a cancer-linked flour additive used in pizza and bagels now awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature.
John Caggiano, 54, who’s run Il Forno 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 — as the chemical that makes dough crisper and chewier is linked to cancer in animals and 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 caught up serving pizza dough that’s bad for my customers,” Caggiano told The Post. “If it’s bad for them, I’m changing it.
“They’re family. And you don’t feed your family something that’s going to harm them.”
And despite the new flour costing twice as much, he’s refusing to pass the expense onto customers.
“That’s not the way I do business with my loyal customers,” said Caggiano.
While some pizza makers may be sweating over the possible ban that Hochul may or may not sign, Caggiano rolled up his sleeves, dusted off his apron and got to work making a new dough free of the additive linked to kidney damage, thyroid problems and certain cancers in laboratory animals, according the National Institutes of Health.
During downtime in his cozy four-table pizzeria, Caggiano became a one-man pizza scientist. He devoured trade magazines, binge-watched baking videos and spent countless hours trying to crack the code on bromate-free dough that wouldn’t leave customers feeling crust-fallen.
The local pizza craftsman — famous around Staten island for his upside-down pie — tinkered with recipes, firing pie after pie into into the oven and recruiting a trusted tasting panel of family and friends.
After hundreds of test pies, he finally struck gold with a hard-won recipe he’s keeping to himself.
“I actually like it better,” Caggiano said. “I told my wife that whether this law comes into effect or not, I prefer it. I don’t want to knock anybody else for not doing it, but it’s a good fit for us.”
Customers who visit Il Forno are already in love with Caggiano’s pizza making skills, which he’s been honing since he was 15 years old.
“That pizza is so damn good!” one happy customer raved in a review.
“What a gem this place is,” said another. “I live in Jersey now, but I still go back.”
And now, his devoted fans assure him that they can’t taste the difference.
“Once I tried it out on them, they loved it,” Caggiano said. ‘It was airy, it was light.”
Before crossing the Verazzanno and planting roots on 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’s never looked back.
“It was one of the best decisions I’ve made,” he added.
English (US)