In the state of New York a law was passed that could force many bakeries and pizzerias to change an important part of their dough. It concerns potassium bromate, a substance used in some commercial flours to make the dough more elastic, more stable and easier to work. The measure, which must now be examined by Governor Kathy Hochul, would prohibit the sale of foods containing potassium bromate, propylparaben and Red Dye No. 3. Among these, bromato is what has created more discussions, because it has been present for decades in many flours used to make bagels, bread and pizza.
Potassium bromate does not change the taste clearly, but it helps a lot of those who have to produce large amounts of dough every day. Strengthens the glutinic mesh, makes the dough more durable and reduces the differences between one lot and the other. For a very popular bakery or pizzeria, this constancy counts almost as much as the recipe. It is one of the reasons why the bromata flour has spread in many commercial activities of the state: it allows to obtain higher and gummy bagels, and pizzas with a crust light enough not to be hard, but strong enough to hold sauce and cheese and be folded in two.
For years, however, potassium bromate is considered problematic. Since the 1980s some studies have connected it to thyroid cancer and kidneys in rats, and for this reason it has been banned or removed from food production in many countries, including Canada, China, India and the European Union. From next January it will also be banned in California, where the ban was included in the law nicknamed “Skittles ban” – by the name of the famous colorful candies. In the United States its use has remained possible longer, even because the defender claims that, if used correctly, the bromate is consumed during cooking and does not remain in the final product in significant quantities.
The issue has become particularly delicate because bromato is not a recent or marginal addition. It has spread since the 1940s along with other scaffold improvers, designed to make furnace work more predictable. This creates a paradox: a part of what many today defend as a traditional product also depends on an industrial ingredient that has been in the recipes for decades. Frank Scavio, a native of Brooklyn and a co-owner of five pizzerias Paesan’s in the area of Albany, interviewed by the New York Times, asked that the law provides an exception for the bromata flour. According to him, before changing a product for which New York is famous you should be sure that there is a strong enough reason.
For many activities the main problem will be practical. Changing flour means retrying tests, changing leavening times, doses and techniques, and in some cases taking more experienced staff. Utopia Bagels, opened in Queens in 1981, has used for 45 years the same flour for its hand-made bagels and baked in an old Cutler oven of 1947, one of the last specific ovens for bagels remaining in the city. Jesse Spellman, who today carries out the family business, said he was ready to give up the bromata flour, but also to have to work a lot to get the same result. The fear is that costs increase and that the $2 bagel becomes a three or four dollar product.
Others have already begun to change. Tori Tiso, raised by Louie and Ernie’s Pizza in the Bronx and now owned by Tori T’s Pizzeria in Long Island, has been using non-brown flour for several months. It has modified the recipe by adding olive oil to improve browning and replacing fresh yeast with dry yeast to recover elasticity. It says that traditional New York pizza is built for speed: it must work at lunch, at school and dinner, without too many margins of error. But according to you the industry can learn to get the same result with simpler ingredients and more technical knowledge. For many bakers and pizza makers, the law would not only change a voice in the list of ingredients: it would change the way you get, every day, to a consistency that customers give for granted.
L’articolo New York may have to reinvent pizza and bagel proviene da IlNewyorkese.
