News

Mr. Ed goes to Washington

Gourmet pizza creator, Ed LaDou, has been chosen to represent American pizza at the 2005 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

May 16, 2005

When the Smithsonian Institute's 37th Folklife Festival commences in Washington, D.C., this summer, pizza will share the stage with multiple American cuisines credited as driving forces behind the country's 40-year-old food revolution.

Yes, you read that correctly: Americancuisines.

As most

Ed LaDou, owner, Caioti Pizza Cafe.

understand it, pizza is a product of Italy. But it has become a different animal (Dare we say an American animal?) in the hands of U.S. pizza makers — the stuff of culinary inspiration, according to Joan Nathan, food writer, historian and a guest curator of the Smithsonian's Food Culture USA program. As Nation compiled research for her upcoming book, "The New American Cooking," she learned how drastically pizza has evolved since arriving on these shores a century ago.

"It's a peasant food in so many countries, but it's on a whole different level here," said Nation.

Nathan's search for definably American pizza — and the artisans who make it — led her to Ed LaDou, arguably the creator of gourmet pizza. After extensive interviews with LaDou, chef-owner of Caioti Pizza Café in Studio City, Calif., Nation nominated him to be one of about 30 chefs featured at Folklife. The suggestion, she said, met no resistance.

This year's event, which will take place on the National Mall, is scheduled to run in two 5-day segments: the last week of June and the first week of July. LaDou will lecture twice daily for five days on pizza making, plus demonstrate several of his own unique creations, including the legendary barbecue chicken pizza he created as a consultant for California Pizza Kitchen in 1985.

LaDou said legitimizing American pizza has been a personal quest of his since the late 1970s.

"I think it's great that (pizza) has finally poked its head out from the fast-food realm of fried chicken and hamburgers, and become part of a broader American cuisine like gumbo, clam chowder, blackened red fish ... ," said LaDou. "People are kind of starting to wake up now and puff out their chests a little and say, 'Yeah, this is American. Yeah, we're proud of our pizza!' Maybe it was just Italian once, but it's kind of American now."

Innovation station

What piqued Nathan's interest in LaDou's work was his penchant for originality and experimentation. While working as Spago's first pizza cook in 1980, LaDou made sure he was the first cook in the kitchen every day to cherry-pick the broad array of fresh ingredients procured each morning by chef-owner Wolfgang Puck. When he left Spago two years later, he had developed more than 200 pizza recipes.

"When I was writing this book, I was really interested in innovators who've changed American food, and at least two people told me to interview Ed," Nathan said. "What he has done all along is simply take American ingredients and put them on pizza."

Her choice to have LaDou participate in Folklife, however, was equally influenced by his personality and what she called his unheralded accomplishments in the restaurant industry. Of the many chefs she interviewed while compiling research for her book, she was most intrigued by those who cook out of love for the craft, like LaDou.

"We invited Ed because his is an untold story that's kind of important," she said. "He's an unsung hero of American food, and I want him sung."

LaDou said it's flattering to be grouped with such renowned chefs as Alice Waters (Chez Panisse), Paul Prudhomme (K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen) and Emeril Lagasse (Emeril's Restaurants and the "Emeril Live" TV show). Still, he's not sure his peers regard pizza as highly as other culinary genre.

"Realistically, I don't think most chefs embrace pizza as they would, say, pastry as a valid arena for culinary craft, but maybe this will help change things and make it more widely accepted," he said. He expects the chefs' busy demonstration schedules will limit their opportunities to cross paths, but he

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hopes others will come and enjoy his works. "These are all food people, so I do expect them to be in the kitchen eating my pizzas after my demonstrations."

The tentative list of LaDou's lip-smacking offerings include his barbecue chicken pizza and two other pies: the sunchoke pizza; and the gribenes and schmaltz pie.

Sunchoke, he said, is a nutty, potato-like vegetable and native to America. At Caioti, he slices it and uses it as a topping alongside apple-wood smoked bacon, fresh dill, fresh mozzarella and roasted peppers.

The gribenes (chicken skin fried crisp and brown) and schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) is an untested original he's developing just for Folklife. Built on a pumpernickel crust, LaDou said he intends to reflect Jewish influences on American food "and how those ingredients can be interpreted on top of pizza. This is taking some work, but I think they're going to like it."