You go in to a pizzeria. Do you order a pie or a tray? The individual single serving sizes: cuts or slices? Do you fold them in half before eating?
In my hometown experience, we order trays, take slices, and eat them flat.
We usually order by size, or just “a pizza.” Individual servings are adverticed as “slices.” Don’t usually fold, unless the crust is really thin and I’m eating standing up.
Here in Maryland we order it by the pie, but when I’m visiting my mother and I decide to go to Old Forge (yes, in your area), it’s by the tray.
What’s a tray of pizza? Or is it a pizza tray?
Around here and Chicago, you’d order either a “pie” or simply a “pizza.” “Pizza” seems to be the more common noun.
Cuts or slices? Huh?
Folded? Only if you’re a kid.
By the pie, by the slice, never folded.
In my above referenced Old Forge, traditional pizza there is square. When you get a pizza, it’s refered to as a tray. My mother calls the square slices of the square pizza …cuts. Others call them slices, my mother is just a traditionalist and has been getting her “good” pizza at the same place in Old Forge for over 50 years. There’s also the regular pizza when they don’t feel like driving… like Pizza Hut or whatever.
Usually pizza, sometimes pie. What is this tray nonsense of which you speak? It makes no sense, pizza should not be cooked in a tray, it goes directly on the oven floor!
Slice, not cut. A popular thing to do in college when it was late and we were drunk was to get a ‘slice and soda.’ For a $1.50, you got a large slice of cheese and a fountain drink. And walking there while drunk was half the fun!
I never used to fold, but did when I went to college, because the slices were bigger and the crust thinner.
When I moved out here 5 years ago, I would say to my husband “Do you want to order a medium or large** pie**?” To which he would respond with laughter and a “Pie!?”
I also had one hell of a time finding a pizzeria. I ended up finding ‘pizza restaurants’ and chain places, but no real pizzerias. And my husband had never even heard of ordering pizza by the slice.
Since then 2 decent pizzerias have opened up in this town, but only one serves pizza by the slice, and only because it is across the street from the Junior College.
I went back to NJ last week and snapped a picture of a slice of pizza for the heck of it.
As you can tell by the picture, folding is absolutely necessary. The crust is too thin to support the grease and the cheese, the cheese and toppings would just slide right off. And you need to funnel at least some of the grease off.
Folding is sometimes necessary for large slices. Sbarro, for instance, is a chain that serves slices that are too unwieldy to handle unfolded (they tend to flop about). And I think buying by the slice and folding is a classic New York style.
Personally, I’m not all that impressed with Old Forge Pizza. It’s good, don’t get me wrong; I’ve never had a bad tasting one, but their reputation just seems to be a bit overrated. It’s way better than that Pizza Hut crap (do they still even bother making just a plain old pizza with crust, sauce, and cheese?) though. The bottom of my shoe is tastier than Pizza Hut.
Folding, flat, depends on what mood I’m in. Often I’ll eat a plain slice flat but a pepperoni slice folded. With folded you get that dry crunchy outer shell with the slurpy succulent oily cheesy pepperoni-y thing going on. mmm mmmmm!
Personally the only Old Forge pizza I like is the white pizza. The red pizza is just… ordinary. I wish I could find anything like Old Forge white pizza near me… although I’d probably end up weighing 400 pounds if I did.
I’m not sure what I did 12 years ago before I met my New Jersey raised hubby. Now we order a pie or a slice and they better be flat and greasy!
Here, the practice of ordering pizza by the slice is confined to sporting events or gas stations.
Here in NYC, it’s a pie, it’s a slice, and it’s usually folded.
This reminds me of a comedy bit where this same confusion came up during the first day of college with the comedian’s New Jersey bred roomate. They wound up with a large pie, half pepperoni, half pumpkin.
We do? I’ve never heard anyone order pizza by ‘the pie’ around here.
People usually order it by size or just ask for ‘pizza.’
I’ve never heard of pizza referred to as a ‘tray.’
And they’re ‘slices’ not ‘cuts.’
Since a pizza is a pie, I think when you say, “I want a pizza” is ordering by the pie. I also realized that I never answered the flat or folded question. I learned to eat pizza in NYC, therefore… I fold.
Dallas. The entire pizza is just “a pizza”. No one uses either “pie” or “tray” around here.
For those few places where it’s available, you order by the “slice”.
People almost always eat their slice flat, unless it is particularly large and so loaded with goodies that it is physically impossible. Which, I should add, is not a bad thing. 
Having worked in a pizzaria, I can tell you this much. Trays are for Sicilian style pizza. A thicker doughier type. And yes, they are cut into squares. Everything else is round, cooked on the oven floor directly, and sliced into triangle shaped slices. Where I’m from, it can be ordered as a whole pie or by the slice. Of course these wacky Californians don’t have decent pizza anyway, so I’m in a land of the uninitiated. As for the folded/unfolded debate. It is a matter of personal preference and the toppings that one puts on the pizza. I’ve seen it all when it comes to eating pizza, including one guy who would slightly fold the slice and then tip his head back, hold the slice above his head, let the cheese and toppings slide off in one magnificent hunk into his mouth, then throw the crust away. He would eat a whole 16" pie this way. Ick.
I’m from NYC - so it’s a pie, slice and folded.
In fact, when I was visiting my transplated uncle in North Carolina, we went to a “New York style” pizzaria (their words, not mine). I started eating my slice, and the counterman/pizza-maker exlaimed in a Brooklyn/Italian accent “You’re-a from New York-a!” When I looked at him funny, he explained that he could tell since I folded the slice.