timetowaste85 wrote:
Nobody would rally for NJ.

chaos0xomega wrote:


Shameful. NJ pretty much built this country into what it is today.

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:
My dad is from Jersey. I've been loads of times. I partly jest, but we all know PA is better.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Most "Italian" pizzerias are actually owned and operated by Albanians, at least in NY and in certain parts of Jersey.

Kind of like how all the small donut shops in North Texas are run by Koreans (and every one of them makes better donuts than Dunkin')?

Ouze wrote:
As far as Chicago pizza goes, it's OK, but I like NYC pizza better because I like pizza better than casseroles.

 sebster wrote:
I have to admit I haven't tried Chicago deep dish pizza, though it doesn't really appeal.

But New York pizza is a life changing experience. It's fething amazing.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Bro, have you ever been to NJ?

 Alpharius wrote:

Ouze wrote:
As far as Chicago pizza goes, it's OK, but I like NYC pizza better because I like pizza better than casseroles.

That sums it up nicely for me as well - Chicago Style 'pizza' is...something else other than pizza!

 Alpharius wrote:
Right - opinions and all that, yes?

 Frazzled wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Right - opinions and all that, yes?

exactly! So lets us all celebrate the many variations of pizza, proof of the existence of Dog.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

Except the cardboard they serve in Columbus Ohio that's covered in red gel and rancid cheese byproduct. The toilet can keep that "pizza"!

 dogma wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:

Except the cardboard they serve in Columbus Ohio that's covered in red gel and rancid cheese byproduct. The toilet can keep that "pizza"!

You mean Domino's?

 Nevelon wrote:

Depends how grease soaked the cardboard is. Could be Little Caesar’s .

dogma wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

Depends how grease soaked the cardboard is. Could be Little Caesar’s .

I actually consider Little Caesar's to be one of the better large pizza chains. Happy Joe's is pretty good too (feth yeah taco pizza!), but that's definitely a regional thing.

Grey Templar wrote:Yeah, Little Caesars isn't bad. Especially for the price.

 Nevelon wrote:

dogma wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

Depends how grease soaked the cardboard is. Could be Little Caesar’s .

I actually consider Little Caesar's to be one of the better large pizza chains. Happy Joe's is pretty good too (feth yeah taco pizza!), but that's definitely a regional thing.

Considering you can’t swing a dead cat and not hit a small, family owned, pizza joint near me, it’s been a while since I’ve eaten at any major chain.

 Nevelon wrote:

Considering you can’t swing a dead cat and not hit a small, family owned, pizza joint near me, it’s been a while since I’ve eaten at any major chain.

 Alpharius wrote:
That sums it up nicely for me as well - Chicago Style 'pizza' is...something else other than pizza!

 Nevelon wrote:
Depends how grease soaked the cardboard is. Could be Little Caesar’s .

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Must be the chains near us but Papa John's pizza boxes were almost transparent with the grease. Little Caesar's pizza box was bone dry

Ouze wrote:
So far the summary of this thread is that opinions vary on which pizza is best, and there is 100% agreement that New Jersey is awful.

Legit.

 dogma wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Must be the chains near us but Papa John's pizza boxes were almost transparent with the grease. Little Caesar's pizza box was bone dry

Yeah, I've never found Little Caesar's to be particularly greasy.

Ouze wrote:
So far the summary of this thread is that opinions vary on which pizza is best, and there is 100% agreement that New Jersey is awful.

Legit.

One of my favourite things about living in Italy is the pizza, and it's recently given me an insight into how our brains are wired differently.
Pizza has taught me that logic can be subjective and that subjective logic can be cultural. It has also made me humbly realise that, in some ways, I'll probably always be considered here as an ignorant foreigner.
Traditional pizza comes from the southern city of Naples, but you can find good pizza everywhere, often, in fact, made by migrant Neapolitans. Under the porticoes here in Bologna, just downstairs from my flat, there's a great little takeaway pizzeria. Needless to say, I'm quite familiar with the place. I've been through a number of the menu's enticing combinations, a favourite being Grande Uccio, made with mozzarella, Tropea onions, parmesan and potatoes roasted in the pizza oven. The pizzaiola, Emanuela, is one of the few female pizza-makers I've ever come across, and her accent confirms she's from proper pizza territory. She's got crimson hair with blue streaks, which she covers with a bandana when she's working. I reckon in a past life she was probably a pirate. She's fierce but friendly... well, she was until last week.
Because last week I made the mistake of asking her for a marinara - which is a simple tomato and garlic pizza - with the addition of mozzarella.
As soon as I say the words, Emanuela looks at me with disbelief and, in retrospect I realise, disgust.
"You can't have a marinara with mozzarella," she says. "It doesn't exist."
"What do you mean, it doesn't exist?" I reply, oblivious to her hostility, since she's quite aggressive at the best of times. "I'd just like a marinara but with some mozzarella on top." Unwittingly I make matters worse by miming her mozzarella-sprinkling action.
"La marinara is a pizza rossa," she states frostily. "A pizza rossa is made with tomato and without mozzarella. So you can't have a marinara with mozzarella because there's no such thing."
Then she says something I find incredibly funny.
"I suppose," she mutters grudgingly, "I could make you a margherita with garlic." (For those unfamiliar, a margherita is a pizza topped with tomato and mozzarella. )
"And the difference..." I ask, laughing blithely, "between a marinara with mozzarella and a margherita with garlic?"
Emanuela doesn't laugh. She simply repeats her final offer.

Spoiler:

On the origin of pizzas: 1. The marinara

The Italian for sailor is marinaio, so this pizza may have originally been eaten by sailors
"According to some, the marinara pizza was invented at Pizzeria Port'Alba, the oldest pizzeria in the world, apparently to meet the demands of the sailors for a tasty pizza on days when there had not been a good catch, since they usually put anchovies and other little fish on pizza," says food writer Pina Sozio.
"What makes the most sense to me is that it was the cheapest - just tomato sauce, garlic and oregano - and the sailors, some of Naples' poorest people, ate it for that reason," says food studies expert Zachary Nowak of the Umbra Institute in Perugia.

"OK!" I concede, still amused but now slightly frustrated. "But I honestly can't see the difference between tomato and mozzarella plus garlic and tomato and garlic plus mozzarella! It's the same thing!"
"No, it's not," pipes up a customer who until now has been quietly consuming his pizza and beer on a stool behind me. "She's right. A pizza rossa can't have mozzarella."
Even the friend I'd come in with refuses to take my side. So I stop protesting - outwardly at least.
A few minutes later, sliding our steaming pizzas into their boxes, Emanuela calls out: "One gorgonzola with chilli oil and one margherita with garlic."
As we eat them upstairs in my flat, I'm still unable to come to terms with Emanuela's reaction. "I've ordered it a few times in various pizzerias, and nobody's ever batted an eyelid!" I say defensively. I'm now wondering if the waiters were simply being polite. Chicca - who's Sicilian - says she can see my point, but thinks it would be wise if in future I ordered margherita with garlic to avoid, I quote, "emotionally destabilising the pizza-maker".
The next day I phone a friend who's both Neapolitan and a psychoanalyst to see what she thinks. "The pizzaiola is right," she says. "A marinara is not a marinara if you add mozzarella. But," she adds, "she was wrong to say she would make you a margherita with garlic because margherita with garlic doesn't exist."

Spoiler:

On the origin of pizzas: 2. The margherita

Legend has it that Queen Margherita of Savoy gave her name to the famous pizza on a visit to Naples in 1889. Sick of French gourmet cooking, she summoned the city's most famous pizza-maker, Raffaele Esposito, and asked him to bake her three pizzas - of which the tomato, mozzarella and basil recipe was her favourite.
Is this true? Zachary Nowak examines the evidence for BBC Food: Was margherita pizza really named after Italy's queen?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/0/20515123

Later, I see Monica, an Italian sociologist who now lives in England. She confesses that she "sort of agrees" with Emanuela. "People who order marinara usually do so because they don't want mozzarella," she says. "So it does seem strange to then ask to add it."
And that was when the penny finally dropped. At last, I understood that it was all about definition... of paramount importance in Italian culinary tradition. A marinara is, by definition, a pizza with tomato and garlic and no mozzarella. Essentially, I'd been asking for the equivalent of a black coffee with milk.
So, should I ever want it again, I'll simply order a pizza topped with tomato, garlic and mozzarella. When it comes to Italian logic, this ignorant foreigner has finally learned her lesson.