re: #468 whitebeach

Forgive me if I misunderstood, sir, but I thought that this was pretty much what you were doing on behalf of your tomato-and-cheese-soup casserole.

Don’t get me wrong. I lived in Chicago for a couple of years and ate plenty of deep-dish, and even enjoyed it. Possibly because I was a starving student and would have dived into Lake Michigan to feed on the grunion when they were running, but still … I’m prepared to admit that it can be tasty. Just not that it bears any but the most passing resemblance to actual pizza.

ok, sliding into seriousness. “Actual pizza”. There’s an interesting term. It’s sort of like arguing about “real barbecue” or “true chowder”. Pizza and barbecue and chowder and a host of other things really boil down to the eye (and tongue) of the beholder. Because if we’re going to start down that path we have to start playing all sorts of denial games. Are the neopolitan marinara and margherita created in the 1800s true pizzas? What of the pizza (actual label used) of the 1500s of the same region, of a flat bread with anchovies or bacon or cheese or simply oil on top - the bread more oval than round? And what of the toppings on flatbreads of other nations that may have influenced all those?

Nope. In the several posts above written with tongue in cheek there’s a point of seriousness. I do not ascribe to “one true way-ism”. I reject it. It has a bad habit of turning relatively minor things into wars. (See the soccer war between honduras and el salvador for a similar example, different underlying issue.)

So yes, Chicago style is a pizza. Hawaiian style is a pizza. Canadian pizza is pizza. New york style and sicilian style and neapolitan style and greek style are all pizzas.

Please don’t limit yourself or others by saying the other is “not really pizza” - not in seriousness. It’s a little thing but it’s still a thing on which narrowmindedness and hatred of ‘the other’ can be so unintentionally built.