Dan Pashman:  Hey everyone, Dan here with another Sporkful Reheat for you. And this one is in memory of the one and only Patsy Grimaldi, a New York pizza legend. He died at the age of 93 in February. Patsy and his wife, Carol, who passed away in 2014, worked together for years. I was lucky enough to get to sit down and talk with both of them about their approach to pizza making as well as their history together.

Dan Pashman: That's why I love this episode and I'm so excited to share it with you. I also had the chance to hang out with Patsy for this cooking channel web series I did years ago called You're Eating It Wrong. And I. Showed Patsy my inside out pizza fold, and the crust removal, and all my silly techniques, and he shot every single one of them down exactly as you would want him to, although he did say that when a slice of pizza is very hot, it's acceptable to use a knife and fork to eat the first half of the slice if it's too hot to pick up.

Dan Pashman: I do want to note that some of the details in this episode I later fact checked with Scott Wiener of Scott's Pizza Tours, who is pretty much the world's foremost authority on pizza. Some of the details of the early 1900s and Patsy's uncle and where he worked, it might not all be true. Some of it is a little bit legend, but  the bottom line is that Patsy Grimaldi was really one of the last living links to the very early days of pizza in America.

Dan Pashman: And so it's sad that he's gone, but his legacy lives on in his current pizzeria, Juliana's and all of the imitators that are out there as well. So I hope you'll enjoy this episode. 

Dan Pashman: Now, as a reminder, if there's an episode of The Sporkful you want us to pull out of the deep freezer to reheat, let us know. Drop me a line at hello@sporkful.com. Tell me your name, location, which episode you'd like us to reheat and why. And we would be happy to do that for you. Thanks so much. Enjoy my conversation with the Grimaldis.

[THE SPORKFUL SOUND EFFECTS]

Dan Pashman: I'm standing outside 19 Old Fulton Street in Brooklyn, and I want to start this show by explaining to you exactly who Patsy Grimaldi is, and why I'm so excited to have him on The Sporkful today. And this is a story that involves history, and passion, and revenge, and most importantly, pizza.

Dan Pashman: Now, in 1905, Gennaro Lombardi applied to New York City for the first license to make and sell pizza in America. So, like, if you're tracing the spread of pizza throughout this country, this is Pizza Zero, okay? Lombardi's. And many of the legendary pizza places that opened in the 20th century were run by guys who started at Lombardi's and then went out on their own.

Dan Pashman: One guy like that was Patsy Grimaldi's uncle, who left Lombardi's and opened his own place, and Patsy went to work there when he was 13 years old. That was in 1941. Now, fast forward to 1990. And Patsy Grimaldi opens Grimaldi's right here at 19 old Fulton Street in Brooklyn, and it's a huge success. But eight years later, Patsy's in his sixties, he's ready to slow down, so he sells Grimaldi's to a regular customer who's also an investor.

Dan Pashman: Patsy stays on as consultant, but after a while they have a falling out. Patsy thinks the new guy isn't making the pizza right, and he thinks Patsy's getting in the way of the operation. So Patsy Grimaldi is no longer welcome in the famous pizzeria that bears his name. And the investor goes on to open dozens of Grimaldi's locations in Vegas and Palm Beach.

Dan Pashman: And the pizza's still good, but it's not the same. Now here's where it gets really exciting. The investor has trouble with a landlord at 19 Old Fulton and decides to move next door. And who swoops in to open up shop? Patsy Grimaldi. He comes out of retirement at age 81 and opens Juliana's, named after his mother.

Dan Pashman: Right next door to his arch rival. Right next door to the pizzeria that bears his name. And the pizza is amazing. Quite a story. So, today I'm gonna talk to him and his wife, Carol, who's been a huge part of this too. And I know the revenge story is juicy, but I'm not really gonna get into that. I think the fact that he came out of retirement and opened this place in this spot, it really tells you all you need to know about that.

Dan Pashman: I wanna focus on the pizza. Because Patsy Grimaldi, the man I'm about to interview, is most likely the last guy in America making pizza today who trained under someone who trained under Lombardi. Pizza Zero, from 1905. So today on the Sporkful Patsy and Carol Grimaldi.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman and we're about to challenge your assumptions about consumption and drop a Sporkful of knowledge on you. Because we're obsessively compulsive about eating more awesomely, and because if history has taught us anything, it's that the hosts of food shows need a lot of catchphrases.

Dan Pashman: Before we get to my interview with Patsy Grimaldi, I do want to give credit where credit is due. A lot of that history that I just gave you about Patsy and about pizza in New York came from a piece that was in New York magazine a while back, also featured on their grub street blog. It was written by Jane black, and I will link to that piece on sporkful.com, but let's go ahead and get into today's topic for mastication and rumination, which is, Patsy and Carol Grimaldi, the Sporkful interview.

Dan Pashman: Let me take you now directly to Juliana's, where I sat down recently with Mr. And Mrs. Grimaldi.

[REWIND SOUND EFFECT]

Dan Pashman: Mr. Grimaldi, when you see a pie coming outta the oven, describe to me, what does your perfect pie look like? 

Patsy Grimaldi: Oh, well, it has to be cooked properly and, uh, seasoned properly. 

Dan Pashman: When you say cooked properly, what do you think are some of the mistakes that younger, less experienced pizza chefs make?

Patsy Grimaldi: Not work the oven properly, like put it on a hot spot where it could burn very easily. They have to be very knowledgeable about working a coal oven. 

Dan Pashman: And am I right, is this the original oven?

Patsy Grimaldi: Yes.

Dan Pashman: So I'm curious, Mr. Grimaldi, when you guys came back to this location and you fired up that oven for the first time that must have been an exciting moment.

Carol Grimaldi: It was exciting after we refurbished it. It wasn't that exciting when we walked in. It had a little guys with little eyes looking out at us and it was quite a bad shape It needed refurbishing but the first time we fired it up was exciting.

Dan Pashman: And am I right? I would guess that an old coal oven could be temperamental. It's sort of, it has its own personality. What's the personality of this oven? 

Carol Grimaldi: Well, you have to understand how it's built. Uh, it has a layer of sand underneath the firestone and it's very possible that there's more sand in one area than another, not because it was made that way, but as the sand settled, so that some, the sand retains the heat, and in some areas it's a little bit less heat, so the person who's handling the oven has to know the hot spots, the cold spots. And according to Patsy, he knows exactly when the oven, by the look of the coal, where to place the pizza, on the left side if the oven’s too hot, or closer to the coal if it's too cold. 

Dan Pashman: So this is not something where you can just sort of write down the instructions and walk away and tell someone to do it. There's a lot more… 

Patsy Grimaldi: No, you have to be there. You have to do it. If someone just walked in off the street and wanted to learn how to make pizza, uh, would be impossible. They have to stay there the way I did when I was a youngster and, and work it 10 hours a day for months. 

Dan Pashman: Let's talk a little bit about the three most basic ingredients of pizza. You got your cheese, your sauce, and your crust. Is there one ingredient that you think is the most important one to get right? 

Patsy Grimaldi: Well, the tomatoes is number one. If you don't have good tomatoes, uh, you can forget about it. 

Carol Grimaldi: The crust, too, is most... You can't have good tomatoes without a great crust. It's together. I think it's just, uh, all together. The cheese, the tomato, and the crust. If one is not right, the other won't be right. 

Dan Pashman: One of the things that I think is interesting about this style of pizza, which I think would be a little far into folks in other parts of the country, you know, where they're accustomed to sort of your typical pizzeria where it's a whole thick layer of sauce and a whole thick layer of cheese and there's no, you don't see any of the crust except on the edges.

Dan Pashman: The way you do it, you've got spots of cheese, spots with no cheese, spots with sauce, spots with no sauce. What is it about that approach? Why do you like that variation? 

Patsy Grimaldi: Well, most, 99 percent of the pizzerias, they grade their mozzarella. 

Carol Grimaldi: It's a graded processed cheese. 

Patsy Grimaldi: And they just pour it all over the pizza. When I serve it, which I slice my mozzarella up and I don't cover the whole pizza with mozzarella or else you'll be having a mouthful of mozzarella and no taste of the tomatoes and the dough and... 

Carol Grimaldi: You want a little bit of everything. You want to be able to taste everything and not have it all be one big taste.

Dan Pashman: Mr. Grimaldi, you talked about, you know, spending all those years as you did as a young man learning how to work the coal oven. Were there days that you were working it when you were young and you were feeling like, man, like, did you get frustrated? Were there days you felt like this wasn't working right for you?

Patsy Grimaldi: No, I enjoyed every bit of it. Except when the weather was 99 degrees and I'm working by a column without an air conditioner and without a fan. That's how it was in the days I was growing up. And we did have one little fan in the corner of the store. And every time I would put it on my aunt, she was the owner of the store, she would tell me, Oh, Natalia, you don't know how to pay the bills. You have to turn the fan off. And I had to turn the fan off until she walked away then I would turn it back on again. But even that little fan didn't make a difference. It was like 130 degrees. Twelve hours of work doing that, you know, could weigh it down.

Patsy Grimaldi: At night, I didn't have the energy to walk from the subway to my house. That's how exhausted I was from the heat. 

Carol Grimaldi: He also told me that he used to go, instead of going home, because they didn't have air conditioning at home either, he'd go to a movie theater and sleep. 

Dan Pashman: So I guess It's good to do it the old fashioned way, in a lot of respects, but sometimes, sometimes there is such a thing as progress, right? Central Air, not so bad, right?

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: How long have you guys been married? 

Carol Grimaldi: 45 years. 

Dan Pashman: Wow. So, Mr. Grimaldi, is there anything that Mrs. Grimaldi has taught you about pizza? 

Patsy Grimaldi: Uh, yeah, she has a great taste for tomatoes and cooking….

Carol Grimaldi: And we created a few of the new pizzas. 

Dan Pashman: Which ones? 

Carol Grimaldi: The number two, which is cherry tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, garlic… I forgot what else I put in there. And then I have the pancetta pizza, with the scamorza and the homemade mozzarella and truffle oil. 

Dan Pashman: Wow. 

Carol Grimaldi: Really good. So, you know, I lie awake some nights thinking, creating, and then trying and sometimes it doesn't work. 

Patsy Grimaldi: She told me about that recipe. I said, no way. I said, pancetta and scamorza on a pizza? No!

Carol Grimaldi: And scallions. 

Patsy Grimaldi: And scallions. I said, come on, you're getting ridiculous. But I went to taste the pancetta and I flipped over it. And scallions and everything else was…  And she knows what she's talking about, you know. 

Carol Grimaldi: When you enjoy eating, you enjoy creating in the kitchen. So I think about it a lot. It's a large part of our lives. 

Carol Grimaldi: We're not doing our clams, pineapple and ham. [LAUGHS] And hot dogs. Because in Italy, I understand hot dogs and eggs are really big. 

Patsy Grimaldi: Yeah, that's ridiculous.  

Carol Grimaldi:  It's happening just with the margherita, nothing else. But slowly his taste buds, because you know, the products that are available to us now, 20 years later after we started, are so much, even our spices we get from a special place.

Carol Grimaldi: Uh, we don't walk into a grocery store and buy a box of oregano. It's grown specially for us in Vermont. So all these things are available now that were not available prior. 

Dan Pashman: So, I want to hear more about, you know, I guess in some ways things change. In some ways, you know, they remain the same. You're a part of this – you both are a part of this historic legacy and you're so important in the history of pizza and it gets talked about all the time. I'm curious, when someone comes in here now, and they eat a pizza now, how closely does that resemble the pie that I would have gotten 50 years ago? 

Patsy Grimaldi: No, there's no comparison. Years ago it was just a margherita pizza. Uh, and, and uh, Maranata pizza. That was it. Those were the only two pizzas they made. 

Carol Grimaldi: When I see my old customers who do come back, most of them have been coming back slowly, they all say it's, they never thought it could be better than it was before, but they all say it's better now.

Carol Grimaldi: That's because some of the products are available to us now that weren't then. So it enhances it. A little bit, but always the oven, the good cheese, the good tomatoes and the good crust. No matter what you put on it, that's still the best.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Tell me about your approach to eating pizza. Do you go fork and knife? Do you like to fold it? How do you do it? 

Patsy Grimaldi: Uh, I'm a folder. The best, the most you can get in your mouth at one time. 

Carol Grimaldi: I start with a fork and knife and then work my way to folding. 

Dan Pashman: Right.

Patsy Grimaldi: I do too, I do the same, I do the same exact thing. I start off with a fork and knife. As soon as it's easy to handle, I shove it in my mouth. 

Dan Pashman: And I'm curious, you guys both said that you, when you're eating a slice of pizza, you start off cutting it, and then when it cools a bit and it's a little firmer, you go to folding. Have you ever tried folding it inside out, so that the cheese is on the outside and it's pressed against your tongue?

Patsy Grimaldi: No, that couldn't be done. 

Carol Grimaldi: It’ll burn!

Dan Pashman: If it's cooled down just enough, just enough, that way the cheese and the sauce go right onto your tongue and you taste it more. What do you think? 

Patsy Grimaldi: All the ingredients will fall off. If you fold the opposite way.

Dan Pashman: Even with a standard margherita? 

Patsy Grimaldi: Yeah, yeah. Everything will…

Carol Grimaldi: It's not glued. It's a movable object. So they're gonna fall off. 

Dan Pashman: Interesting. I mean, I have to say, I've done it. I've done it before. You gotta be a little careful. You're right. But it can be done. I want you guys to try that. Maybe that could be the next, maybe, Mrs. Grimaldi, maybe you could add that to the menu, inside out pizza, what do you think? 

Carol Grimaldi: We'll give it a thought. 

[LAUGHTER]

Dan Pashman: I have a feeling it might not make it. 

Carol Grimaldi: No, no, I don't think so. Um, just like when people want tomato sauce in their calzone, I mean like, hello? You know, it's like, then you open it up, it's like tomato soup. It's really bad. 

Dan Pashman: I'm sure that you sometimes see people come in here and they eat the pizza and they leave the end crust. They don't eat that end part. What's your take on that? 

Patsy Grimaldi: Well, I'm happy to do that. I save the crust for my birds. I feed hundreds of birds every day in my yard. 

Carol Grimaldi: I also recommend that it's good in the morning with eggs. And a lot of people take it home for that reason. 

Dan Pashman: Interesting. What do you think is the best way to reheat leftover pizza? 

Carol Grimaldi: Uh, Teflon frying pan made hot. And place the pizza in. No oil, nothing. Just place the pizza on it just for a second. Well, I'd say about a minute. And it doesn't dry it out, doesn't change the product at all. Putting it in the oven sometimes makes it soggy or too crispy. But that works. 

Patsy Grimaldi: Especially a…

Carol Grimaldi: A microwave. Oh, horrible. Makes it like a mush.

Dan Pashman: No, those things are a disaster.

Carol Grimaldi: Don’t tell Matt!

Dan Pashman: Matt, the co-owner of Juliana's just sat down next to us. Matt, I don't mean to spill the beans here, but they were just talking about your use of the microwave. Um, is it true that you sometimes use a microwave to reheat leftover pizza? 

Matt: Yes, I only recently, uh, found out that that's not, uh, an ideal way.

Dan Pashman: You guys let this guy in here? 

Carol Grimaldi: [LAUGHS] It's alright, he knows plenty about pizza. 

Dan Pashman: And I know it says here on the sign that Pat's favorite pie is the Skarmoz, which is? 

Carol Grimaldi: A smoked, cheap cheese. Similar to smoked mozzarella but a little bit less powerful. What's your favorite? I like the number two with the Buffalo mozzarella and little cherry tomatoes, garlic.

Dan Pashman: What do you think are some of the common mistakes people make when ordering pizzas? 

Patsy Grimaldi: When they order pizza? 

Dan Pashman: Yeah, I'm sure once in a while there must be an order that comes into your kitchen and you say, Oh, this guy… Not the best order here. 

Patsy Grimaldi: I've had people that come, came in and wanted pineapple on their pizza. Uh, broccoli, and you know, ridiculous things. 

Dan Pashman: How many toppings is too many toppings? 

Patsy Grimaldi: Uh, too many toppings is, uh, a pizza with everything. Like, people order a pizza with pepperonis, sausage, anchovies. To me that, you know, too much, it makes the pizza soggy, number one. And, number two, it's just not the right way to do things.

MUSIC 

Dan Pashman: How did you guys meet? 

Carol Grimaldi: I had a friend who was a musician and had a band and Pat was working at this restaurant where they were playing, and that's when we met. 

Dan Pashman: So that would have been the 60s? 

Carol Grimaldi: Yeah, late 60s. 

But you guys were together for a long time before you opened this restaurant, for the first time around, before you opened it in 1990.

Carol Grimaldi: Yes. 

Carol Grimaldi: The only reason, we just could not find a location that was suitable for us. Pat was looking for it for years. And,, things always came up, you know, the children, the grand, stuff like that. But, when he came here, to this location, he found it. He said every Italian in New York, in Brooklyn, drives past this location because they cut off from the big QE down Furman Street.

Carol Grimaldi: It’s a great location. So, we took a look at it, and it was a hole in the floor. There was nothing here. It was an old hardware store. And the rent was very reasonable. And we did it. We just did it. We sold everything we owned, all our savings, and the last 20,000 dollars we had to borrow, but we made it. And fortunately, when we first opened in June 1990, a young lady from New York Magazine, Robin Raisfeld, who was a food critic, but then she was an intern, asked if she could do a little article about us.

Carol Grimaldi:  She did a half a page, and that was where we took off for us. Because nobody walked down here. This was really desolate down here. 

Dan Pashman: Right now, it's a tourist destination. 

Carol Grimaldi: It's everybody's destination. Dumbo has grown incredibly. There's like 4,000 residents, 12,000 people working here. It's incredible. 

Dan Pashman: Is there a question that nobody ever asked Mr. Grimaldi that you feel like they should ask?

Dan Pashman: I'm asking you. 

Carol Grimaldi: I know, I know what you're asking. I have to stop and think about that one. It doesn't come off the head.

Dan Pashman: Right, right. Like, what's something that we should know that we don't know? 

Carol Grimaldi: A lot of people want to know what he did during the ten years that we were retired. He became a cat rescuer, and rescued, I don't know, about hundreds of cats, found homes for them, had them fixed.

Carol Grimaldi: And because of that I now have 11 cats in my house, 7 cats in my backyard, 5 cats down the block that he takes care of. But it was very important for him. And I spend my 10 years, if anybody's interested, we have a developmentally disabled son, and, and lives in a group home, and I'm the president of the board. So that I've kept myself very active in fundraising, et cetera. So we were very busy. But this is a different kind of busy for us. So we're involving both of us, all our lives together now, and it's good. It's keeping us going. 

Dan Pashman: And Mr. Grimaldi, do the cats like your pizza?

Patsy Grimaldi: No, no, they can't, uh, the birds do.

Dan Pashman: What's your favorite thing to eat besides pizza? 

Patsy Grimaldi: Oh, what else? Pasta. Pizza, pasta. 

Dan Pashman: And what's your favorite thing to cook besides pizza? 

Patsy Grimaldi: Besides pizza? Soup. I'm a soup Nazi. 

Carol Grimaldi: The original soup Nazi. 

Dan Pashman: Well, Mr. and Mrs. Grimaldi, thanks so much. Good luck. Congratulations. Congratulations, first of all, on the successful opening. And continued good luck here at Juliana's.

+++BREAK+++

Dan Pashman:  Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman, and I have a very big, exciting announcement for you. This past November, I took a group of Sporkful fans and some others on a special trip across Italy to eat pasta, to retrace many of the steps I took on my own research trip for my cookbook, and we had so much fun and ate so, so well.

Dan Pashman: We ate spaghetti all’assassina in Bari. We took a cooking class with Silvestro Silvestori. We ate with Katie Parla in Rome. And the folks at Culinary Backstreets who organized the tour, they added some stops that I didn't even know about that were new to me, that were incredibly delicious and also fascinating. Point is, it was so great, we're doing it again.

Dan Pashman: This November, we just opened up spots. It's a small group, so space is limited. Bottom line, come eat pasta with me in Italy! For all the details, go to culinarybackstreets.com/sporkful.  

Dan Pashman: Before signing off today, I thought, let's take a few minutes and check in with you, the loyal listeners of The Sporkful, the eaters, the members of the Eatscape.

Dan Pashman:  Let's open up the old email mailbag. Here's one from Eater Andy in Reston, Virginia. He writes, Hi Dan. First of all, I love the podcast. I'll admit it feels odd to write, but you have a way of bringing out strong opinions I never knew I held, and thus I am compelled to comment. 

Dan Pashman: Well, first of all, thank you, Andy. That is one of my favorite reactions that I get to The Sporkful, where people don't realize they care so much about these things until they realize they care so much about these things. So, welcome. You are safe here. 

Dan Pashman: Now Andy writes in response to the last podcast which discussed watermelon in great detail. And I talked about how watermelon wedges, yes, they're pretty easy to pick up by the rind, but I feel like when you bite into them, they get all over your face. He says, at a recent family get-together, I noticed my mother in law served watermelon in wedge form. But rather than leaving the large wedge that you complained of, that I complained of, she trimmed each wedge into several smaller wedges, about two inches wide at the base. Small enough for even a child to handle one handed.

Dan Pashman:  And small enough that a child's mouth could easily consume it without any unfortunate juice face incidents. Also, it allowed the watermelon to be arranged so that each piece stood vertically with the rind on the table, which allowed for an easily takeable finger food. That could be placed on any surface. 

Dan Pashman: Well, that's a good tip, Andy. I like that, and I'm gonna try that out. Cut your wedges much more narrowly, and you won't mess your face. The next email comes from eater Jack Bigley in Seattle. This is in response to the burrito show with Matthew Iglesias we did a little while back.

Dan Pashman: He says, Hey Dan, next time you go to Chipotle, order a quesadilla burrito. It's a secret menu item where they take a quesadilla, cook it, and then open it up. And then make your burrito with that tortilla. It's delicious and melts the cheese and gives the tortilla a slight crunch. 

Dan Pashman: While I looked into this, it turns out that Chipotle will not confirm the existence of what the internet generally refers to as the quesarito. But it's tough to deny when you see all the evidence on the web that this thing exists. There's even a story of a guy going to his local Chipotle, he goes up to the counter, he doesn't know if they're even gonna know what he's talking about, he says, I want a quesarito, and the woman says, I don't know what you're talking about, we don't have that, and he feels stupid, and then she says, But if we did serve something like that, it wouldn't be between noon and one. Wink, wink. So, inside tip from Eater Jack in Seattle, go to Chipotle and check out the quesarito. 

Dan Pashman: Finally, I just need to play a voicemail that we got on the old voicemail line here. I just got a big kick out of this one, here it is. 

Joe: Hi, my name is Joe, um, and I live in Brooklyn, New York, and, uh, I have a nickname, and they call me Blue Cheese. I've loved Blue Cheese since I was 14, and I've got it tattooed on me, and, uh, I just enjoy different varieties of Blue Cheese. Thank you very much, man.  

Dan Pashman: I love that that was the entire point of the voicemail, was just so that I would know that. So, Blue Cheese in Brooklyn, with a tattoo of blue cheese, I mean, that is not, you know, there are a lot of tats out there. He might be the only guy with a blue cheese tattoo in the world. I'm going to go ahead and wager that that is a decent possibility. So, for that commitment to blue cheese, I want to tip my cap to you, Blue Cheese. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Thank you so much for listening, as always, my fellow eaters. Remember to follow TheSporkful  on Twitter, at TheSporkful.

Dan Pashman: Like us on Facebook, facebook.com/sporkful. And until next time, I'm Dan Pashman reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.