In this thread we talk about one thing and one thing only: pizza.
Tell us your favorite kinds of pizza, pizza you’re interested in trying, pizza recipes, forbidden pizza techniques lost to the sands of time that you have unearthed through sheer determination, and other pizza-related discussions. Debate the validity of pineapple as a pizza topping. Discuss your favorite crusts. Are calzones truly pizzas? Deep dish or thin crust? Forks or hands? Do you fold your pizza slices in half?! There’s so much to find out and we can journey through this brick oven of pizza-themed friendship together.
That said,
I haven’t made a proper homemade pizza in like 8 years because none of my subsequent apartments have any counterspace for me to cover completely in flour so I can stretch the dough, but I can seriously recommend the pizza dough recipe in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. There’s a bit of olive oil mixed straight into the dough, and it lends subtle flavor and moisture to the end product that is just fantastic.
Here’s some hot pizza protips. If you have one of those three meat super pizzas that have the sausage balls and the meatballs and bacon on it…slap some pineapple on that shit. The added acid of the pineapples will contrast the heavy meat perfectly.
Try using different sauces other than tomato sauce. For example, throw some chicken on that pizza and put on some alfredo sauce on the pizza. Do it.
Add a little dollop of cream cheese to the center of each slice of pizza before putting on the toppings but after the sauce to enhance the creaminess of your pizza. It’s real damn good son.
The thread title reminds me of a pizza place in Victoria BC called Pizza Zone.
They have a slice called the 420, four different types of meat on it and you can barely see the cheese underneath all the meat. A great place to get a slice when leaving the bar across the road.
I reluctantly tried a pizza with pineapple on it last year and it WASN’T TERRIBLE. I wouldn’t get it often, but it definitely didn’t suck. I think partly because the pineapple was sliced THINLY and wasn’t in big chunks, so it added more of a general hint of sweetness than an outright “You’re eating a saucy cheesy hunk of fruit” experience. It also had some sort of salty meat with it, I wanna say maybe prosciutto or fancy pepperoni? The saltiness and sweetness were pretty great together, but a little cloying if you had more than one slice of it, in my opinion. Definitely not a stand-by for me, but not as terrible a pizza crime as it’s made out to be.
MEANWHILE, there’s a pizza place near me that has a ABSURD selection of toppings that are DEFINITELY pizzacrimes:
I’m a pizza pleb and only eat those frozen pizzas you get at the freezer section at the grocery store, because I’m poor and can’t afford to order proper restaurant pizza for myself. And I’m far too lazy to make my own dang pizza.
Plus I’m just one man without a microwave, so reheating leftover pizza is out of the question, and eating cold pizza is a sin on this Earth.
There’s a pizza place near me called Pizza Snob that does made to order personal pizzas. They let you choose everything down to the crust. One of their most popular pizzas is really odd though, because they put Thai chili sauce, chicken sausage, potstickers, and honey on it. It’s surprisingly good, although I’ll admit it’s a bit too sweet for me.
I guess what I’m saying is even bizarre pizzas can be good sometimes.
Confession time: Me and my old roommates once tried to commit ultimate pizzacrimes at a place like this. We went through the menu and tried to make pizzas just the absolute worst combinations of toppings and ingredients. Then we ordered and ate those pizzas, because we were a bunch of idiots.
And the end results were just kind of mediocre? Like, nobody ate the pizza and went “Oh my god, this is awful, throw this pizza in the trash,” just “this pizza is just kinda ehh, it’s not that bad, we should have probably just ordered a regular pepperoni pizza.”
So the ranch/pickle/french fry/nacho monstrosity sound like you’d take a bite out of it and immediately die, but the end result is that it actually just tastes like the regret of “why didn’t I order a normal ass pizza.”
The only variety of pizza that deserves criminalization is the type native to St. Louis, Missouri. A stale saltine cracker crust, smothered by sickly-sweet sauce, all topped with a concoction that transgresses the nature of cheese.
