Why You Need Honey To Taste Colorado-Style Pizza Properly

Pizza will always be Italy's claim to fame, but gosh darn it if America isn't going to do everything in its power to challenge that. Pizza is consistently ranked in polls among the most popular foods in America, and it seems like every state wants a piece of the pie, both metaphorically and literally.

Conversations about pizza in America seem to only focus on the rivalry between New York's thin crust and Chicago's deep dish, but this is a woefully narrow viewpoint. True pizza connoisseurs know that there's a difference between New York and Brooklyn-style pizza, and that Chicago tavern pizza is arguably more beloved in the city than deep dish. Moreover, the rest of the country has a lot of great pizza to offer, and while some styles like Detroit pizza and New Haven pizza have been gaining greater notice, Colorado is quietly pumping out a style of pizza that few outsiders have ever encountered.

Colorado-style pizza is also known as "mountain pie" because it is made with a thick, braided crust whose peaked form is reminiscent of the Rocky Mountains. In another twist, the crust is made with whole wheat flour and sweetened with honey rather than sugar. It is actually intended to be eaten as a dessert at the end of your meal, and thus is always served with extra honey for dipping. Mountain pie is certainly an original take on pizza, and although it claims to be Colorado-style, it's really unique to a single restaurant chain.

Colorado-style pizza should really be called Beau Jo's-style pizza, because that's the only place that makes it. The pizza chain has seven locations across the state of Colorado. On the company's website, they give a fanciful history of the mountain pie, claiming it was invented by a French fur trapper named Pete ZaPigh (pronounced "pizza pie") who arrived in Colorado on a search for wooly mammoths. He eventually gave up this endeavor and decided to become a prospector, subsequently disappearing into an abandoned mine for two years. It's said when he finally reemerged, he brought with him the first mountain pie. Then, in a dreadful twist, he was trampled to death by a mammoth, but not before carving his mountain pie recipe into the shell of a turtle named Beau Jo.

This legend certainly deserves points for creativity, but how did mountain pie actually come to be? The real story takes us back to 1973, when a 25-year-old entrepreneur named Chip Bair came across a pizzeria for sale in the old mining town of Idaho Springs. The place was called Beau Jo's after owners Beau and Jo Ann. The Anns had decided to give it up and move away to join a meditation movement, so Bair bought it at a relatively low cost. He kept the name but reinvented everything else, including the pizza. His signature braided dough was inspired by the adage that we eat with our eyes first.

Beau Jo's has declared its mountain pie to be "Colorado-style pizza," but there are other businesses in the state that would like to challenge that claim. Rocky Mountain Pizza in Glenwood Springs doesn't have the name recognition of Beau Jo's but it specializes in a thin-crust pizza it dubs "Colorado Style." Its dough also features honey instead of sugar, but it's not billed as a dipping sauce the way it is for the mountain pie.

In order for a style of pizza to truly become synonymous with its birthplace, it needs wider recognition, which mountain pie doesn't have. It's a much more recent invention than the other pizza styles hailed across America, and it doesn't seem like any restaurants other than Beau Jo's have hopped on the trend. This is in part due to the fact that Colorado-style mountain pie is rather controversial because the crust comprises a much more significant portion of the pie than other styles of pizza. That's why eating it with honey is so essential. If you don't, you're basically just chewing plain bread for much of the meal.