Of Cabbages and Kings, Pizza and Confucius, Part I
A few weeks ago, I posted a brief and trivial comment on pizza, which set off a longer discussion that ended up in private messaging on the question of artificial intelligence. I have edited, revised, condensed. I begin with the initial post.
TJF: My friend, real as well as virtual, Carey Roberts posted a link to an article in praise of Mississippi pizza, which is characterized by the addition of French dressing. Although I am a loyal admirer of most things in Mississippi, one has to draw the line somewhere, and it is the other side of Belgians who put mayo and ketchup on good pommes frites and anyone who puts "French" dressing (a complete misnomer by the way) on pizza. This is the proverbial last straw for American pizza so far as I am concerned, and I propose to rename it Puzza! My Italian friends will know why. [Puzza = "stinks" in Italian.]
Catholic apologist Karl Keating responded with an enigmatic Oy Vey, and Carey Roberts agreed and said he disliked French dressing in general. Jack McGaughey, in apocalyptic terms, said it was a sign of the end, Bob Geraci took it as an opportunity to libel the South:
"I love the south, but they know nothing about pizza. I was in a pizza restaurant in Atlanta, GA a long time ago and after a bite out of the bland pizza that was served, I asked the waitress if she could bring over some oregano. She asked me what that was."
My young friend in Paris, Nicholas Moses, cautioned: "
"I won’t pretend that any “indiginous” North American pizza holds a candle to a good Neapolitan pizza. It doesn’t and it can’t. But, I also think that’s an unfair comparison. Neapolitan pizza is almost confectionary in nature. If you deviate from the “perfect” it doesn’t take much to become bad, or even REALLY bad.
Most American pizza base concepts (New York, Chicago, Detroit, California styles) are much less precise. They’re junky by nature. Not surprisingly, the Bell curve is much flatter, and a “mediocre” American pizza (given base expectations) is much more satisfying than an equivalent deviancy from Neapolitan pizza.
We had a discussion not long ago about baked ziti/penne vs lasagna. Of course the former can’t compete with the latter. And I must admit, two weeks later I made an actual lasagna and I actually felt I had cheated myself with my preceding baked ziti. So much so that I might not even make the latter again for quite some time.
Even so: while I’d prefer a top-notch Neapolitan pizza to a top-notch (for its line) American pizza, I'd prefer a mediocre American pizza to a mediocre Neapolitan one, if only because the mediocrity of the former is mathematically less consequential.
(That said, there is no excuse for "French dressing" on any concoction.)"
To which I replied:
TJF : "Nicholas, you're stuck eating lousy pizza in France, even when it is made by Neapolitans. At least that has been my experience. I just posted a note agreeing that American pizza was something edible in its own right, but it really for the most part should not be called pizza. About a year ago, an elderly friend confessed on FB that he was going to have a birthday dinner of chicken Alfredo. I could not imagine what he meant until he said he cooked chcken and poured a jar of Alfredo sauce on it. Sadly, I told him there is no such thing as Alfredo Sauce, it is an emulsion that is part of the making of the dish, not something added. That gives an insight into what is wrong generally with American cusine. We got this bad idea of sauces from the French, who do it right, admittedly, but most Italian cooking is not a question of standard sauces added to pasta or chicken. And if there is one thing worse than French pizza it is French pasta."
Nicholas: "You’re right about pizza in France, as we’ve discussed before. The thing is that the French caught on that proper pizza comes from Naples but still haven’t quite gotten a generalized sense of what it’s supposed to be. Actually since the great France-Italy Carbonara feud of 2016 there has been a renewed interest generally in “authentic” Italian fare, but I suppose ordinary people can’t tell a list of ingredients from an actual recipe. Hence, for example (and I assure you it is not the only example here), any grifter who appears to hail from Naples (whether he actually does is another matter) can open a restaurant in Paris and call himself a pizzaiolo, no matter how sloppily the concoction is put together."
The philosopher Marie Livingston (wife of philosopher Donald L) and friend of Carey: "Well at least he was not suggesting putting pineapple on pizza."
Michael U wrote in to recommend Capri in Yonkers, and Robert Peters in Louisiana declared he had not tasted pizza until the age of 17. Jerry Brock (currently in Greece) lamented: "The march of Modernity will not stop until the last vestiges of civilization (Italian or otherwise) are wiped from memory," and I apologize for any offense I may have unintentionally given to Carey:
TJF: "Of course I meant no disrespect to young Carey. I think there are a number of decent American pizza places in the South. I once at in a joint near the DFW airport that was a member of the Neapolitan Pizza organization or whatever it is called. Pretty good but he overdid the limpness of Neapolitan pizza. In many parts of the South, the Eyetalian restaurants are owned by Greeks. You can always tell because in addition to pizza and pasta, they have Moussakas on the menu. I was taken to a place in Paris, Tennessee, and even before entering I told my friends it was Greek, which they stoutly denied. It was called Lepanto, which sounds Italian and is, but it is what the Venetians called the Naupaktos/Nafpaktos, a lovely place but not renowned for pizza. In Charleston, they made a pretty good thin crust pizza at La Brascas, and here in Rockford, Frank Calvanese makes on the best American Sicilian pizzas I have eaten. People call it the Fleming pizza because I asked for his unsweetened marinara, as opposed to pizza sauce, with fresh mozzarella."
Carey: "As I recall, Marco Bassani claims his father ate pizza the first time in Chicago, not his native Milan."
Russell Gordon, photo-journalist, recommended several pizza joints in his native Chicago., and Chef Garret--the philosophy major--got down to basics, asking Geraci and the Old Man "when do we start flexing with “what pizza is?” To which I gave this response.
TJF: "In a general way, I advance the following propositions: 1) Names signify things, that is, they have reference to a commonly acknowledged reality. 2) Those who create something or master a skill have more authority over what words they use to describe than those who don't. So, pizza is a South Italian/Neapolitan term whose core meaning refers to the reality of Neapolitan pizza or its relatives in Calabria and Sicily. I have eaten a decent food product in NYC they call pizza, which it is not. I have also eaten beefsteak tomatoes and lobster sauce (which has no lobster). Of course the names of the tomato and the sauce are, in a way, amusing metaphors (lobster sauce was a sauce for lobster but American Cantonese restaurants wanted to use something cheaper). Still, we don't normally order a tomato with fries in a steak house or a sauce when we want lobster. Foccaccia is not pizza and neither is most American pizza. I'll concede the decent Sicilian-style pizzas I have eaten in the USA because they belong to a tradition, but that is as far as I am willing to go. Chicago pizza is not only not pizza, it does not count as edible food product."
This is a fascinating exchange. Of course, when it comes to the nephew who hasn’t made me that Neapolitan pizza (or has, then ate it, and didn’t tell me) he’s an amateur who most likely isn’t aware of what has been discussed by those involved in this exchange. So I knew all along that I would only be getting a facsimile of Neapolitan pizza even though he does make some good American style pizzas. Nevertheless, when I informed him of my experiment with European flours, he decided to buy some Italian flour for his pizzas. So there is hope.
I used to like French dressing but not in years. The idea of putting it on pizza is not appetizing. I have tried the European practice of putting ketchup and mayo on pizza, and it does improve frozen junk pizza a little bit, but I wouldn’t put it on even Domino’s or Papa John’s because it would not improve them to any degree.
More later. I’m on lunch break and it’s almost over.
Of course I wrote the above with the understanding that none of the “pizza” that I mentioned was real pizza. America has done to real pizza what it did to the Frankfurter and Vienna roll. For better or worse, we created something different. We just didn’t invent a new name for it like we did with the “hot dog”. If we Americans want to try making a foreign food, then most of us should stick to something that is do-able, like the Australian hamburger. We can do that. I have done it, and it’s better than one might think from looking at the ingredients list.
If I had time to devote to making a good pizza I would try to do so. As it is, I’m thinking of taking the ingredients of Neapolitan pizza and making something new and different, whatever it might turn out to be, but I won’t call it “pizza”.