Its Cheese Pull Can Span Multiple Feet
February 11, 2021 12:30 PM   Subscribe

 
Without necessarily endorsing the views expressed therein, I must of course invoke Jon Stewart's unhinged rant about Chicago Deep Dish Pizza.
posted by wabbittwax at 12:34 PM on February 11, 2021 [16 favorites]


What are they smoking in Colorado???? (oh. right.)
posted by wabbittwax at 12:41 PM on February 11, 2021 [6 favorites]


I was not prepared for that breakfast pizza
posted by little onion at 12:46 PM on February 11, 2021


I don't understand how 90% of these are America's regional pizzas. Regional to America, but more like America's pizza styles.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 12:47 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


I'm glad the Adams Morgan Jumbo Slice got its own slide. I'm not sure I've ever purchased one before 2 am.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 12:53 PM on February 11, 2021 [6 favorites]


I wish he could explain where the idea out here in the bay area that Chicagoans drizzle honey on their pizza came from. My partner is a native Chicagoan and she's never heard of it, but all the places out here offer it as a matter of course (blue line, little star, patxi's).
posted by Carillon at 12:54 PM on February 11, 2021 [5 favorites]


Yeah, and I feel like a lot of these are a reach. Every pizza is basically a variation of New York-style, Chicago-style, Neapolitan-style, or Sicilian-style, right? Frequently BAD variations, but there you go. I like that mid-list they give up and just start listing Italian regional pizzas.

That said, square cut anything is pretty good.
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:54 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


They seem to have forgotten "Milwaukee Style" pizza. (Or rather, they include it but just call it by its generic name.)
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:56 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


IMOS's!
posted by robbyrobs at 12:59 PM on February 11, 2021 [10 favorites]


A Philly tomato pie (not to be confused with a Trenton tomato pie

Not sure if I'm looking at a pizza slideshow or an Urban Dictionary entry.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:04 PM on February 11, 2021 [15 favorites]


I haven't had a chance to try all of these, but they do look good. At the risk of igniting the Chicago Deep-Dish vs. New York style pizza, I'll say they're both great - just depends what you want at the time. I've had real Neapolitan in Naples, and can confirm deliciousness. Had the Roman style in Rome as well, and I loved how you just buy it by weight. Not generally a fan of the Sicilian style, but they hit the spot sometimes. Sadly, I can only get what they call "bar pizza" delivered here. I miss DeFazio's in Troy NY. Amazing pizzas and great stromboli.
posted by mrgoat at 1:05 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


Regional to America, but more like America's pizza styles.

Eh. Detroit pizza is having a moment right now, but otherwise it's pretty much impossible to get most of these styles in wide swathes of the country. They're largely regional, I think.

Also I'm glad Grandma got a call-out here. It might be my favorite pizza, when it's done right. A place I used to go to had probably the best Grandma slice I've ever had. Perfect crust, super-garlicky sauce, little drizzle of pesto to kick up the fresh basil on top. Man that was good pizza.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:14 PM on February 11, 2021 [7 favorites]


Chicago Deep Dish pizza is a savory pie and should be evaluated as such rather than as a pizza. I will not be taking any questions
posted by capricorn at 1:17 PM on February 11, 2021 [11 favorites]


It's foolish to rank pizza because pizza is in a quantum entanglement with your current situation and cannot be viewed in isolation.

Some of the best pizza I've ever had has ben from the Lahey Clinic cafeteria after a long day of anxiously sitting in the surgical waiting room. Not coincidentally, that hospital is also where I've had some of the worst pizza.

The pizza served at the Nathan's inside the Quincy Center T stop might not be much to look at, but after a long day of attending a conference in town, the slices were big and cheap and available. Ditto the Pizzaria Regina at the South Station food court while on a quick lunch break.

Papa Gino's, eaten at the beach with family? Delicious, even if it's a little cold.

That upstart artisanal place that sprinkles everything with parmesan and garlic, served as lunch during an exceptionally boring all-day team building session? THE WORST.

Dominos, because the department's budget is thin and someone had a coupon? Any port in a storm, but next time order Papa Gino's.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:23 PM on February 11, 2021 [19 favorites]


impossible to get most of these styles in wide swathes of the country

bar? artisanal? pans? fast-food? frozen?! If there is a Grandma region of America, DM coord because I could use a road trip
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:27 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


YAYYYYY PIZZA FIGHT

or how bout just pizza love

anyways here in the upper midwest, specifically iowa, i was glad to see our regional perfection, which is taco pizza, mentioned as a subcategory of quad city style (puzzling but okay)

made lovingly at a happy joe's...yes. please. and this is from a VPN enthusiast

but no upper midwest mention for breakfast pizza? it's a real thing here, and even in the same town, the north side casey's breakfast pizza might be waaayyy better than the one one the south side

on a frozen northern iowa morning, a bubbling hunk of casey's breakfast pizza en route to a work event is so often exactly right, and the pizza purists can go pound sand
posted by Caxton1476 at 1:28 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


Wherever the Grandma region of America is, the one thing that's certain is "you should really visit it more often."
posted by wabbittwax at 1:30 PM on February 11, 2021 [20 favorites]


Yowza, this is my kind of food article!
posted by JHarris at 1:31 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


Kind of impressed by the number of shoutouts to Ohio pizza on this list. I appreciate the pizza-adjacent items on the list, but I think it would be more interesting to look into what's served alongside pizza in different regions. In OH, Akron area especially, it's fried chicken and especially these huge potatoes quartered lengthwise, battered, and deep fried (jojos).
posted by snerson at 1:33 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


and i really want pizza puffs
posted by Caxton1476 at 1:35 PM on February 11, 2021


The crappy random greasy slice I grew up with in NYC (Brooklyn, to be more exact) simply no longer exists. I wonder how many other styles have gone extinct but their names persist now attached to another interpretation?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:36 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


Happy to see that they list the greatest of all Chicago cuisines: the pizza puff! The wrap is a flour tortilla.
posted by NoMich at 1:37 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


Bummer that they didn't go far enough north to hit Houghton, MI to try the tostada pizza from The Ambassador. You probably won't do it correctly, but you can try making one yourself.
posted by NoMich at 1:41 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


What, no West Michigan style?! Shout out to Fricano’s... the place so old school they not only take just cash or local check, but sell absolutely nothing else except the one style of pizza and beverages (don’t even need a menu). Only drawback is you have to say “Everything, with anchovies” when ordering.

Nothing like walking in the moment they open at 5pm and seeing every table filled, but nobody eating, just everyone waiting for that sweet, sweet slice.
posted by saintjoe at 1:45 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


Think of Provel like a smokier version of American cheese

This is, believe it or not, a very generous description.
posted by ChuraChura at 1:46 PM on February 11, 2021 [8 favorites]


Unclear why Pinsa (which I just heard of today) gets called "pizza-adjacent", but French bread pizza gets granted full pizza status.
posted by explosion at 1:47 PM on February 11, 2021


the pizza puff!

So is a Totino Pizza Roll a subclass of the Pizza Puff?
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:47 PM on February 11, 2021


I now WANT PIZZA!!!
posted by Windopaene at 1:47 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


They also omitted the classic stoned broke student pizza: a slice of bread covered in Taco Bell hot sauce, anything found in the fridge, and topped with a slice of packaged American cheese.
posted by NoMich at 1:48 PM on February 11, 2021 [13 favorites]


Despite several of those pizza styles being actively nauseating to look at, I would nevertheless eat each and every one of them.
posted by turbid dahlia at 1:50 PM on February 11, 2021 [4 favorites]


Also the English muffin "pizza"
posted by wabbittwax at 1:50 PM on February 11, 2021 [6 favorites]


I will say that New England Greek Pizza wins not just because it's delicious but also because you get it at a 'house of pizza'.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:52 PM on February 11, 2021 [11 favorites]


I will not yuck anyone's yum but I will warn you sternly, do not eat St. Louis pizza until it has cooled a bit. Yes, much more so than other types of cheese, Provel will stick, burn your mouf, and Hurt A Lot.

I really love pizza.
posted by wellred at 1:52 PM on February 11, 2021 [5 favorites]


My family lived in New Jersey (near Trenton) until my early teens and seeing the "Trenton tomato pie" triggered memories I didn't know I had. That was exactly what we ate and it was really good!

Out here I generally like thin, crispy crusts but there's a local semi-chain that, while I won't buzz market it, does a phenomenal deep-dish. Possibly made even better as they make you wait ~40 minutes, so it guarantees spending some quality time with friends and talking over a couple good beers in addition to a good meal. (Take out would kill the magic, of course.)
posted by mark k at 1:52 PM on February 11, 2021


They forgot Buffalo style pizza! Yum. All anyone ever pays attention to are our wings.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 1:53 PM on February 11, 2021 [5 favorites]


When I was a kid, there was a Portuguese owned pizza place nearby, and we used to get linguiça pizza there on Fridays. I've never seen another place offer it; I still make it myself from time to time.
posted by mrgoat at 1:57 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


If an English muffin can be a pizza than so can a bagel.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:58 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


Of the 43 shown almost all have the 3 key ingredients: tomato, cheese, crust; 42 of them have 2 out of 3 -- only one doesn't, and that's because California Style Pizza ain't pizza. it's bread with stuff on it, and more closely related to an open-faced sandwich than pizza.

Let's say it again: California Style Pizza ain't pizza.
posted by OHenryPacey at 2:01 PM on February 11, 2021 [4 favorites]


They also omitted the classic stoned broke student pizza: a slice of bread covered in Taco Bell hot sauce, anything found in the fridge, and topped with a slice of packaged American cheese.

College? All you need is a blazer and a fairly clean and fairly new pair of jeans, and you can then live indefinitely off the cheese cubes and vegetable trays with dip at receptions for lectures and other events.
posted by thelonius at 2:02 PM on February 11, 2021 [6 favorites]


Any list of American Pizza that doesn't include the rectangle grease-bomb slices of pizza served in school cafeterias is missing one of the most American of American pizza experiences.
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:05 PM on February 11, 2021 [33 favorites]


Man, now I'm craving pizza strips.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 2:13 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


I'm a firm believer that there is no BAD pizza, only degrees of good pizza, but after having traveled around the country a bit, my local pizza staples manage to be both more expensive and less good than what's on offer in other metros. Not sure what's up with that. California has a lot of good food generally, but our pizza game is a bit weak.

I had one amazing trip to Chicago that turned into a series of friends arguing over which pizza I should have, the eventual answer being "all of them." Every pizza. The correct answer to pizza questions is almost always "all of the above."
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 2:13 PM on February 11, 2021 [4 favorites]


There's nothing as bountiful as a lunchtime all-you-can-eat Pizza Hut buffet, but thankfully you can come close to it by lining up a dozen or so pizza boxes on a folding table and marking each one's contents with a sharpie.

For a while I was commuting regularly past a Market Basket and they had slabs of sheet pizza that they'd kindly heat up and those were oh so delicious when stuck in traffic on I-93 south. The one off Route 128 by the old Polaroid HQ also did great foldable New York slices, but that's too much effort to get to off the highway.

Any list of American Pizza that doesn't include the rectangle grease-bomb slices of pizza served in school cafeterias is missing one of the most American of American pizza experiences.

Ok, here's where I draw the line. Those are not good pizza in any circumstance. They're just slabs of bread topped with congealed cheese that have been re-thermalized in a walk-in convection oven. We must never speak of them.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:17 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


They forgot Buffalo style pizza! Yum. All anyone ever pays attention to are our wings.

Chef John of Food Wishes has not forgotten your pizza.
posted by NoMich at 2:17 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


People are asking me "is crazy bread pizza?" and other questions which are already answered by my shirt
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:19 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


I'm a firm believer that there is no BAD pizza, only degrees of good pizza

I used to believe that too, having had and loved pizzas in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and even Florida and South Carolina. I've enjoyed school cafeteria pizza. Frozen pizzas. I really never thought pizza could be bad ... and then we moved to Oregon.

We have tried every blasted pizza place here in Eugene - every single one that gets brought up every time my wife and I say the pizza out here just isn't very good. Not one of them has risen above "eh, it's not bad," and there are at least two we couldn't finish. It's like pizza chefs out here have heard of pizza, and roughly get the general idea - but either the crust is like stale crackers, the sauce is insipid, the cheese is miserly doled out, or some combination of the three (don't get me started on the weird shit they offer for toppings at some of the "artisanal" places)

I have never in my life thrown out pizza before living in Oregon.

That quote from The Office, about a pizza place that serves up "a hot circle of garbage"? Try one of the most offensive ones out here (Abby's would be my pick) if you don't think it's possible for pizza to be bad. I have very strong opinions about the pizza here in Oregon, and none of the locals seem to get it. It hurts me every day.
posted by DingoMutt at 2:23 PM on February 11, 2021 [10 favorites]


(we have eventually settled on one place that serves the "least bad" pizza for when we want takeout pizza, but otherwise we just make our own - I'm continuing to work on my Chicago and a more New York-ish pizza style and they're getting better each time I try! We supplement this with frozen pizza shipments from Chicago - my wife ordered some for Valentine's Day and they literally arrived an hour ago! - and every time we fire one of those suckers up, we are definitely eating the best pizza in Oregon. Fie on all of you who claim Chicago pizza isn't real pizza - it's only one of many delightful styles, but it deserves the name "pizza" far more than anything I can get out here)

(also I really miss Vincent's pizza from Pittsburgh. And Mineo's. God I love pizza)
posted by DingoMutt at 2:27 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


I'm a firm believer that there is no BAD pizza, only degrees of good pizza

I thought the same while at a food court in Glasgow and was proven wrong. Bad pizza does exist.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:34 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


I always liked Track Town when I lived in Eugene...
posted by Windopaene at 2:36 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


Carillon, on pizza drizzled with honey. In Colorado there is a pizza place in the small mountain town of Idaho Springs. They have honey bear squeeze bottles on the tables, and the idea is to use it on the left over crusts as a sort of desert. The pizzas are deep dish with giant crusts. Maybe that's where the honey drizzle idea comes from. The place has been there at least since the 1970s and was a traditional stop on the way home from skiing. Just an effort to prevent wasting the giant crusts left over from that type of deep dish pizza.
posted by BoscosMom at 2:49 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


Now I'm craving a 2:30AM slice from Lorenzo's on South Street in Philly, an essential stop after stumbling home from the Khyber Pass.

Or an upside down pie.

Or a tomato pie.

Or heck, even a weird Old Forge pizza, served in a shirt box.
posted by medeine at 2:53 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


>>I'm a firm believer that there is no BAD pizza, only degrees of good pizza

>I thought the same while at a food court in Glasgow and was proven wrong. Bad pizza does exist.


Yes, it does. 100%, although it is my deepest wish that nobody reading this ever has to experience it.

30+ years ago, my parents and I were in some random place outside of Boston visiting colleges I believe. We picked the place at random, couldn't even tell you what general area.

What I can tell you is that the pizza arrived and my mom and I took a few bites, looked at each other and put our half-eaten slices back on the plate. This shit was repugnant, the crust was doughy, nay almost spongy, there was very little sauce, the cheese was so oily that lifting up the slice by hand was impossible: it would droop down and filthy pools of grease would drip off it like Satan's tail. It was an abomination against everything good and holy about pizza.

My father, with deep reservoirs of Yankee frugality, proceeded to eat two or three slices as my mother and I stared in awe and disbelief. I believe to this day that each slice took a year off his life, it was that bad.
posted by jeremias at 2:59 PM on February 11, 2021 [4 favorites]


In Colorado there is a pizza place in the small mountain town of Idaho Springs.

This is the original Beau Jo's. There's a few more around the state. Pretty good.
posted by rewil at 3:04 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


I always liked Track Town when I lived in Eugene...

Yeah, we get that a lot. And Pegasus. And Coburg Pizza. And a few others, and each time, we get our hopes up and then end up saying "I mean ... it's not bad..."

Maybe it's something in the water, I dunno. We've lived here over 3 years at this point and have pretty much given up on truly delicious pizza. Weirdly enough I think the best we found was at the restaurant at the Eugene airport, which may or may not still even be there (the restaurant - pretty sure the airport's still there). But at least it's amazingly beautiful out here, and at least it gives us something to really look forward to when (pre-COVID, at least) we visited back east.
posted by DingoMutt at 3:11 PM on February 11, 2021


DingoMutt, Eugene ain't much (I would count Sizzle Pie as good tho) but Portland is a legit fantastic pizza city if you can make the trip. Ottos, Double Mountain, Assembly, Apizza Scholls, Kens Artisan, Babydoll, the list goes on. There is good pizza to be found in Oregon!
posted by TurnKey at 3:17 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


Coincidentally, we had leftover homemade Sicilian-ish pizza tonight.

I love any sort of pizza, though I will say that PizzaKing is hell-spawn demon-feed.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:18 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


I always get the impression that a lot of regional variations are kind of made up, or at least mislabeled. Chicago makes thin crust pizza, but you'd never know it from what people in the rest of the country call "Chicago-style" pizza. Likewise, Americans often use the term "Roman-style" pizza to refer to pizza al taglio (a precooked flatbread snack in rectangular pieces), but Rome should really be credited for its freshly made thin-crust pizze that you get in restaurants: thinner and crisper than Neapolitan, incredibly delicious.
posted by splitpeasoup at 3:24 PM on February 11, 2021


Bad pizza does exist.

Rural Romania, in a bar. Astroturf floor. Pizza composed of thick (3” iirc) pretzel-colored bread, cold green peppers, terrible plastic cheese, and ... and ... ketchup as the sauce. Literal ketchup.

(Bursts into tears at the memory)

Meanwhile, Cambodia? Crazy papad-type crust, microscopic quantities of cheese, thin smear of pulverized tomato, weird local spices, fucking awesome. I ate four in one sitting and I was not high in any way.
posted by aramaic at 3:32 PM on February 11, 2021 [9 favorites]


Here in Sunnyvale, California, there's a large population from India. I don't know how it started--a couple of different pizza restaurants must have made some Indian style for their friends, and it caught on.

However it started, Indian style pizza is now huge here, with a lot of varieties, and it is absolutely delicious!
posted by eye of newt at 3:35 PM on February 11, 2021 [5 favorites]


It is very easy to demolish an entire pie at Marion's Piazza in Dayton when everything is cut into little squares like that. Not my favorite style of pizza (Neapolitan FTW) but it was worth a visit.
posted by emelenjr at 3:42 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


Please fetch my teleportation machine and assemble my loyal henchpeople. I would like one of everything all in one sitting for research and comparison purposes.

No, not slices. Whole pies, please. Yes, one of each, including the frozen ones, the pizza bagels and Totino's. Yes, I do mean also including the jumbo slice pie. How is "one of each" in any way ambiguous or unclear? Look, I know what I'm about. I'm going to need to take a nap somewhere, aren't I?


Over a decade ago we had a MeFi meetup at what must have been one of the original Indian pizza joints in San Francisco and I was dubious at first but I have to admit it was really good.

I remember having some kind of curry/Tandoori chicken pizza that was pretty stellar.

I had some friends visiting me recently and they went to our somewhat famous local pizza joint so we could have an easy dinner sitting around a fire outside and still socially distancing.

Very thoughtfully they decided to bring me my own entire pie. I forgot to warn them that it probably should not be one of their giant XL pizzas. It was just a Hawaiian style with olives but the damn thing probably weighed close to 8 pounds.

Then of course there was the good natured jokes about how I knew what I was having for dinner the next three days and, well...

...that pizza barely even made it to lunch the next day. I took it to bed after they left that night. I used the box as a pillow. I ate the whole damn thing. I just kept waking up and eating more pizza and then passing out again.

Which now that I think about it I haven't had pizza since this night and this is why I want someone to bring me one of every single example in the post.
posted by loquacious at 3:49 PM on February 11, 2021 [7 favorites]


Meanwhile, Cambodia? Crazy papad-type crust, microscopic quantities of cheese, thin smear of pulverized tomato, weird local spices, fucking awesome. I ate four in one sitting and I was not high in any way.

Don't you get high after eating the pizza?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:55 PM on February 11, 2021


Had DC Jumbo slice at a place just up from 19 & L a few times for lunch.
IN PA where I grew up, Best-Way pizza was what I always wanted for special treat when Pizza Hut was 'too expensive'. It's a square pizza with pepperoni and that's it. Center pieces were the best.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 3:59 PM on February 11, 2021


If there is a Grandma region of America, DM coord because I could use a road trip

Sadly, it's just New York.

But if I had to choose just one style of pizza to eat for the rest of my days, it would be the Grandma. Neither too thin nor too thick of crust, splooshes of tomato sauce atop the cheese keeping everything bright, the cheese crisping at the edges, the garlic...yes. NYC has many fine pizza places (shout-out to Sal & Carmine's perfect $3 slice), but the Grandma slice is the enduring classic.
posted by praemunire at 4:02 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


They misspelled New Haven’s apizza and left out that in addition to the clam pie you can have a surprisingly good plain pie which has no mozzarella cheese - the top-notch sauce more than carries it with some Parmesan cheese.

I was going to say well worth the sooty fingerprints but now I’m wondering what climate change will do to the traditional coal ovens.
posted by adamsc at 4:11 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


When I was a kid, there was a Portuguese owned pizza place nearby, and we used to get linguiça pizza there on Fridays. I've never seen another place offer it; I still make it myself from time to time.

Get your ass to California.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 4:16 PM on February 11, 2021


Oh, on the subject of pizza crust smeared with honey, here's a fun and delicious experiment you can try at home:

1) Get as many fresh (ideally) local organic garlic cloves as you can and, obviously, peel them and chop off the woody little nubbin and maybe crush/bruise them a bit to get their sticky funky juices going;

2) Put them all in a clean jar that has a clean lid;

3) Cover the cloves in (ideally) local organic honey, not fake bullshit Mafia honey from the supermarket;

4) Make sure the cloves are COVERED in this honey (none exposed to air), and that there is enough headspace in the jar for lactofermentation gas to build up;

5) Seal the jar and let all of this stuff sit and ferment for at least a week, preferably longer. The honey will become extremely watery as the liquid escapes from the garlic. Burp the jar daily so it doesn't explode.

Result? Delicious garlic honey juice that you brush or drizzle on your pizza crusts (or, hell, anything) in the comfort of your own home. Also the whole cloves. Also you can add chilli flakes to this mix for extra pep (I have not tried it with fresh chillies, but I imagine it would work fine.)

IT IS GOOD.

(This is something I got from Brad Leone on the Bon Appetit YouTubes but I ain't linking to that, they don't deserve the traffic.)
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:17 PM on February 11, 2021 [15 favorites]


Bad pizza does exist.

Flashbacks of travel in New Zealand, circa 1989-90.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 4:18 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


And Lane Splitters. One of the few times i've tossed pizza into the trash. And the night I brought it home, not days later.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 4:21 PM on February 11, 2021




Oo, BoscosMom, now I am thinking about rolling a little secret line of jam into the crust of my next home-made. Shoutout to what I’ve read of Cornish miners’ pastries.

Fig, maybe? Apple butter?
posted by clew at 4:28 PM on February 11, 2021


I had some pizza of the best pizza in my life at a little restaurant run by (I believe) an Albanian family in Newtown, Sydney, Australia back in 1999.

The crust was perfectly charred and bubbly. The amount of cheese was not too much, not too little, and had a sharpness to it I really liked. I'm not sure what sort of sausage they used, but it was crumbled over with good distribution. No tomato sauce, just a smear of pesto. There was rocket involved. That, and a glass of lovely Pinot Grigio. It was all perfectly delicious. I wish I remembered the name of the place. So good that I think about that place almost every time I order a pizza. And it's not as if my neighborhood lacks great pizza joints (a couple of them run by Albanians); there's several, but none of them make that pizza.

I had had not a little trepidation in trying it because of my love for both deep dish and New York styles at the time, but this was a revelation. I was open to different interpretations of pizza after that. I would like very much to go to Napoli and have theirs, which I know of as a Margharita. The Margharita style I've had in NYC has been very good to excellent, but I'd love to try the OG stuff.
posted by droplet at 4:29 PM on February 11, 2021


Glaswegian pizza is a concept without merit.
posted by y2karl at 4:36 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


*enters confessional*

Back when I was a kid with cumbersome, painful braces (which were put on two years earlier than usual so Dad could get a two-kids-for-one deal at the orthodontist, and ended up causing more problems than they ever could have fixed), I developed the habit of eating pizza with a knife and fork. Even the New Yorkiest New York style. And... I never really got out of it.

Also, when I was growing up in Western New York, it was all the rage to dunk your pizza in bleu cheese dressing. Probably because pizza and wings were usually served together. I tried it once, and, just, no.

There was one bunch of kids who came in the pizza place where I worked, who always ordered pizza with cups of mayonnaise in the side. Also, no.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:38 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


Man, I've been having such a jones for tavern-style pizza lately. And the REAL debate that needs to be had is not Chicago vs. New York, but when you get a tavern-style pizza, do you pick corner, edge, or middle? (CORNERS ALL THE WAY BABY)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:40 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


This is the original Beau Jo's. There's a few more around the state. Pretty good

I mean, that's the Colorado Pizza example in the article. Their pizza keeps popping up as a regional style, but I don't think anywhere BUT Beau Jo's makes pizza like theirs, so it's really just that one (fairly popular) pizza place's style. It's like calling the old plate-sized Red Top burgers "Colorado Burgers".

That said, honey for the crust does seem to have caught on a little more.
posted by Gygesringtone at 4:45 PM on February 11, 2021


Breakfast Pizza is a kind of pizza the way Satanism is a kind of Christianity.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:48 PM on February 11, 2021 [8 favorites]


Tavern style pizza in Chicago has always reminded me of elementary school cafeteria pizza, but in a good way.

My heart belongs to Detroit style. Ideally with a side of Greek salad (that has beets). But tavern style has the advantage of being less able to cause a food coma.
posted by ghost phoneme at 4:59 PM on February 11, 2021


I'm a firm believer that there is no BAD pizza, only degrees of good pizza

Yeah, well, this is objectively false, but only because human being are the planet's biggest monsters.

Dominos once delivered to me my neighbor's order, which was:

Thin crust
Ultra well done (so, the crust was basically black)
No cheese
Buffalo Chicken Wing sause
Pepperonis.

When I opened the box, I immediately called up my store to basically scream at them for literally being the most incompetent pizza makers that have ever lived, but before I got a few words in they told me my neighbor (who got my mushroom and sausage pan pizza) had already called them about getting the wrong order, and my correct pizza was already en route. They said that I was welcome to just keep my current one, since my neighbor also had a new one on the way.

Well, I literally could not even chew it. Even the mouth feel was extremely terrible. I didn't even swallow the one bite, it was that bad. I had it throw it out in the outside trashcan because even just the sauce fumes were burning my eyes because they was so much of it.

So yeah, bad pizza definitely exists, but only because of bad people.
posted by sideshow at 5:01 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


OK, I realize most of my comments were disparaging. So let me kvell a bit about pizza here in San Francisco from Goat Hill in Potrero Hill. It's a neighborhood place that gives out those little 'buy 10 pizzas and get one free' punch cards. I think I must have earned at least three free pizzas when that was my local option. Plus they used to have (pre-C19?) one night a week where if you dined in, you could have 'all you could eat' for a fixed price. Great for families with young kids. Not a buffet: servers brought slices out to the table

What made it such a repeatable treat for me is that they a) had great (sour) dough that formed a very bubbly crust and b) you could ask for a 'dark bake' which ensured the bottom was given some extra time on the bottom of the oven. Rarely do I eat the ends of my slices on a round pie, but nothing was left after finishing one of their pizzas.

Damn I miss me some Goat Hill.

P.S. Default order: sausage, black olive, sun dried tomato.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 5:10 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


What region came up with None Pizza with Left Beef?
posted by wabbittwax at 5:11 PM on February 11, 2021 [6 favorites]


Another day I'm glad I live in Albany's pizza district.
posted by mikelieman at 5:13 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


If you've got the usual baking supplies and a cast iron pan, this King Arthur Flour recipe for a crispy, cheesy pan pizza is stupidly good. I've been making it whenever I've found bog-standard pizza mozarella on sale.

splooshes of tomato sauce atop the cheese keeping everything bright

Ah yes! The thing this recipe emphasizes is forming a serious base layer of cheese before dolloping on sauce so the middle of the dough doesn't end up soggy. Works really well, and I don't need much convincing to grate up a ton of cheese for a generous base layer.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:16 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


With the Quincy talk I'm surprised no one has brought up the Doughboys. Recent episode was a bar pizza tour of the south shore.
posted by kittensofthenight at 5:16 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


Carillon, on pizza drizzled with honey. In Colorado there is a pizza place in the small mountain town of Idaho Springs. They have honey bear squeeze bottles on the tables, and the idea is to use it on the left over crusts as a sort of desert. The pizzas are deep dish with giant crusts. Maybe that's where the honey drizzle idea comes from. The place has been there at least since the 1970s and was a traditional stop on the way home from skiing. Just an effort to prevent wasting the giant crusts left over from that type of deep dish pizza.

Yeah I do like the custom, it's not bad, but it's weird how it's marketed as a Chicago thing at these places, when to my knowledge it isn't.
posted by Carillon at 5:18 PM on February 11, 2021


I'm a firm believer that there is no BAD pizza

Then I invite you to lunch at my elementary school in suburban Washington DC. In the early 1960s, before people there really knew what pizza was, apparently. Or at least, the cafeteria cooks - how else to explain the concoction they served up, labeled 'pizza' on the weekly Mimeographed menu - squares of flat, baked dough (Bisquik was a rumored source) topped with ground beef and American cheese. With no tomato anything. Enjoy!
posted by Rash at 5:20 PM on February 11, 2021 [4 favorites]


I've had a few bad pizzas but way more mediocre ones.

Most of the photos in the link looked pretty tasty, though a few definitely didn't.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:26 PM on February 11, 2021


Honey on pizza is definitely available in Chicago, including at the branch of Paulie Gee’s in Logan Square (where BTW the author of the linked article, who I know, until recently used to work). Another place called Reno in Logan Square also had it. In both instances, I believe we’re talking about “Mike’s hot honey” with chili pepper in it. And of course Paulie Gee’s is a Brooklyn original. So honey on pizza is kind of a Chicago thing, but kind of not.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 5:27 PM on February 11, 2021


Mike’s Hot Honey for drizzling on your pizza.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 5:33 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


“ CORNERS ALL THE WAY BABY”

This is both true and false. False, because the corners just aren’t as good. But true, because one of my absolute favorite family traditions is to eat the corners first.

My mom lives around the corner from two square cut pizza places (Donato’s and Cassano’s, if anyone’s interested, and I know at least one MeFite is interested in the latter). Consequently, we never ordered delivery, because we could walk to pick it up. Around the time I turned 13, I was deemed old enough to go pick it up by myself. In between our house and the pizza places, there was an insurance agency with a picnic table for its employee break area. So what I’d do was, I’d pick up the pizza and then stop at the picnic table on the way back. I’d eat a corner piece and then shut the box back up as it came and then walk the rest of the way home. Then, at home, I’d make a big show out of opening the box theatrically, only to look crestfallen as I would exclaim that “they didn’t give us all our pizza!” My little sister would get mad until my mom would explain that I actually ate a piece already. I’m 40 now, and when I go home to visit, I still order carry out pizza for this reason. And my sister still gets mad, although I think now it’s more that she’s mad I’ve been making the same bad joke for almost three decades. I actually do this when I make frozen pizza at home, even, but my kids don’t really understand. That just makes it funnier.

So yeah, corners first, absolutely.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:36 PM on February 11, 2021 [7 favorites]


Another day I'm glad I live in Albany's pizza district.

Steamed ham pizza is more of a Utica thing.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:47 PM on February 11, 2021 [4 favorites]


My mom lives around the corner from two square cut pizza places (Donato’s and Cassano’s, if anyone’s interested, and I know at least one MeFite is interested in the latter)

shoutout to Johnny Infusino whose family owned Infusino's Pizza in Racine from which my family picked up a square-cut sausage mushroom pie at least twice a week & whom my dad kept telling me I should marry because we went to the same middle school (and never spoke)

corner slices all the way
posted by taquito sunrise at 5:55 PM on February 11, 2021 [4 favorites]


For regional styles they didn't include, there's this pizza I see served in NYC that I've never seen served anywhere else, spinach artichoke pizza. It's not chopped spinach and artichokes like one might expect, it's basically a pizza covered in spinach and artichoke dip. A bunch of my friends love it though I'm not sure I get the appeal, maybe when extremely drunk?
posted by Emily's Fist at 6:02 PM on February 11, 2021


I once spent a month in Lithuania, and the closest source of food to where we were staying was Charlie Pizza, no 's, just Charlie Pizza. While we were there they had some sort of special limited edition pizzas that were US themed. Some of them were at least in the right general direction, like the New Mexico one was vaguely Tex Mex. But then there was, for example, the Illinois, with *checks notes* cubed boiled ham, peppers, and mango. And I don't seem to have a photo of it, but I'm pretty sure the Missouri involved salmon.

So, one more to add to the pile of counterevidence for "if it's pizza, it's good."

(But, to redeem Central/Eastern Europe, zapiekanka are an excellent midnight drunken pizza-adjacent snack.)
posted by damayanti at 6:08 PM on February 11, 2021


I will say that New England Greek Pizza wins not just because it's delicious but also because you get it at a 'house of pizza'.

My favorite New Hampshire factoid is that there are more X House of Pizzas than towns in the state. My town had two until recently, one with the town name, and other with the county name.
posted by damayanti at 6:11 PM on February 11, 2021


I wish someone would do this for Canada

Takeout did an article about the Windsor pizza (ha not the same as the good stuff in Sarnia (or Sault St. Marie for that matter) though... my favourite place, not strictly a pizza place, is Salvatore's Trattoria E Ristoranté [yeah I know... Port Edward but only Sarnians split that hair]). And wiki does have our back a bit with shout outs to the Hawaiian-style, the Canadian / pizza québécoise, garlic fingers, poutine pizza, Pictou County Pizza and Pizza-ghetti. Though no mention of the Hamilton tomato pie pizza or any of our Indian or Vietnamese pizza styles.
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:12 PM on February 11, 2021 [4 favorites]


pizza covered in spinach and artichoke dip

"If it was good in hot dish, try it on pizza!"

... okay, I’ll try a slice.
posted by clew at 6:19 PM on February 11, 2021


My husband is from Brockton, MA, so he introduced me to bar pizza. Our market sells Cape Cod Cafe frozen ones that are great on the grill.
I grew up in the woods of RI, so I certainly had my fill of pizza strips, but my local Friday night place was a mysterious dive in the middle of a forest right over the CT line that served a pie with spaghetti and pepperoncini on it.
Now we are surrounded by Greek style places that also serve grinders as big as your head.
posted by Biblio at 6:23 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


Moving from the Northeast to the Midwest is basically a descent into pizza hell from Pizza heaven. Watching Midwesterners defend gross tavern cut cracker pies is one of the greatest travesties of living in middle America.
posted by Ferreous at 6:29 PM on February 11, 2021 [9 favorites]


They also omitted the classic stoned broke student pizza: a slice of bread covered in Taco Bell hot sauce, anything found in the fridge, and topped with a slice of packaged American cheese.

You can bake this in the oven with naan/flatbread, olive oil & garlic, salsa, any cheese: it can taste pretty good.

...the Hawaiian-style,

Canada reprazent.
posted by ovvl at 6:52 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


I moved from Chicago to St. Louis years ago, and it has taken me some time to grok IMO’s Pizza. A couple years ago, it dawned on me: St. Louis-style pizza is the opposite of Chicago deep-dish done out of spite. There is legitimately good pizza in STL (Pi Pizza, and Pointer’s in Richmond Heights come to mind), but for me, IMO’s and its relations are not in that category.

That being said, I think IMO’s should sue whomever is in Dayton, as their pizza style looks nearly identical. I don’t think there should be a contest between the two locations, as that would get into Alien vs Predator territory for me, but some form of restitution is due.
posted by stannate at 7:01 PM on February 11, 2021


they're good pizzas, brent
posted by loquacious at 7:19 PM on February 11, 2021 [10 favorites]


pizza covered in spinach and artichoke dip

"If it was good in hot dish, try it on pizza!"


I mean, if it goes well on bread or crackers, it'd probably go well most versions of pizza crust, if we allow our definitions of pizza to basically be pizza crust with something on top.

I tend not to think of styles of pizza as being inherently bad. Some styles are going to be easier to render unpalatable (to most people), of course. But I can imagine a decent version of the buffalo sauce pizza sideshow was exposed to.
posted by ghost phoneme at 7:21 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


They missed dessert pizza.

If breakfast pizza gets included, no way should dessert pizza be left off.
posted by meese at 7:25 PM on February 11, 2021 [6 favorites]


You go to IMO’s for toasted ravioli and ridiculous salads and good lunch specials. Their pizza is pretty heinous, and provel...provel is...well.
posted by hototogisu at 7:25 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


Dayton pizza is wretched. I grew up there, and it's usually just like ground beef and a lot of cheese on a crackery salty crust. Decent if you drink a lot of beer, but not good pizza.

Syracuse, NY seemed to have its own style of pizza, verging toward Sicilian but not quite there. Rectangular and greasy with lots of sauce. Interesting and better than Dayton pizza.

St Louis pizza is an abomination. It seriously makes Dayton pizza seem like great pizza. It's wet and waxy and not foodlike. Not even worth trying to say you've tried it. Trust me.

I miss living in New York. There was plenty of bad pizza there, to be sure. But the good pizza was SO good. Giardini's in Carroll Gardens was my favorite.
posted by rikschell at 7:28 PM on February 11, 2021


Pointer’s in Richmond Heights
What? No. Just...no. Pointer's was the shit the Campus Programming Council bought in bulk, because they could. About as flavorful as sucking on your own feet after a shower.

You want good pizza but don't like St. Louis style? (I grew up two blocks from an Imo's, so I'm biased. But will admit the possibility it's an acquired taste.) Try Onesto for Neapolitan style. Or Bono's for a delicious gut-bomb.
posted by notsnot at 7:32 PM on February 11, 2021


They missed 99¢ Fresh Pizza – the almost-NY-style pizza available from eight tiny Manhattan shops. It's cooked in pizza ovens, but on mesh trays, so the airy crust is almost waffled, and never burnt. The ingredients are obviously cheap, but they sell it so fast that it's always right out of the oven and, taken on its own terms, perfect.
posted by nicwolff at 7:56 PM on February 11, 2021


Ashwagandha: Takeout did an article about the Windsor pizza

I used to live a very short walk from Sam's! It was an old-school family joint that they renovated quite nicely in the mid-90s, and I can attest that Sam's pizza was pretty darn good, and it sounds like they haven't changed it:

“Windsor style pizza is the only style pizza we make,” says Ralph Mattano, owner of Sam’s Pizzeria and Cantina, which can lay a claim to being Windsor’s oldest Italian restaurant. “We wouldn’t try to push anything else. If it ain’t broke, we’re not going to try to fix it.”

Cortina Pizza in Sudbury is fairly legendary, too. Again, large Italian immigrant population there as well. My Finnish grandparents who lived there pronounced it "Cort-tin-ah."

[yeah I know... Port Edward but only Sarnians split that hair]

*glares in Sarnian*

Point Edward! :)

The Card Cheat's comment above stands.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:02 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


I am happy that my childhood's style is represented: Ohio Valley. The contrast of the cold cheese with the hot crispy bread and sauce is very nice.
posted by mmascolino at 8:29 PM on February 11, 2021


Yes, St. Louis style (aka Imo's) is a style all right. It's sort of the MAGA of pizzas. Inferiority and resentment baked on a saltine crust. I could never figure out if its patrons were sincere, or engaging in a big, spiteful, "fuck you" to the world.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:35 PM on February 11, 2021 [8 favorites]


I am happy that my childhood's style is represented: Ohio Valley. The contrast of the cold cheese with the hot crispy bread and sauce is very nice.

That was one of a couple of the slides where I wondered if what they were showing was really a thing. I'd certainly be willing to try it, but I'd also wonder if someone was playing a joke on me.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:43 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


i like st. louis pizza, without shame or reservation. not my fave, still yum.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:03 PM on February 11, 2021


Do you have a differentiating word for pepperoni styles?
The little ones, that go in the oven and dry out and curl up like a dropped contact lens, forming a cup with a browned crispy rim and a little drop of hot spiced oil at the bottom? I call those 'Greek' pepperoni, since the pizzeria run by a Greek family was the only one around who used them growing up. (If there are still pineapple on pizza skeptics, Greek pepperoni and pineapple bits will change your mind)
posted by bartleby at 9:18 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


there is no BAD pizza

OK, Swedish pizza clearly doesn't belong on this list of American regional styles, but the only way it's even half palatable is to not even consider what one is eating as actual pizza. Pizza adjacent is an excellent term.

But the best pizza-adjacent snack? Lombardian panzerotti, like a deep fried Italian-seasoned pirog. Let the steam out and cool after the first small bite, or be prepared to scorch your mouth into oblivion.
posted by St. Oops at 10:09 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


Roni cups.
posted by praemunire at 10:28 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


I'll just preface this by saying that I made a homemade pie on a baking steel for when Dr. indexy got home from work today to test out both the new baking steel and using OO flour instead of bread flour [result: tasty! And I like how much more workable the OO flour was than using bread flour, but baking steels take a l.o.n.g. time to pre-heat and I was too impatient so the bottom crust didn't bake as much as I wanted]
Anyway, I have to agree that if you're cataloging American styles that school cafeteria pizza has to be its own thing, since so many of us grew up with it. As someone who has odd nostalgia about school cafeteria pizza, is there a way to actually order that institutional variant for the home cook?
posted by indexy at 10:30 PM on February 11, 2021


Regarding cupped pepperoni: The Food Lab: Why Does Pepperoni Curl?
I like both flat and cupped, and Boar's Head pepperoni sticks seem to be widely available if you'd like to experiment with this at home. I also love the Cincinnati / Adriatico's style which uses the large sandwich style pepperoni on their rectangular square cut pizzas, one big piece per square.
posted by indexy at 10:46 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


Here in Sunnyvale, California, there's a large population from India. I don't know how it started--a couple of different pizza restaurants must have made some Indian style for their friends, and it caught on.
That would be Zante's Pizza and Indian Food in San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood that started the trend. It is really good.
posted by kdar at 11:07 PM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


Been watching a lot of YouTube cooking videos lately, and this fellow in Azerbaijan has a couple of interesting (I mean, WTF is up with that crust?!?) variations.
And then there's this thing in Lahore, Pakistan which looks amazing, but is it even pizza?
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 11:19 PM on February 11, 2021


Also, I've lived in California almost my entire life, and in that half century, I've never heard of this "California style" pizza. Dafuq??
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 11:21 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


FOR A GOOD TIME
google image search for Pizza Alignment Chart. Whether you're a fan of the D&D-esque Lawful Evil/True Neutral/Chaotic Good pattern, or the more technical Ingredient Purist/Structural Rebel array, you'll find a chuckle or two.
posted by bartleby at 11:53 PM on February 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


I don't recognize that "California-style" pizza either, but here in the Bay Area we have Cheese Board-style pizza, which while distinctive is not worlds apart from a good New York slice. It has a thin chewy sourdough crust, unusual but good combinations of toppings (like corn, poblano peppers and feta), chopped herbs and garlic oil, and it usually comes with an extra sliver. Most of the places that serve it only make one kind each day, which is fine because it's always good. Except when they put kale on it.
posted by aws17576 at 1:10 AM on February 12, 2021 [3 favorites]


OK, Swedish pizza clearly doesn't belong on this list of American regional styles

The dough can be tricky.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:23 AM on February 12, 2021 [4 favorites]


. I ate four in one sitting and I was not high in any way.

That was not my experience eating pizza in Cambodia. Happy Herb's was the place's name, and it delivered on it's promise if you ask to "make it happy."

But an edible high at midnight in a third-world country is about as intense as it gets in my book.
posted by zardoz at 2:39 AM on February 12, 2021


My husband is from Brockton, MA, so he introduced me to bar pizza.

Yes. Christo's has the best bar pizza. I've never been to Cape Cod Cafe or Emma's, but those vacuum sealed frozen pizzas of theirs that they sell at the supermarket are also tasty.

Roni cups.

Surprisingly I never encountered pepperoni cups until I was having a slice in Pittsburgh near the convention center. They looked vaguely Lovecraftian.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:30 AM on February 12, 2021


St Louis pizza is an abomination. It seriously makes Dayton pizza seem like great pizza. It's wet and waxy and not foodlike. Not even worth trying to say you've tried it. Trust me.

Can confirm. When I first moved here I quickly learned which pizza places to avoid and that nothing with Provel on it is edible. National chains are safe and Pi Pizzeria is excellent though.

But a couple of years ago, my sister-in-law during a visit insisted on trying it because she heard it was so bad -- and I learned something new. Put Imo's cheese pizza slice in the fridge, and the next day the top and bottom are indistinguishable by sight or touch. Or probably taste, but I wasn't willing to risk that.
posted by Foosnark at 5:10 AM on February 12, 2021 [3 favorites]


Cup and char pepperoni is the only acceptable pepperoni in Buffalo. It makes a Buffalo style pizza what it is.

This article explores the topic.

Ask one of the some 260,000 pizza-loving citizens of the Nickel City, and they’ll likely say, ‘Yes.’ Or just ask Buffalo’s foremost pizza expert, anonymous pizza reviewer Sexy Slices who was recently profiled by The Buffalo News. “I absolutely think it should be called ‘Buffalo-style pepperoni,’” he told The Sauce. “And apparently, Battistoni Meats does too as evidenced by their website.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” you’re saying. “Cupping pepperoni? Buffalo-style? Doesn’t that mean hot sauce? Battistoni?”

One thing at a time:

Cupping Pepperoni — For the uninitiated, as The Wall Street Journal laid out, cupping pepperoni is pepperoni as it was first invented. Natural casings (animal intestines) were stuffed with ground meat, fat, and flavor agents, then left on when the finished product was sliced. When the pepperoni slices cook, the casing contracts and chars, causing them to curl and cup beautiful little pools of spicy oil. But manufacturers sought production efficiencies after World War II, and purveyors switched to paper-like casings removed before slicing. While cooking, these casing-free slices remained flat.

Buffalo-style — If you’re unfamiliar with the pizza of Western New York, the term has nothing to do with wings or hot sauce. Buffalo is known for having a style of pizza that’s thick yet fluffy and airy, covered with a tomato paste-based sauce, more cheese than you can believe, and copious cup-and-char pepperoni, so much that it’s often piled on and over the crust.

Battistoni — Battistoni is one of the more well-known pepperoni brands, one that’s based in Buffalo but used by pizzerias across the country. And Sexy Slices is right, if you check out their pepperoni page, they call the cupping pepperoni that’s become popular in New York City and has been catching on across America, “Cup & Char ‘Buffalo Style’ Pepperoni.”

posted by RobinofFrocksley at 5:52 AM on February 12, 2021 [2 favorites]


ALMOST EVERYONE I know who lives in Chicago only has deep dish pizza like once every 5 years. Chicago eats mostly thin crust pizza, cut like our streets, in a grid. It is one the most annoying tropes/cliches? about our city's food, to me. Deep dish isn't that common here, it's definitely NOT the standard pizza "style."

Also if you come here wanting to try it, get "stuffed pizza" instead, preferably with giardinera in it.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:07 AM on February 12, 2021 [7 favorites]


I like that, "in a grid like our streets". Gonna steal that from you.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:35 AM on February 12, 2021 [3 favorites]


Those personal pizzas they serve at Amato's are also very tasty. I always grab one when I'm at the food court in the Maine Mall near Portland.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:02 AM on February 12, 2021


Chicagoans don't usually order deep dish because we don't want to wait 90 minutes for it to be done (and then wait another 45 for delivery) Nick and Vito's can slap out a pub-cut classic in 10, but you gotta pick it up in person. And cash only, please.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:06 AM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


Dayton pizza is wretched.

I will fight you.

When I head down that way I get a Marion's pizza, eat it there and then get a second one to bring back home to Toledo. I'd pay for deliver from two hours away to get some if I could.
posted by charred husk at 7:11 AM on February 12, 2021


While I respect the VPN's strict requirements around Neapolitan Pizza, I am absolutely here for people who want to break the bounds of what pizza can be. NO GODS NO MASTERS ONLY PIZZA.

That said, having been raised on New England Greek pizza and bar pizzas with a bit of deep dish added here and there, I get a bit skeptical for my own tastes when things stray too far from the basics. Some of these other things are tasty, but don't quite sate the craving. It was a major event in this house when our usual pizza joint went from our favorite bar-pizza-style pizza to something more neoneapolitan - phone calls were made and opinions were shared, and apparently ours wasn't the only one as they changed back a few months later. I mean, dude, at least WARN US ON THE MENU when you're making a change that big.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:26 AM on February 12, 2021


"California-style" pizza

Wolfgang Puck?
posted by mikelieman at 7:37 AM on February 12, 2021


I'm a firm believer that there is no BAD pizza

Glasgow chip shop pizza: take one of those generic frozen pizzas, the kind you get in a stack from freezer shops with cardboard interleaving the food objects. Ensure you don't accidentally fry the cardboard (it would likely taste better). Dunk pizza-like item briefly in fryer until it's pliable. Fold and dredge pizza-alike through batter. Deep fry until crispy and golden. Serve with chips; salt and vinegar to taste.

That may be good food, but — objectively — it's terrible pizza. It might be good with Halifax (NS) donair sauce: sweet condensed milk, white vinegar, garlic powder.
posted by scruss at 7:39 AM on February 12, 2021 [3 favorites]


There was one bunch of kids who came in the pizza place where I worked, who always ordered pizza with cups of mayonnaise in the side. Also, no.

I grew up close to the border, Mexicans/Mexican-Americans always slathered mayo on pizza.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:40 AM on February 12, 2021


Also, I've lived in California almost my entire life, and in that half century, I've never heard of this "California style" pizza. Dafuq??

Fish have never heard of the ocean, either.

(I kid, but in my mind, at least, "California style" pizza is just a laissez-faire attitude toward what goes on top of the dough and in what proportions. You want pizza with like, hummus and sprouts? Or BBQ sauce and chicken? Avocado? No problem.)
posted by uncleozzy at 7:41 AM on February 12, 2021


aws17576, where would I go to try one of these Cheese Board-style pizzas?
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 7:43 AM on February 12, 2021


Also, I've lived in California almost my entire life, and in that half century, I've never heard of this "California style" pizza. Dafuq??

There is this chain restaurant called California Pizza Kitchen, which they have in California, which is at least as popular as regional north eastern styles, and though its menu has normalized it used to have pretty crazy pizza variations.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:47 AM on February 12, 2021


aws17576, where would I go to try one of these Cheese Board-style pizzas?

If you don't live near the Bay Area (or have a particularly entrepreneurial cheese shop/bakery near you), you might have to make it yourself. For inspiration, here is a daily schedule. Use a sourdough base and aim for the basic thickness (or rather, thinness) of the NY crust, then be open to using slightly fancy cheeses and non-tomato produce. And undersalt -- for some reason, the Cheese Board folks never add enough.
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:37 AM on February 12, 2021


Here's something Alan Richman wrote about pizza when doing a big roundup of American pizza that resonated with me:
I know what you’re thinking: You didn’t visit my favorite pizzeria. You missed the best. I was forced to be merciless about this, because everybody I know has one of those, and everybody believes his is unsurpassed. In essence, a beloved pizzeria is almost always about memories. From friends I heard such claims as “Taking the first bite is to know perfection”…“Every bite is a party in your mouth”…“It has Italian authenticity”…“It is blissful in its crunchiness and perfect chew”… And so it went. There is no way of dealing with such devotion, so I decided to answer all demands that I visit an adored pizzeria with the same irrefutable (if unjust) reply: “No, I am not going to your pizzeria. Your pizzeria is no good.” In fact, on the few occasions when I was so badgered by a friend that I went to one of them, it was no good. Not one prepared a commendable crust.
I've traveled fairly extensively, have consumed countless pizza slices, written about pizza, been interviewed about pizza and even at one time organized group visits to some of NYC's most prominent pizzerie. Here's the thing: Richman is right. The vast majority of pizza available in the US is mediocre, and plenty of it is objectively terrible. Even the epicenter of American pizza, New York City, has plenty of so-so pizza. If the "average pizza" is better in NYC than it is in most other places in the US, it's because the ubiquity of a pizzeria on every corner means that those below par won't remain viable businesses for long. Even there, however, the scourge of $1 slice shops is bringing down the level.

But this is really only the case when evaluating the pizza "on the merits," as it were. As Richman points out, one's love of local pizza or a local pizzeria is primarily informed by memories. I'd also throw in frame of reference as -- I hate to say this, but it's true -- many people simply have never had access to pizza of any quality. That said, in my experience good and even exceptional pizza can be found in plenty of unexpected American cities and regions, although mediocre-to-bad is the most common range. That's okay, Hey, I've enjoyed plenty of unexceptional pizza in my day. Bad pizza? Life is too short. Luckily for those living in areas that have no decent pizza, it's really not difficult at all to make pizza at home that's better than 90% of what's sold in American pizzerie.
posted by slkinsey at 8:38 AM on February 12, 2021 [5 favorites]


Roni cups.

If you ask for "mo' roni," is it a Salt Lake City-style pizza?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:47 AM on February 12, 2021 [3 favorites]


Based on this thread I looked for pizza strips at Stop and Shop this morning but they were out. Just as well, the superior strips are at Crugnale Bakery right down the street from my work, so I can pick some up tomorrow. They also have spinach pies, which are RI pizza adjacent.
posted by Biblio at 9:08 AM on February 12, 2021


aws17576, where would I go to try one of these Cheese Board-style pizzas?

If you're in the Bay Area, the places I know about are Cheese Board (Berkeley), Nabolom (Berkeley), Arizmendi (SF/Oakland/Emeryville/San Rafael), Dimond Slice (Oakland), and Sliver (Berkeley/Oakland).
posted by aws17576 at 9:16 AM on February 12, 2021 [2 favorites]


Also, I've lived in California almost my entire life, and in that half century, I've never heard of this "California style" pizza. Dafuq??

That is your problem, it is only after you move far from california that you realize it is not usual to find pizzas like one of my guilty pleasures in San Francisco: Homemade pesto sauce, roasted potatoes, caramelized onions, feta, fresh basil, oregano and mozzarella.

Luckily I live in a place were people don't give a fuck about purity. I can walk to a place that makes excellent margheritas in a proper wood oven, with the bubbly and charred crust and real mozarella di bufala flown in every week, the owner apprenticed for a decade in Italy, but they also make surprisingly good strawberry, herbs and chicken pizza and a very spicy homemade kimchi and ribs pie.
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:24 AM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


The midwest version of california pizza is doing the components of a different fast food meal on a pizza. I never saw a hamburger pizza until I lived in Indiana. It had fucking ketchup and american cheese. There is in fact bad pizza, there's a lot more of it than good pizza.
posted by Ferreous at 9:30 AM on February 12, 2021


I've been pondering and wondering how long it would actually take me to eat one slice or one whole pizza of each kind as mentioned either in the thread and/or the FPP.

Even just sticking to the basics without going into the endless variations of toppings on any given kind of pizza we have to be up to at least 30-ish distinctly recognizable kinds of pizza, if not much more.

Depending on the size of said pizzas that could be about a pizza or two a day for a month or two. Every day, perhaps even breakfast, lunch and dinner.

We haven't even really gone international or global yet. There's a bunch of really wild pizzas out there in Asia and SEA in particular, and I'm not just talking about Japan's interesting takes with the canned corn or squid ink and whatnot. There's also the fast food pizza chains in Taiwain and Malaysia that do crazy that stuff like cheeseburger or hotwing crust pizzas.

While this is mostly a ridiculous thought exercise in scale, not to mention logistics, I'm kind of in to it this idea of a US or global pizza tour and I think my general mental and physical constitution might be up for the task.
posted by loquacious at 9:34 AM on February 12, 2021


I've been underwhelmed by many generic pizza places in the DC region, which was also true in the Bay Area (I also have favorite spots in both, and was certainly never above wolfing down a fat slice). But actually I've had kinda 'meh' pizza in Italy and New York too. It's almost as though there's some skill involved in making a really good pie that transcends regional stereotypes.

Now regional variants on "chili" on the other hand, don't get me started.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:52 AM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


charred husk, I will take that fight. I maintain that what you are tasting at Marion's is not pizza, but nostalgia (either that, or your taste buds are just fucked up). Maybe it's where you went for pizza parties after little league games, or where you had your first beer, or you're just into the retro indoor/outdoor decor and ancient celebrity photos. I don't know. But I do know the pizza is bland, even for Dayton pizza. It seems oxymoronic to call something "extremely bland," but that's Marion's pizza. It's very reminiscent of grade-school lunch pizza, but worse somehow.

That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't enjoy it. I like watching bad movies sometimes: bad things can be enjoyable. But calling it good pizza is an insult to all that is good and holy in this world.
posted by rikschell at 9:52 AM on February 12, 2021


What? No. Just...no. Pointer's was the shit the Campus Programming Council bought in bulk, because they could. About as flavorful as sucking on your own feet after a shower.

I used to live a couple blocks from Pointer's, and their pizza reminded me of what I used to get in and around Chicago, but in a good way. I didn't mention Dewey's, as they are an Ohio-based chain with lots of outlets throughout STL, but their specialty pizzas have always been a favorite of mine.

As far as Chicago goes, I still miss Pizza Bubamara, even though they were last open during the era of Bush the Younger.
posted by stannate at 10:03 AM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


Oh man, I ate at Dewey's kind of a lot when I lived in STL.
posted by kevinbelt at 10:29 AM on February 12, 2021 [2 favorites]


Interesting regional list.

Surprisingly, some of the best pizza I ever had was from Oliva in Amman, Jordan.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 10:29 AM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


I will take that fight. I maintain that what you are tasting at Marion's is not pizza, but nostalgia (either that, or your taste buds are just fucked up)

I know a couple super tasters who really dig bland.

But also, they're all good doggos, Brent.

The best pizza is the one you enjoy.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:57 AM on February 12, 2021 [2 favorites]


Dewey's is the best pizza-not-a-pizza around. I don't like their basic cheese/sauce/pepperoni/whatever the traditional toppings are pizzas but their other pizzas? YES PLEASE. Especially the ones that don't use red sauce. Caprice, Dr. Dre, and Ryan's Inferno I'm looking at you.

Fun fact: my daughter went to high school with the daughter of the founder of Dewey's. That class got lots of free pizzas for their extra-curricular stuff like theatre practice and basketball pep rallies.
posted by cooker girl at 11:39 AM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


They missed the pizza-adjacent scacciata, and for that they should feel great shame.

They stated that a difference between calzone and stromboli is that there is no sauce in stromboli. That would be a similarity between them, not a difference.

The only times I have ever had a bad pizza was when the sauce is sweet. Small town pizza can be awesome or it can be swill. The level of quality or adherence to a preferred style is irrelevant.
We used to go to Lou-igi's in rural NM. Lou would shut down the auto-repair place at about 3 PM and start making pizzas in the adjacent and connected kitchen. The local school girls would come in and play "Hey Baby, Que Paso" over and over and over. The pizza was great, if with a hint of motor-oil. The sauce was strong with the flavors of garlic and oregano. The dough was fresh and the pizza was cooked perfectly.
In a place in a small town on the NC/VA border with a little more dedication to the craft of pizza-making, a place a mere mile away from some of the best Mexican food I have had in the States (a Mexican place connected to a burned out motel . . . so weird, so good) I had some of the worst pizza of my life. The sauce could have been used as a desert sauce. The cheese was barely melted. The crust was bready. The pizza place was jumping with activity from seemingly every person in town. Bad pizza exists. It is not rare for the bad pizza to also be the popular pizza.

Did anyone see the Ohio Pizza place, in Damascus, Syria, that's been going around lately? They have a picture of a pizza covered with corn and I wonder how it tastes. They serve American-style pizza filtered through another lens. I'm game.
posted by Seamus at 12:12 PM on February 12, 2021


But I do know the pizza is bland, even for Dayton pizza. It seems oxymoronic to call something "extremely bland," but that's Marion's pizza.

It's probably worth noting that "bland" is very much influenced by habit and experience. There are definitely areas of the US that seem to prefer a flavor profile that strikes me as quite bland. But I think it probably doesn't seem bland to many of the people there who, by the same token, may likely find the flavor profile I like to be overly salty, spicy, etc. In this I'm reminded of the old Calabrian practice of bringing a little box of dried chilis when traveling to make sure the food didn't taste "bland." They perceived low levels of spicy heat as an "absence" the same way I might perceive low levels of salt.
posted by slkinsey at 12:50 PM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


#1 pizza for me if filtered through nostalgia is Pinocchio's in Cambridge MA. I had no idea that Sicilian style pizza existed until that place and it was a revelation. I've not lived in the right cities for Sicilian style pizza in the last 15 years (Seoul, Honolulu) but now that I live in LA County, this post has reminded me that there must be some options that I can hunt down on my day off.
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:51 PM on February 12, 2021


My only memory of Pinocchio's is that it was insanely greasy.

(I usually went to Tommy's, which was actually okay-ish New York-style with a sesame seed edge. I am right now, in fact, drinking water from a 20+-year-old Tommy's refillable mug.)
posted by uncleozzy at 1:25 PM on February 12, 2021


Also in Pizza-adjacent, there's a pizza parlour in East Toronto that (well, makes generic pizza) but also offers an intriguing Turkish(?) flatbread bruschetta-ish dish topped with aubergines and things like that. It's like pizza, but not quite pizza.
posted by ovvl at 1:58 PM on February 12, 2021


intriguing Turkish(?) flatbread bruschetta-ish dish topped with aubergines and things like that.

Odds are that'd be pide, and it's worth pursuing.
posted by aramaic at 2:09 PM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


Is pizza that thing with sausage, tomato sauce and cheese cooked on bread? Because in California that's called a hot dog.

(ducks)

I've had plenty of Japanese pizzas that are unconventional, like tuna, corn, and mayonnaise. A bit like those sandwiches that are hotdog buns stuffed with yakisoba, just not what your average American thinks of with those words.

I'm in San Francisco where everyone and their mother has a flatbread or something vaguely pizza like that isn't necessarily traditional, but also not ground beef and nacho cheese on a saltine. I think just calling it something else was the solution. Like a salad wrap instead of a lettuce burrito.

The go to I like is the Bianca from twin peaks pizza. Buttermilk sauce, ham, sausage, jalapenos, and onion. It's great.
posted by lkc at 2:15 PM on February 12, 2021


Buttermilk sauce

Intrigued. What's that like?
posted by slkinsey at 2:18 PM on February 12, 2021


Since we are sharing Dewey's orders...mine is the Green Lantern (Red Sauce, Mozzarella, Minced Garlic, Mushrooms, Goat Cheese, Artichokes, Pesto). I moved to Cincinnati about 2 months after the original Dewey's location opened so for me it as if it has always existed for me.
posted by mmascolino at 2:19 PM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


slkinsey: it's a heavy white sauce in a thin layer under the cheese. if I knew how to do it right I'd probably make it myself.
posted by lkc at 2:21 PM on February 12, 2021


intriguing Turkish(?) flatbread bruschetta-ish dish topped with aubergines and things like that.

The Lebanese manakish are definitely in the same family as pizza also, and taste fantastic.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:24 PM on February 12, 2021


Noke's is not bad at all, even to a post-undergrad palate, judged on the inexpensive-slice scale. The new place in Harvard Square where the Store 24 used to be is better quality, but also more expensive and not really suitable for sitting. (I tend not to get meat on pizza that often and my preference there is a tomato-basil, so maybe I get less grease that way.)
posted by praemunire at 8:20 PM on February 12, 2021


Breakfast Pizza is a kind of pizza the way Satanism is a kind of Christianity.

Breakfast pizza is a plate served cold.
It is a meal of convenience for the hungover and partied out found in the box containing last night's dinner
posted by y2karl at 8:54 PM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


gygesringtone - Great Plains Sauce & Dough in Ames, Iowa has been serving "Denver-style" pizza with honey since at least the mid-90s. I was very perplexed to not find it anywhere in Denver after I moved here, until someone clued me in to Beau Jo's.
posted by McBearclaw at 9:41 PM on February 12, 2021


ovvl: Also in Pizza-adjacent, there's a pizza parlour in East Toronto that (well, makes generic pizza) but also offers an intriguing Turkish(?) flatbread bruschetta-ish dish topped with aubergines and things like that. It's like pizza, but not quite pizza.

If we're thinking of the same place, that'd be Pizza Pide at Gerrard and Pape. And oh yeah. It's good.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:46 AM on February 14, 2021


I maintain that what you are tasting at Marion's is not pizza, but nostalgia (either that, or your taste buds are just fucked up).

Then it must be my taste buds are fucked up because I didn't discover Marion's until my 30's. I'm used to people telling me that I'm a pleb with pleb taste buds whose favorite foods are all influenced by powers beyond my control.
posted by charred husk at 10:48 AM on February 15, 2021 [1 favorite]


The only time I have ever had a "breakfast pizza" was when I planned ahead before a night of drinking and made a batch of dough then invited a mess of people back to my place to eat a typical sauce and cheese pizza with bacon and eggs (or not per diet) and occasionally spinach on it before we all parted ways at sunrise to sleep off the horrible after-effects of our bad decisions.

I can't recall how it tastes.
posted by Seamus at 3:19 PM on February 23, 2021


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