I see this as a toss-up between CS and IMHO. Food wins out.
This is one list of Papa John’s toppings:
Pepperoni
Sausage
Spicy Italian Sausage
Ham
Hickory-Smoked Bacon
Grilled All-White Chicken
Fresh-Sliced Onions
Fresh-Sliced Green Peppers
Baby Portabella Mushrooms
Fresh-Sliced Roma Tomatoes
Black Olives
Sweet Pineapple
Extra Cheese
Feel free to add others from your preferred pizzeria.
When you order pizza, what are your must-haves, your secondary options (when you’re “filling it out” because it’s a specialty), and your never happens?
For us, in order, it’s:
Must have:
Pepperoni
Spicy Italian Sausage
Black Olives
Can have:
Fresh-Sliced Onions
Fresh-Sliced Green Peppers
Baby Portabella Mushrooms
I don’t care for pineapple and anchovies (not on Papa John’s list), but I can handle the others I didn’t include.
I’m a simple man. I like a plain cheese Pizza. Second to that I’ll eat it with mushrooms and onions. Then I’ll have pepperoni. And if none of those are available, I probably won’t have pizza.
I’m not sure of your location, but I put in several zip codes into the Papa Johns website and then I went to their online ordering form as if I was going to order a one topping pizza. I saw jalapeno peppers listed as a choice in their drop down menu for all the zip codes I entered. You’re quite correct that jalapenos are not on their “Our toppings” section of their website.
The zip codes I used were 33071, 43205, and 85014.
I like meatballs. My local place slices them so they’re a 3/16th to 1/4 inch slices of meatball. Like a big thick pepperoni slice that tastes like a meatball. Delicious. I like other toppings, too, but that’s my topping-not-many-other-people-get.
At home I like to crack an egg on my pizzas before baking.
CAN have: mushrooms, ground meat, Canadian bacon, ham
Wal-mart sells some decent ‘take it and bake it’ pizza at the deli. I usually throw some diced tomatoes and same crumbled bacon on their pepperoni version, and it’s pretty tasty.
My must-haves are either sausage, pepperoni (if the restaurant uses large, greasy hunks of sausage, or sausage with caraway), or neither if it’s a place with crappy pepperoni and crappy sausage.
Pepperoni gets paired with black olives.
Sausage gets paired with mushrooms.
Plain cheese gets paired with olives and mushrooms.
Onions, peppers, and pineapple will be picked off or shunned.
I guess my secondary choices are a bit idiosyncratic, but they seem like good combinations to me, at least.
Cannot abide:
-mushrooms (they taste of Satan’s ejaculate to me – no, don’t ask how I know)
-anchovies (my husband loves 'em, but even the smell is not allowed in our house)
-olives of any color, creed, or nation of origin
No opinion:
-pineapple (I’ve never had it on a pizza, but I can see how the sweet/salty combo would work)
-clams (hey, Frank Pepe’s makes it but I’ve not been tempted)
Sour Cream is the number 1 ingredient that no one outside of Manitoba knows about. Delicious, fantastic, and largely un-available.
Grilled Chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts and sour cream is my favourite combination. Pepperoni, onions, mushrooms, green peppers, italian sausage or salami and sour cream is not bad either.
I’m a huge fan of the Pepperoni and Pineapple mixture. Pineapple adds a lot of sweet that really balances out the saltiness of the Pepperoni. I’m a california boy, though, so that might explain it (my parents, New Yorkers the both of 'em, nearly disowned me the first time they saw me eating one of those).
My second favorite, what I default to at the sorta “upscale” pizza places, is Garlic, Feta, and either Olives or Basil, depending on my mood. I have an unhealthy obsession with Feta Cheese that was cured only by moving to a country where such a thing doesn’t exist (Japan, where “natural” and “sliced” are the most common types of cheese)
beyond those two I’m not picky, though I’m not a huge fan of Anchovies on my pizza. The only pizza I absolutely refuse to eat are those fucked up Japanese inventions like Corn and Mayo pizza, or Mayo and Tuna. Mayonaise on pizza is just wrong.