recess' Brian McGinn recently talked with Dan Kish, director of dinner at Panera Bread, to talk about the Crispani, Panera's new pizza product, ready to serve just in time for October, which is National Pizza Month. Tastes Editor Bryan Zupon offers commentary after sampling the Crispani.
recess: How long have you been involved in the Crispani Project?
Dan Kish: The project has been underway for two years-I was involved six months after it started. But the idea has been around for five or six years; it surfaced two years ago, and I began managing a year and a half ago.
Bryan Zupon: When you consider that pizza has been around since about the third century B.C., Panera seems like a late-comer to the pizza world.
r: Now, the Crispani Project created a pizza that is in the shape of an oval. What was the idea there?
DK: We wanted to go back to the roots of pizza. Pizza was traditionally a way to use up summer vegetables, meat scraps and dough scraps-for hundreds of years it was never a big round thing anyway. They would just take whatever dough they had. It began as a snack, and so we took it back to the roots. Plus, the serving size we were looking for just couldn't be accomplished in a round shape.
BZ: It's always encouraging to hear that a new menu item backed by millions of dollars of research was inspired by a snack comprised of scraps of dough and meat of questionable origin.
r: One of the benefits of the ovular pizza is that there are no middle pieces without an edge of crust. Was this one of the reasons you made the pizza an oval, or was that incidental?
DK: That was incidental.
r: What was the process like finding the right dough?
DK: Well, we have a pretty complex network of dough-mixing facilities, fresh dough facilities and a network of daily delivery so we can mix dough fresh. It goes through a cold fermentation period that develops flavor and structure, then gets delivered to bakeries every day.
r: No, I mean the actual process of creating the dough. Did you guys do any research in Italy?
DK: Yes, research was done in Italy, looking for a dough-something thin and crisp with a slight amount of chew. There are some nutty characteristics from the wheat flour we use, and we use a sourdough starter so it has a little bit of pungency versus an instant yeast dough. The depth of flavor comes from the starter and fermentation. But the process involved lots of trial and error. Dough is a finite science.
BZ: While a Neapolitan-style crisp crust may have been the dream, the reality is something closer to a floury water cracker. Throwing around baking buzz words like fermentation and sourdough starter does more to confuse most people than it does to bring up Panera's pizza cred.
r: What was the post-creation process like on the Crispani Project?
DK: We did a lot of testing to see if people identified with the product.
r: And do people identify with the Crispani?
DK: Absolutely.
r: What's next?
DK: Let's take one step back. This is the first product in a series of things we're doing for Panera so that folks who are tired of the options in casual dining can consider Panera as a viable option for dinner. The notion of Crispani is really just an introduction. We want to give families a chance to reclaim dinner.
Actually, let's take a few steps back. The Crispani isn't a bad product-the mushroom variety is actually downright tasty. But while the Crispani may be a chance for families to reclaim dinner, it sure isn't authentic pizza. Better than Domino's? Yes. A passport to Naples? Not quite. Maybe in a few years Panera will get it right. But for now, it's back to the drawing board.
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