The easiest way to break down pizza boxes for the bin
Most pizza boxes don’t fit in standard trash cans. Here’s the easiest way to cut them down.
- Bar pizza is cooked in a 10-inch pan with thin crust and emphasized cheese and oregano-forward sauce.
- Cape Cod Cafe’s bar pizza recipe dates back to 1939 and has gained a cult following.
Three months ago I moved to the Brockton area from Alaska. I’d never heard of Rocky Marciano and knew next to nothing about Marvelous Marvin Hagler. I’d never eaten Brazilian food, and the only thing that “bar pizza” meant to me was pizza you could buy at a bar.
On Tuesday, June 24 — the hottest day of the year — I decided to change that. I headed to the (highly recommended) Cape Cod Cafe on Brockton’s Main Street and ordered a pizza: half cheese, half pepperoni. Admittedly, I was skeptical. I’m a firm believer that the best pizza in the world exists in and stems from southern Italy, but I must admit: After trying bar pizza, I get the hype.
An 86-year old recipe
Cape Cod Cafe first developed bar pizza in 1939. Eighty-six years later, that dish now has something of a cult following: there’s literally a Facebook group dedicated to its 80,000 plus members’ shared love of bar pizza. Bar pizza is unique. I’m not even sure what it’s closest influence is. Stylistically, it stands alone. Weirdly, it feels like a much thinner cousin of the Chicago-style deep dish pie, but I’m sure that comparison may peeve the purists.
According to such purists, bar pizza is always cooked in a 10-inch pan and made with freshly proofed dough. The crust is thin on the bottom and nearly non-existent around the perimeter. As far as pizzas go, the emphasis is more on the cheese than the sauce. At Cape Cod Cafe, bakers cook the pizza in a deck oven at precisely 550 degrees Fahrenheit. Cheddar cheese joins the combination of cheeses atop the pie, an effective break from the Italian tradition of exclusively mozzarella and parmesan. Its sauce emphasizes oregano and salt, rather than the often overly-sweet sauce that drowns American-style pizzas.
‘The first thing I noticed was the cheese’
The bar pizza landed on my table. Its red and white exterior stood bold against the aluminum tray on which it sat — itself further set off against the turquoise tables of Cape Cod Cafe. The first thing I noticed was the cheese. Not the gooey melted cheese in the pizza’s center, but the crusted, flakey, not quite but almost burnt cheese on the outer rim of the pie. It’s like it replaces the crust in the way that it rises up, higher than the sea-level cheddar spread evenly across the pizza’s surface.
Physically, this crusty exterior cheese provides the pie with crucial structural support. Culinarily, it offers something far more interesting. As you move closer to the edge of the pie, the cheese is a little more cooked, a little sharper, a little crispier. Each slice of bar pizza is a sensory gradient, slowly evolving until you reach it’s crispy edge.
The second thing I noticed was the pepperoni. Cup-and-char pepperoni is what it’s called, the type of pepperoni that flares its edges to form a small bowl when cooked at high temperatures. Within that cup lies little pockets of grease, a salty little bath of joy that feels right in place with the rest of the pie’s flavor profile.
Sooner than I’d care to admit, the pizza was gone. All that remained were two crumpled up napkins and a silver platter splattered with grease and smeared with some remanent tomato sauce. Sitting on the blotchy turquoise table, the scene almost resembled a shiny silver quarter lying peacefully in the deep end of an in-ground swimming pool.
Address and hours
Cape Cod Cafe is located at 979 Main St. in Brockton. It’s open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 10 p.m. on Sundays. Cape Cod Cafe also has locations in Bridgewater, Halifax and Raynham.
