In the latest episode of the Pizza Story Podcast, host Erica D’Arcangelo sat down with a true polymath of the pizza world: Jim Mumford. Jim isn’t just a cookbook author and podcast host; he’s a chemical engineer by trade who has turned his meticulous nature toward the science of the perfect slice.
From his Sicilian roots to inventing his own regional style, Jim’s story is a testament to how pizza isn’t just a recipe—it’s a communal language.
The 517-Pizza Journey
Writing a cookbook is a labor of love, but Jim took it to an engineering extreme. For his book, PizzaPedia, Jim didn’t just jot down favorite toppings. He spent four and a half years taking meticulous notes on every variable imaginable.
“I made 517 test pizzas total for this book,” Jim shares. “Being an engineer, I had meticulous notes on each one. There was a lot of pizza donated—very happy neighbors and kids, honestly.”
His goal was to bridge the gap between “master” and “home cook.” While he reached out to world-class pizzeria owners, he realized their recipes often didn’t translate to a home kitchen. “They have the wood-fired oven; I have an old gas range,” Jim notes. His focus became making the temperatures and tools approachable for anyone with a standard kitchen and a love for dough.
The “Kalamazoo Style” Invention
One of the most fascinating takeaways from the episode is Jim’s creation of a brand-new regional variant. Living in Kalamazoo, Michigan—conveniently located halfway between Detroit and Chicago—Jim decided to “mash up” his surroundings.
He took the thin, cracker-crust elements of Chicago Tavern Style and married them with the crispy cheese “frico” edges and sauce-on-top tradition of Detroit Style. The result? Kalamazoo Style Pizza. “I didn’t mean to make it a thing,” Jim laughs, “but it turns out it just embodied the culture of the area where I live. People always ask, ‘What is this?’ Well, it’s because I made it up, but it works.”
Tavern Style: The Unsung Hero
While Jim grew up thinking pizza was always square and made in a sheet pan (the Sicilian way), his move to Chicago introduced him to Tavern Style. Which is a thin crusted square cut pizza.
Jim’s go-to order? Sausage and Giardiniera. It’s a classic Chicago combination that provides the perfect balance of savory meat and pickled heat. Even after Erica’s recent trip to Italy, she found herself craving this “cracker” style because it’s one of the few American evolutions that hasn’t made its way back to the motherland yet.
A Family Legacy
For Jim, pizza is deeply tied to his “Pizza Monsters”—his two daughters, aged eight and four. He dedicated his book to them, noting that even through 517 test batches, they remained his number one fans.
This Christmas Eve, Jim is even planning a pizza-themed play on the traditional Italian “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” Instead of seafood, he’s preparing The Seven Pizzas, featuring seven different regional styles and topping combinations to surprise his family.
The Science and the Social
Jim also co-hosts the I Need Pizza Club podcast, where he blends his chemical engineering background with pizza culture. Whether he’s investigating if New York water really makes the dough better or recapping wild pizza stories from Florida, Jim’s passion lies in the “why” behind the pie.
“The story behind the food makes that cultural connection,” Jim says. “It’s no longer just Italian food; it’s an international, worldwide food.”
Follow James Mumford on Instagram @jimcooksgoodfood
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