Preparation for the coming year’s Saturday pizza nights began in August with the month’s tomato harvest. Mom made her own sauce. She canned it in quart jars, one jar being just the right amount to cover two 16" pizzas.
Sausage, mushroom, and pepperoni were always the toppings. The pork sausage was bought in bulk and wrapped in one-pound packages to be frozen in the large meat freezer in our basement. On Friday evenings, Mom would go downstairs to take one of the packages out to thaw in the upstairs refrigerator over the next 24 hours.
The process of putting the pizzas together would begin around 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. Mom would mix together yeast, flour, salt, sugar, and some warm water, and knead everything into two balls of dough. She then placed each ball in its own bowl. The bowls were set in a warm spot in the kitchen with a dampened flour sack cloth covering. In the winter, she would put the covered bowls in the oven with the temperature set to 100°. The dough would then be let to rise over the next two hours.
While the dough was rising, she would take the thawed sausage and place it in a cast iron skillet to fry up. Using a wooden spoon, she would break up the sausage so that when it was done, she had a pan full of crumbles. While Mom fried the sausage, my sister, Susan, and I had jobs to do–this was a family affair. One of us would open up the cans of store-bought mushrooms–always pieces and stems–and drain off the liquid. The mushrooms would then be placed in a bowl and one of the cans handed to Mom for the oil she drained off the cooked sausage. One of us would also set up the grinder with the shredder attachment affixed for preparing the cheese.
The mozzarella was bought in one-pound blocks. In order to grind it, the block needed to be cut into quarters to fit into the neck of the grinder. Susan and I would take turns as the grinders, twirling the handle round and round and watching as the grated cheese fell into a pile.
With the dough risen and the air punched out, it was Dad’s turn to participate. He put flour on the pastry cloth and the rolling pin and rolled each ball of dough out as large as he could get it to go. There was always a bit of shrinkage when Dad lifted the rolled out dough onto the pan. His goal was to roll to a near-perfect circle–one that filled the entire pan right up to its edges. One time, Susan and I egged him on to throw the dough like they did at a nearby pizza place, but Dad’s fist ended up going right through the center. We all laughed at the mishap and Dad said he’d better stick to rolling.
Once the oven temperature hit 450°, Mom spooned her homemade sauce onto the raw dough. Next she added a layer of sausage crumbles, followed by half of the drained mushrooms, pepperoni slices placed in an exacting pattern, and at last topped off with the shredded mozzarella. She slid the completed masterpiece into the oven and set the timer for 12 minutes.
While the first pizza was baking, Susan and I were allowed to select a single can of root beer to split. One of us would pop open the top and pour the soda as equally as possible into two glasses. The other was given the first choice of which glass would be theirs.
When the timer went off, Mom checked to make sure the cheese was browned to her satisfaction. If not, more time was added, but once deemed done, the pan was whisked out onto the stovetop. Dad held one side of the piping hot pan with an oven mitt. He used a pair of scissors to cut the pizza into strips. Never, ever, did he cut our pizzas into triangle slices. Mom prepared and put the second pizza in the oven. Most of the second pizza would be leftover for snacking on over the next few days.
With the first pizza ready to eat, we chose our pieces for our plates and settled in for the evening to watch Bewitched, followed by Movie of the Week.
Making pizza together was a fun family tradition that I kept going when my own children were small. I still like to have pizza night. Homemade is the best kind.
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2022
