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This turned out to be more of a challenge than we expected, but we certainly expanded our minds (and rumbled our bellies) in the process. The ancient art of the perfect toss does more than entertain wide-eyed pizzeria patrons. In his discussion of the warp factor, astrophysicist Charles Liu compares the shape of the Milky Way to an airborne disk of pizza dough, noting that we toss dough for the same reason our galaxy spins: to get rid of the lumps (or "warps," in the Milky Way's case), resulting in a smooth, thin, even circle. And according to the American Institute of Baking, this thinner crust expands more effectively in the oven. However,
while some restaurants claim hand-tossing adds a level of authenticity to the pizza experience -- and draws in customers -- most professional chefs seem more concerned with the earlier step of kneading the dough. Gluten, a protein found in wheat that enables dough to stretch and bend, is activated by kneading. If there's not enough air worked into your pizza dough before you toss it, even the fanciest moves won't result in a well-balanced, evenly baked, tasty pie. And as Dean Martin has told us time and time again: That's amore.
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