1. Simple is better - more than 3 toppings and you will jeopardize the structural integrity of a slice.
2. There is only one crust style in pizza: thin crust. You can build up the edge if you wish as long as the crust itself remains thin. "Pan pizza" is just corporate lingo for greasy white bread. (Yeah, I'm talking to you Pizza Hut.)
3. Sorry Chicago, Chicago-style pizza is not pizza. It can be perfectly tasty, but it is only pizza in name, not character.
4. Pizza is round and/or amoebic. There are no corners in pizza.
5. There is no single cutting pattern for pizza so pie-slices or longitudinal/latitudinal cuts are fine.
6. If you choose longitudinal/latitudinal cuts, the best pieces are those four tiny bite-sized chunks.
7. Crust bubbles are a sign of quality.
8. Pizza requires tomato sauce. If you wish to use BBQ, hoisin, garlic cream, etc feel free to do so, you just aren't making pizza.
9. Pizza does not require a meat topping, but if you choose to use meat, it must be the meat of a hooved animal: cow, pig, zebra, goat, etc. Chicken and fish are tasty, but not pizza.
10. All great pizzas have one ingredient in common: ground fennel seed.
2. There is only one crust style in pizza: thin crust. You can build up the edge if you wish as long as the crust itself remains thin. "Pan pizza" is just corporate lingo for greasy white bread. (Yeah, I'm talking to you Pizza Hut.)
3. Sorry Chicago, Chicago-style pizza is not pizza. It can be perfectly tasty, but it is only pizza in name, not character.
4. Pizza is round and/or amoebic. There are no corners in pizza.
5. There is no single cutting pattern for pizza so pie-slices or longitudinal/latitudinal cuts are fine.
6. If you choose longitudinal/latitudinal cuts, the best pieces are those four tiny bite-sized chunks.
7. Crust bubbles are a sign of quality.
8. Pizza requires tomato sauce. If you wish to use BBQ, hoisin, garlic cream, etc feel free to do so, you just aren't making pizza.
9. Pizza does not require a meat topping, but if you choose to use meat, it must be the meat of a hooved animal: cow, pig, zebra, goat, etc. Chicken and fish are tasty, but not pizza.
10. All great pizzas have one ingredient in common: ground fennel seed.
1. agreed
ReplyDelete2. i suppose so
3. absolutely correct
4. my pizza tends to be amoebic
5. pie slices are preferred
6. yeah arent those corners?
7. yeah you need a convection over to get that. mine dont bubble enough
8. WRONG in so many ways i cannot even begin to comment more
9. WRONG AGAIN see above
10. agreed
Tony: 6 - the corner law refers to pizzas not slices. I suppose in the slicing grid they might be considered corners but they are still parts of an uncornered pizza.
ReplyDeleteFor others, yes, I realize that pizza in Rome is baked in long rectangular pans with corners. When is Rome do as the Romans but if you want pizza don't.
8 and 9: I'm not saying you can't put these other ingredients on a delicious flatbread, it's just not pizza.
I think you're dead wrong but I absolutely love your unwavering conviction in your belief. Fight the good fight!
ReplyDeleteDDyer: Realize that I'm not speaking poorly of other peoples food choices, just drawing a distinction between what is pizza and what is merely pizzaish.
ReplyDeleteAmen, brother! Too many have strayed from the commandments!
ReplyDeleteDearest Uncle you have failed me this time. I have never heard of California Flatbread Kitchen. Have. you? It is pizza and you should accept that!
ReplyDeleteDearest nephew, need we suggest that you are one generation further from the motherland and are less attuned to the heartbeat of your culture? In truth, pizza is crust, tomato sauce, and a bit of cheese (maybe some olive oil.) I thought I was being generous by allowing toppings at all let alone the crazy stuff used by the California Pizza Kitchen. By the way, I ate there once and you know what they put on my "pizza"? Mu Shu Pork. Best Chinese flat bread I've ever ate.
ReplyDeleteMr. List your eldest brother also believes that you are wrong in your assessment of pizza. Learn to adapt to new things Mr. List. BBQ chicken pizza is in fact pizza and not at all flatbread....you get that in the frozen section under CRAP! I would also say ice cream with bacon is not in fact ice cream because ice cream does not have bits of hooved animals in it or on it (obviously milk comes from a hooved animals but I am referring to ice cream toppings and flavors)!
ReplyDeleteIf only these weren't immutable laws, it could be debated
ReplyDeleteCertainly anchovies make the cut, no?
ReplyDeleteDear Tony,
ReplyDeleteYou and Mr. List's elder brother are wrong. Mr. Daily List is right. That is all. Thank you.
Amber: You have noted a non-hooved meat that can be included on pizza. While anchovies are technically fish, those that appear on pizzas have been transmogrified in the canning process by the universally pizzacentric solvent: olive oil.
ReplyDeleteohooooooo
ReplyDelete