5.0 - Food
5.1 - Pizza
5.1.1 - New York Style
I have to disclose this right up front: New York style pizza is what I consider to be pizza. I grew up in New York, and I am irreparably biased. Chicago-style pizza (which I have eaten many times, and enjoy) is interesting... but it only vaguely resembles real pizza to me, perhaps about as much a cheese breadstick dipped in tomato sauce does. If you're a Chicago-style pizza fan, I can certainly understand your position (it's just the reverse of mine) but understanding isn't the same as agreeing.
5.1.2 - Cooking Pizza at Home — How-To
Unless you have deep enough pockets to get a real pizza oven, and the patience to use it correctly, I believe that there is only one proper solution. That is the Pizzazz pizza cooker. This beauty consists of a rotating pizza tray that spins over a slice-shaped area that has lower and upper electric heating elements. These are controlled by a timer, and they can run bottom-only, top-only, or both. This allows you to set up the optimum cooking conditions for rising crust pizza, thin pizza, medium pizza, pizza with lots of toppings, and your foundation sauce-and-cheese pizza.
5.1.3 - Eating that Beauty
Once you have your hot, steaming pizza on the table, the traditional way to consume it is to half-roll the slice and slip the end into your mouth. A lot of people prefer to use a fork, though, because pizza can be pretty messy.
Well, there's an eating utensil specifically designed for us pizza-freaks; the pizza fork. Take a look at the picture — that, right there, appears to me to be the result of Einstein-level thinking about pizza consumption. I ordered my first set of four as soon as I found them.
5.1.4 - Horror Stories
Oh, the miserable, evil things I have seen done to perfectly good pizzas. Sob.
In one eatery I know, they cut the pizza into squares of about one to two inches on a side. This means that you will slop all over your hands when you eat any piece that doesn't have edge crust on it (and some of the squares definitely won't.) It also means that you are much more likely to burn your hands when eating. There is no — and I mean no — possible justification for this absurd idea. It has no benefits; it has many problems. The only possible explanation is that they do it just to be different, but I can tell you that putting grated soap on my pizza would be different too, but it wouldn't inspire me to be a fan of the process, either.
Topping insanity. Pizza, at its root, is crust, sauce, and cheese. Mozzerella cheese, to be specific. Properly made "purist" pizza, made with nothing but these three components, is a joy. Adding toppings seems like a good idea, and many times, I've had interesting and satisfying pizzas with this or that topping. I can also understand experimenting in order to find unexpectedly good combinations. But actually offering to the public... liver? Pickles? Yogurt??? I'm reasonably open-minded... check out the next section, on toppings... but some things just shouldn't be on pizza. Ever.
5.1.5 - Surpisingly good (and unusual) toppings
- Sauerkraut (no, no, really!)
- Jalapenos (if you like very spicy foods)
- Pineapple (it's not for me, but a lot of people love this)
5.1.6 - What about Chicago Style?
Yes, well, someone who believes it is pizza needs to write about it. I just can't do it myself, unless you want to read about "Italian-style Shepherd's Pie."
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