This might all sound a little funky. But hear it out until the end.
Turkey pizza. Yes, it’s a thing. It’s a Thanksgiving
meal condensed into a densely filling, strangely satisfying slice. And it’s a fleeting
attraction, so act quickly if you want a taste.
It’s become a Thanksgiving tradition at Pluto’s Pizzeria at
French Lick Springs Hotel, where the chef who helped concoct the holiday sensation is the
first to admit it’s all a little wacky.
“It’s one of those things that really worked. The thing is,
how do you imagine turkey pizza being good? Until you see it, it doesn’t make
any sense in the brain, right? I thought it was delicious, and I don’t like
turkey,” said Tony Barba, who spends the rest of the year whipping up the
pizzas, calzones and strombolis that are the year-round menu attractions at Pluto’s.
“But then when you come in and people start looking at it and they go, ‘Well,
now it’s starting to make sense … why don’t I have a slice of it?’”
Sink your teeth into this: An 18-inch pizza with a stuffing
as the crust, topped with a thick layer of white-meat turkey, gravy, three
cheeses and another top layer of stuffing to crown the deep-dish masterpiece.
You’ll need two hands to haul out of Pluto’s – and it
requires some opportunistic planning as well.
The turkey pizzas aren’t on the menu. Chef Tony makes them
only during the Thanksgiving week, and in limited quantity. If it gets to
Thursday or Friday of Thanksgiving week and people are turkey-ed out and not
ordering them anymore, then he’s done making them. He sells about 20 or more of
them every November.
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| Turkey pizzas at Pluto's start with a thick layer of homemade stuffing as the bottom "crust." White-meat turkey, gravy, more stuffing and cheese complete the deep-dish holiday novelty. |
This year, the first order for turkey pizza was called in
three days after Halloween. Tony started the turkey pizzas seven or eight years
ago, and the novelty caught fire in a hurry and continues spreading.
“I don’t know how to explain it. But I put it in the window
during that Thanksgiving week. And boom, people were ordering them: Boom, boom,
boom, just one after another.”
It can fill up an army, too: “You’re feeding a whole table
with it,” said Tony, adding that some people have even used the hearty pie as
their main Thanksgiving meal.
Back home in his native Brooklyn, stuffing is a dish more
commonly made with rice and sausage, but Tony – who moved to Indiana 20 years
ago as a restaurant consultant – utilizes the bread-base dressing more typical
of the Midwest. And it all gets built from scratch.
The homemade stuffing starts with the bits of carrot, celery
and onion, and the secret sauce is in the broth that takes a couple days to sit
for all the flavors and spices to properly marry. Then comes a generous slab of
turkey – all white meat, as Tony says it fits better than dark meat with the
flavor profile of the rest of the pizza.
“No shortcuts down here with any of the products,” Tony
said. “The passion to get things right is extreme.”
A three-cheese blend of mozzarella, parmesan and fontina
tops it all off. It's the only common ingredient between the turkey pizzas and regular
deep-dish Italian pizzas, as you can grab a slice of either at Pluto’s around
Thanksgiving – while the turkey variety is in stock during its limited mad
rush.
“It’s like a freight train,” Tony said of the turkey pizza sales. “I can’t stop it.”