The pizza makin’ elves at Milwaukee’s Palermo Pizza are at it again. Fresh on the success in recent years of their Screamin’ Sicilian brand, here comes their take on a “pub style” pizza, under the name of P’mos. In addition to writing about “Screamin,” I’ve also written about Palermo’s history and their “classic” brand.
I will be the first to admit I’m not really sure what “pub style” pizza is supposed to be like, unless they are referring to pizzas found in bars – many of the frozen pizza lines hatched out of Wisconsin and Minnesota got their start being sold only in bars. The pizza manufacturer would supply the drinking establishment with a small counter top oven, and sell them frozen pies to bake on demand for their customers. Luckily the interwebs knows all, the it appears that one might define “pub pizza” as “born on Chicago’s south side as an alternative to Chicago’s traditional deep dish, with a cracker thin crust, sweeter sauce, a little more salt, and cut into squares instead of triangular slices.” Alrighty then. Palermo’s marketing pitch for the line is “Palermo’s took Pub Style pizza to a new level starting with a crispy thin crust made to highlight the hand selected toppings. Each of the P’MOs varieties is over loaded with fresh ingredients and smothered in
rich Mozzarella cheese.”
This is certainly the era of new “styles” of pizza, what with Dominos, Pizza Hut, and Little Caesar’s leading the way with myriad new crust options. Yesterday, Little Caesars announced a “bacon wrapped” crust. Pizza Hut has come up with all sorts of disgusting flavor combinations for its crust, like “honey-siracha” or some such. If the chains were making one for me, I think I’d have to go for “bacon wrapped cheese stuffed pretzel crust.” That’d be over the top.
I picked up the sausage variety of P’Mos, my local grocery had stocked four varieties: cheese, pepperoni, sausage and supreme. Not present was the “Combination,” which is topped with both sausage and pepperoni. My recollection is the price point was $7 or north of that, making it a competitor in the range of their own Screamin’ Sicilian, and other “premium” frozen pies. This is in contrast to the classic Palermo pies, which I have purchased for as little as 6 for $10, incredibly cheap.
Removing the wrapper, I am impressed with the appearance of the ‘shaved’ cheese, instead of sprinkled, has the possibility of providing a nice melt. I am hopeful that the sausage will be as good as the large chunks found on the “Screamin” line, although they are smaller. Cheese is listed as the first ingredient on the label, which is encouraging. A typo on the ingredient list (a missing ‘paren’ mark) makes it difficult to tell you all of the ingredients in the sausage, but they start out with an all pork and herb/spice mix. There is none of the dreaded “mechanically separated poultry” in the meat. Whew.
While I usually tell you where the pizza was made, according to the USDA legend on the package, this inspection sticker bears no plant number, and the reverse label says “distributed by Palermo,” which could well mean manufacturing is contracted out to a plant not owned by the company.
Baking instructions are middle shelf, 400, 14-18 minutes.
I popped mine out at 17. The pizza lives up to the internet definition stated above, with a thin ‘cracker like’ crust, sweeter sauce. Lots of cheese for a frozen pie, real cheese with nice “pull.” The sausage is extremely mild. I personally like my Italian sausage heavy with fennel flavor. In the end, this is a good frozen pie. Top 5, in any case. This one goes into my regular rotation when I am buying frozen pies.
But Palermo, suggestion? Your ‘cracker crust’ is more like matzo than saltines, IMHO. So how about a line of kosher certified pizzas? There’s a segment for you. You can call it “Lotza Mozza Matzo!!”
If you’ve a hankering for Chicago pizza, pub or deep dish, you can have it delivered right to your home, shop here.
P’Mos Pizza Review
Get into my belly!
Get into my belly!