Pizza

Season 4Episode 460 minMar 5, 2019
Pizza

Gregg Wallace is in Italy, at an enormous pizza factory where they produce 400,000 frozen pizzas each day. He mixes up a 450 kilo batch of dough for the bases; enough for 180 000 pizzas. He watches as each one is stretched to exactly 26 centimetres in diameter, then pricked with 522 holes, each 4mm deep, before they're topped with tomato and disappear into the wood fired oven. It's 25 metres long and the floor is made of rotating panels of volcanic rock heated to 450 degrees Celsius. Gregg's pizzas emerge fully cooked after just 80 seconds. They're topped with cheese, pepperoni, chillies and onions, then frozen and dispatched on their 1000 mile journey to the freezer compartments of British supermarkets.

Meanwhile Cherry Healey is asking if mozzarella – the traditional choice for pizzas - is also the scientific best bet. She finds that not all cheeses are equal, and that to melt well they must sit in a pH zone between 5 and 5.9. This explains why blue cheese and feta don't work on pizza but mozzarella and gruyere do. In Austria, she transforms 400 kilos of pork into pepperoni. She learns that this preserved sausage is fermented and salted to give it a long shelf life. A production process that takes more than 2 weeks.

Historian Ruth Goodman is investigating the technology that allows frozen foods like pizza to be transported across the globe. 150 years ago we were all 'locavores', eating locally sourced food. But in the 1880s the game-changing invention of freezer ships meant that lamb and beef could be shipped from New Zealand and Australia. Combined with the 1938 arrival of the freezer truck, this created the worldwide cold chain that we rely on today. She also meets the man who popularised pizza in the UK back in 1965 when he opened his first restaurant in London's Soho.

Pizza has aired on Mar 5, 2019 at 8:00 PM
Previous EpisodeNext Episode

Trailer

We do not have any trailers for this episode

Recently Updated Shows

Recently updated shows that might be of your interest.
Ghosts
Running

Ghosts

Samantha and Jay throw caution to the wind when they convert their recently inherited country estate into a bed-and-breakfast. Call it mislaid plans. Not only is the place falling apart, but it's also inhabited by spirits of previous residents -- whom only Samantha can see and hear. Ghosts spins the funny, heartfelt story about a newfound dream that reveals connection and self-discovery aren't just for the living.

Memory of a Killer
Running

Memory of a Killer

Memory of a Killer is a dramatic thriller about a hitman who develops early onset Alzheimer's. Angelo lives a double life as an assassin and a family man - which all worked out well until he was hit with early onset Alzheimer's. Now his worlds are colliding, putting his family in danger.

Grey's Anatomy
Running

Grey's Anatomy

The doctors of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital deal with life-or-death consequences on a daily basis -- it's in one another that they find comfort, friendship and, at times, more than friendship. Together they're discovering that neither medicine nor relationships can be defined in black and white. Real life only comes in shades of grey.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Running

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.

FBI
Running

FBI

FBI is a fast-paced drama about the inner workings of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These first-class agents, including Special Agent Maggie Bell and her partner, Special Agent Omar Adom 'OA' Zidan, bring all their talents, intellect and technical expertise on major cases in order to keep New York and the country safe.

GenreDrama, Crime