Pizza is a funny thing. There are battles about who makes the best pie in your city/town/region/state. There’s a guy that has risen to prominence in part due to his pizza hot takes: “one bite, everyone knows the rules!” There’s the topping battle. You know it. Does pineapple belong on pizza? The answer is yes; but only sometimes. Like, I’m not gonna go to Naples and ask them for a ham and pineapple pizza. However, it’s one of the better options when you get pizza from a place like Domino’s. While we’re talking about fast food pizza: Papa John’s sauce is garbage. Fight me.
Speaking of Naples, I did go on a pizza tour there on my honeymoon. We consumed 8 pizzas at 7 different locations, over the course of 24 hours. The best pizza in Naples, in my opinion, can be found at Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba (est. 1830!). While in Italy, I also came across Sicilian-style pie. If you’re not familiar, it’s pretty saucy and looks like a square version of Chicago Deep Dish. This made me take stock in my automatic disapproval of Chicago-style pizza. It always weirded me out for some reason. Perhaps, it’s just that it looks like acid reflux on bread. But, if there’s a similar version in Sicily, how bad can it actually be? It's just bread, sauce, and cheese. It can't be that gnarly. I had leftover dough from my Licorice Pizza entry for my Oscars’ tasting menu, so I gave it a heartfelt shot.
It’s horrible. Everything you’ve heard about it is absolutely true. It’s a bready mass. The toppings are put on the dough in reverse order. I presume this was some accident in the kitchen that someone thought was novel and it gained traction because one local liked it and he had a big stupid mouth and spread the lore of the “amazing” Chicago-style pizza to all of his pedestrian buddies who had no clue what differentiates good food from bad food. It’s just depressing pizza. So, I’m not giving you a recipe. Just some process-photos in case you want to try it. But, please, don’t do it. It’s the worst pizza style in the world. Ok, to be fair, there is one best bite. It’s at the end where the sauce meets in the corner of the crust. But, it’s not worth the time and effort for that one bite.
Mozzarella & par-cooked Then top that with the sauce Looks and smells great, but pepperoni on bottom. and parmesan. it's awkward to eat and just
plain old wrong!
Copyright 2022, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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