The other meal for our anniversary was pizza. We had an old bottle of Grand Krug and pizza, because pizza figures big in our “story.” I broke up with Tom, then reconsidered, sending him a letter with a pizza. It scared him to have a pizza delivery show up unexpectedly at 10 pm in Mid-City. Every year since, I surprise him with pizza, like I did that first one.
This pizza party also satisfied a curiosity that began on the show a few days before. Since pizza is a favorite food, we talk a lot about it on the show. I have written a lot about it too.
My opinions are strong. I have decreed that there are three kinds of pizza out there:
New York style, which, in my opinion, is the only one that matters.
Neapolitan, which is usually characterized by melted rounds of mozzarella di buffalo (buffalo milk mozzarella).
Everything else, which I describe as a hybrid of the above types.
NOTE: Chicago deep dish, (which only Chicagoans like,) does fall into this category, but only because I don’t want to deal with it. I much prefer to ignore it.
I have said much about the New York style pizzas around town, beginning with the sad demise of Brooklyn Pizza, which set a new standard for the “real deal.” Pizza Delicious fills the void nicely. Other current favorites are The Crazy Italian in Lakeview, NOLA Pizza Company at NOLA Brewery, and Pauli Gee’s in the Warehouse District.
Slice predates all of these, and I still love it. These pizzas have primarily the same thing in common - all of them come out of slamming door ovens.
Neapolitan favorites are Oak Oven in Harahan, Domenica in the CBD (now in Lakeview a block from Crazy Italian),
And Sofia in the Warehouse District. The single commonality with these is the expensive wood-burning Italian oven that gets to 800 degrees and cooks pizzas in minutes.
And then there is everything else, and everything else can be good. I call this third category a hybrid of the other two. It’s pizza, so how far wrong can it go? Cheese, bread, maybe meat. Always a winning combo.
But within these boundaries there is wide latitude.
For the crust: How thin? How thick? How doughy?
And the sauce: How sweet? How spicy? How red? Or could it be white?
For the toppings: Traditional? Or wild? (In my opinion, barbecued chicken, cochon de lait, et. al may technically be pizza, but not really.)
Tom has a saying…”If it tastes good, it is good.”
With that in mind, please allow me to explore something not usually seen in this forum. Consider the Big Three pizzas for the masses. It may not be your intention to eat this, but sometimes you will.
I recently got an email press release from a large Pizza Hut franchisee in New Jersey about National Pizza Day on February 9th. The last pizza I had from there was when the kids were little and we used to drop in after school and get personal pan pizzas. That was over twenty years ago. Before that, I was in high school after football games at the Pizza Hut on Veterans, which is now Atomic Burger.
Pizza Hut was always a good pizza, I thought, and I resolved to try their thin crust pizza, which I remember fondly. When I mentioned this on the air to our producer Patty, she agreed about Pizza Hut and added that she liked the New York Style at Papa John’s. This piqued my interest. I thought all mass-produced pizzas were doughy hand-tossed Domino’s Pizzas.
So no one admits to picking up the mass pizzas from the “big three,” but what are they really like? I vowed to refresh my memory. At some point even the purists will eat a pizza from a mass pie maker.
The anniversary night party was “research.” We had pizza from two of the three biggies. ML wanted a thin and crispy Domino’s, and when she mentioned “Brooklyn style” I realized they had a New York style as well.
When Mary Leigh tried to order she had too many questions for me. There were FIVE different types of crust from which I had to choose, then on to sauces and cheese, etc. It was daunting. Then it was time to crunch numbers with coupons to determine the best value. I was paralyzed! We got two large pizzas - one cheese thin crust and one pepperoni, Italian sausage, and mushrooms Brooklyn style. This was $15 total.
The Pizza Hut Pizza was exactly as I remembered it, with a crust so thin it reminded me of a cracker crust. I really liked its flakiness, and the sauce was really good. It had enough basic mozzarella to cover the crust, and I thought this was a good pizza.
Mary Leigh agreed but still preferred the thin and crispy Domino’s which was the pizza from her memory bank. It was also good, and I mostly remember the Domino’s cutting of this pizza into small squares, Both of these pizzas were loaded with pepperoni.
It was the Brooklyn style that caught my attention. It was a good New York Style pizza. Not too thin but bendable crust, generous toppings, lots of cheese and the sauce had a good flavor. If I can get a pizza like that for $7.99, I don’t know why I’d get another.
Yes, the independent places seem better, but I think all of them fall into an “It’s fine, or “good enough” basic competency realm if pizza is what you want to eat. I was surprised to admit that, but it’s true.
I may still not get a Domino’s New York Style pizza when I want pizza, but it will only be because I’m a snob, and not because of lack of goodness on the part of the Big Three mass-produced pizzas. And when one comes your way, you may find that you like it too.
