ChefJCarey wrote:Robert Reynolds wrote:Fruit ain't got nothin' to do with pizza!
Yeah, well... Raw fish ain't got nuthin' to do with cooking either, yet otherwise sane and intelligent folks go gaga over sushi and sashimi, with all the associated risks of wormy parasites and bacteria, to say nuthin' about raw oysters. If it's on a pizza crust, as long as it tastes good, it's pizza.
No, it's not. It's something that tastes good to you or something you like - I have no problem with anyone's individual tastes. If you call a tomato a rock, it doesn't make it a rock.
If one piles a bunch of shit on top of a piece of flat bread and says "Voila, pizza!" it doesn't mean it is in fact a pizza.
Doesn't make that concoction any more a pizza than going to war by saying a country has weapons of mass destruction when you're lying through your goddamn teeth a legitimate construct.
This was a food developed at a very specific place and time with a very specific name and specific ingredients.
Here, I'm going to serve you some chocolate pudding, but I'm calling it split pea soup. Okay? That will be what we will call it from now on. Cool?
It is a real thing and not some American bastardized bullshit, corporate, mass produced, assembly line version of it.
Other than that we are incomplete agreement.
Chef Carey,
You are a published chef of great repute but I have to say when it comes to pizza you are way out in left field. The Pizza Napoletana Margherita is a great story and indeed is defined by the Italian government but it has its history in a story involving Queen Margherita that commisioned a pizza to be made for her and this one was selected. It was obviously well made but also included red (tomato sauce) white (cheese) and green (basil) which are the colors of the Italian flag. One could argue that it should be a Mexican pie. When making pizza for a large group I always start with Pizza Margherita because it has a great story, tastes great and defines "less as better" but to say this is the only pizza is very limiting. I am a disciple of Peter Reinhart that believes "more is better" and loosely defines this as the American Pie. Great pizza starts with a great dough, Napoletana is great but I use Neo-Napolitan (has a small amount of OO). After that let the world be your mushroom. By the way, using your definition you would not use mushrooms, or sausage, or grilled veggies and certainly not my signature pizza that uses raisins and pine nuts to balance the flavor of good Italian sausage. I personally have never used pineapple but can imagine a great flavor attack. "More is better" in my pizza world and it starts with great dough which carries great flavors of whatever you want to work with.
Walt