Pizza is different in different parts of Italy, just as Chigago pizza is different from New York Pizza. (Unless you go to Pizza Hut, which is blandly the same everywhere…)
I lived in Rome, where there are two very different styles. One is the restaurant pizza, which is similar to what you get in fancy Italian restaurants in the US. It’s an extremely thin crust pizza, is round and a little larger than the plate it’s served on, and comes by the names mentioned before, Quattro Stagione, Margherita, etc. The other style is what you get at the little storefront carryout shops where there’s no sit-down area. It’s made in large rectangular sheets and has a thicker crust. Not as thick as “Sicilian” pizza (I’ve never been to Sicily, so I don’t know if what you get in the US by that name has any resemblance to what you get over there), more like the “normal” US pizza.
One more thing we have here in the US is the type of pizza place where you make your own pizza from a wide assortment of ingredients in bins like a salad bar, and then they cook it for you.
We also have “Take and Bake.” Also set up Salad Bar like. You can Order from the menu, or al la carte. My Favorite is Pappa Murphy’s. Just pop it in the oven and it’s piping hot right at your place.
I lived in a small village outside of Rome for a semester. There was a single pizzeria there, which sold its slices according to weight. The lady behind the counter used a large pair of scissors to cut a square-shaped slice, then dropped it on the scale, and calculated the price from the result (also factoring in how frequently you came by, whether she thought you were cute, whether you had nice shoes, etc.)
The cheapest pizzas had no sauce, cheese, or anything else. Just crust.
I have heard that the best pizza in the nation is in Old Forge, PA, either Ghigiarelli’s or the place across the street from them. Order a red or a white, maybe with onions. Don’t ask for pepperoni or anything like that; it’ll mark you as a tourist. Anyone can tart up a mediocre pizza with gobs of toppings, but Ghigiarelli’s is the real stuff.
One of these days, I’ll have to drive up to Old Forge and see if this is true.
I went to a Pizza Hut once. It was like Walmart–I’m done with it for this lifetime. Yuck. In NYC, nobody goes to the big chains if they can help it, although they have Little Caesar’s and a few Domino’s. I’m afraid among true pizza fans the chains you have in Australia would be disdained, and I hope people don’t think that’s what American pizza really is. And you’ll find that almost each major city fiercely defends its pizza places as the best in the world.
Pizza in Boston was horrible. First of all, the British had put some kind of cheese blockade on the Harbor again, which was the only explanation I could think of for the stinginess of the cheese. But a friend who spent a summer in the biz told me it was the water that made the dough so thin and unable to support the good stuff.
We have Hawaiian pizza, and you go up to the counter at Famous Ray’s Original and say “Slice-a pepporoni, slice-a plain with extra ricotta” or whatever. Although in midbrow to highbrow places you order by the Italian names. Fancy places usually cook it in brick ovens and you get bread with olive oil instead of butter.
I notice we’ve avoided any mention of what the British and Japanese put on their pizzas. Let’s keep that up :shudder:
In The Netherlands there is a generally accepted classification system of pizzas. Common types are:
Margherita, Pepperoni, Funghi, Romana, Gorgonzola, Quattro formaggio, Capriciosa, Quattro stagioni, Bolognese, Calzone, Tarantella, Napolitana, Frutti di mare.
AFAIK all pizzaria’s over here follow the conventions with respect to the ingredients each of these pizza’s should have. I guess it’s just a case of meeting customer’s expectations: since every pizza follows this system, new pizzeria’s will adhere to it as well.
Well, most places have some combinations named, like a Supreme or Hawaiian, or Hogg Wylde (andoulle sausage, reg. sausage, and ham, mmmmmm) or whatever. However, there are people who don’t want any of the named combinations; they want only one topping, or a very specific and relatively uncommon combination, or half-n-half, or whatever. To accommodate these folks, every pizza place I’ve ever seen has always had the option for you to order by the size, crust type, and toppings you want. I can go in and get, say, ham, green peppers, pineapple, onions, and chicken on a pan crust if I wanted.
I used to turn my nose up at the gourmet-style pizzas, but now I’m afraid they’re my pizza of choice. For one thing, they’re not as bombastic on my not-so-youthful digestive system as my old favorite sausage-green peppers-onions-mushrooms pizza.
My new fave: shrimp, artichoke, prosciutto and grilled sweet red peppers. Mmmmm-MMMM!
Until the cost of seafood became too high, one of the local chains (Joe’s) offered a white pizza with shrimp, real crab, and clams. That stuff was good!
In my old neighborhood there was a restaurant that did pizzas with MANY different toppings, never saw another place like it. Try these on for size[they had 3 sizes of pizzas, BTW]: carmelized onions, prosciutto[these two are my favorite] pesto, wild mushrooms, grilled veggies[eggplant, onions, peppers, artichokes] veal sausage, shredded cooked chicken with BBQ sauce,fresh mozzarella[can’t have a Margherita without it] many non-traditional pizza cheeses-Brie, goat, ricotta;salsa;shrimp scampi; smoked salmon. Prices were a bit high, but the food was exceptional. If you didn’t get there within an hour of opening time, you waited forever for a table. Their takeout business was phenomenal. All the pizzas were cooked in a wood-fired oven right there in the dining room. No delivery service unfortunately. I go back now and then to visit former neighbors and friends, but I always make time to stop there for dinner or lunch.
Italian pizza has just a few tiny flakes of mozarrella on it.
American pizza is practically swimming in mozarella.
It’s like a great big hot disc of string cheese.
Maybe it’s just 'cause I like plain cheese pizzas, but I never add anything to frozen pizzas. Heck, just heating the damn things up is already dangerously close to cooking. Adding more ingredients would put right over the line.
I like the DiGiorno frozen pizzas best. You’re not going to mistake it for delivery, but it’s still pretty tasty.
By the by when I said “Oh, we just call it pizza” I was joking. Much as if I called a kangaroo an Australian kangaroo. I just didn’t get the reference. I’ve seen it but I have no recollection of it being called a Hawaiian pizza. I don’t have any pizza menus handy except for the Pizza Hut channel and that seems to be broken so I can’t comment on what they call it here.
Anyway I pretty much always order spinach and garlic or barbeque chicken when I do order
Most American pizza restaurants have a menu that lists all of the ingredients and allows you to pick the ones you want (prices are usually by size and number of toppings). They also usually have named combinations on the menu, but I rarely read them, because I know what I want (black olives, artichoke, and one of a selection of options depending on my mood – Canadian bacon, anchovies, tomatoes, etc.)
Here’s a good example of an American pizza menu. I’m sure there are people who order from the specials, I’ve just never done it.
It never occurred to me that getting a pizza would be ANY different in another country.
Do you ferriners have the 30 minutes or less thing?
What are the toppings available?
Do pizza joints advertise themselves as distinctly American or Italian?
Do you have a variety of crust thickness options?
How much does a pizza cost, delivered, with tip?
Do upscale restaurants serve fancier pizza? More-upscal-than-a-pizza-joint type restaurants will serve pizza’s with more exotic ingredients.
I saw what can only be described as the Pizza From Hell the other day, in the supermarket freezer cabinet. It was made by Heinz, and yes, it was a Baked Bean Pizza. I still shudder at the thought of it. I believe someone already mentioned some of the horrors that can appear on British pizzas…
Mr Sqwert makes a delicious pizza from scratch but when we order one in, it comes from the local Pizzeria that delivers. It’s an Italian independent place, as opposed to an American-style chain, and although they do list some pizzas by name (quattro stagioni, marinara and the like) most people seem to order by ingredients.
They sent us a christmas card this year and I think that kinda says all you need to know about our dietary habits.
In The Netherlands you usually get the standardized menu’s I mentioned in my previous post. You can order different ingredients, but it is not commonly done.
If they bring it, some pizza places may have some reduction if you have to wait long, but it is not very common I think.
Cost: delivered between EUR 5-8 (1 EUR = approx. 1 USD). Tipping is not mandatory (we’re Dutch), but if you’re nice, give 10%.
Crust size differs between pizza places: if you want a different crust, you have to go to a different place.
Toppings are standard italian fare: cheese, onions, olives, capers, peppers, artichoke, ham, salami, egg. A few different toppings have become usual: hawaii (ham and pine-apple), and the abomination that is pizza shoarma. Local pizza places may have slight variations, but AFAIK the standard stuff is the most popular.
Most pizza places advertise as being Italian, even while in fact most are run by Turkish people. In recent years a few American chains have sprang up in larger cities (Domino’s, New York Pizza). They do fairly well but still face stiff competition from the independents. Independents only rarely offer american-style pizza.
Generally speaking upscale restaurants either don’t serve pizza, or pride themselves on serving authentic Italian food, therefore they may have fancy Italian toppings (wild mushrooms, shrimp) but not weird non-Italian toppings. Of course there may be some deviants around.
Best place for pizza ever was a place in Ann Arbor (it’s closed now). It had the best sauce I’ve ever had on a pizza (and they didn’t skimp on it like most places) and offered a wide variety of free spices. My mouth would burn on that stuff.
My step-son’s favorite food in the world is frozen pepperonni pizza. Nothing added.
