From: njs@scifi.uucp (Nicholas J. Simicich)
Subject: Re: Pizza Sauce recipe request
Organization: Nick Simicich, Peekskill, NY
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 05:18:29 GMT

In article <kiran.713335837@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> kiran@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Kiran Wagle) writes:
>paladin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Jason Gische) writes:
>>I even enjoy it.  I just don't think of it in the same 
>>category as I think of NY pizza.
>
>>Let me ask you this:  if you could take a basic NY cheese pizza and put 
>>whatever toppings you wanted on it, would it taste as good as a CA
>>pizza with the same toppings?
>
>No. It would taste better.  Why? Because the cheeses and doughs and
>sauces would not be some pre-defined standard, but would be chosen to
>harmonise with the other toppings.  And if cheese or sauce, were not
>needed, they would not be dogmatically piled on.

I don't quite understand this.  I think that the New York Pizza would
likely taste better, unless the topping was something like fresh
fruit.  In which case, we aren't really talking about pizza, we are
talking about a flat piece of bread with fruit on it.

I mean, "I have a great recipe for roast chicken.  You see, you take
about 8 oz of shrimp, and you steam it, and add it to a head of stir
fried broccolli, toss in some butter, and add a little cayenne pepper,
some paprika, a little garlic.  Maybe some ginger.  Serve over a bed
of rice."

"Wait," you might say, "where is the chicken?  And you aren't even
roasting it?"

"Well," I say, "Don't you understand?  I used to serve my roast
chicken on a bed of rice.  So anything I serve on a bed of rice I call
roast chicken.  I have another recipe for roast chicken, want to hear
it?"

>My feeling is, NYC pizza is a rigid, pre-defined object, while a CA
>[or, i prefer, creative] pizza is whatever you make of it.

And a mudpie is whatever you make of it, and for that matter, a mudpie
tastes a lot like the average California pizza.  Well, the average
California pizza crust, anyway.

>If one can put aside one's prejudices and misconceptions, one can make
>great things of pizza.  If not, one is doomed to repeat the same old
>pie over and over again.

A few years ago, when I lived in Richmond, my (now ex) wife worked at
a pizza place called Shakeys.  I haven't been in one for years.  This
place put edible toppings on something that could only vaguely be
described as a pizza crust.  It vaguely tasted like a soda cracker
without salt.  I think it was made with self rising flour.

Now, when I lived in California, I used to go to Shakey's all of the
time: It wasn't significantly worse than Red Boy's, or Round Table, or
even (I forget the name of the place on Castro [in SF] that everyone
raved about), the one with the nasty whole wheat stuff that they
jokingly referred to as a crust.  They'd put down this tasteless
crust, and then pile on some tasty toppings that had little to do with
pizza.  I didn't think of it as pizza, and then it wasn't soooo bad.

>Let me turn your question around: If you could take a basic NYC pizza
>and top it with squid, or smoked lamb, or cilantro pesto, would it
>taste as good as a creative pizza with those toppings?

I guess that I'm having some trouble here.  When I look at a good
pizza, I judge it by several criteria:  (1) The crust has to be good.
Not too bready, not raw, not burned, and not overpowering (whole
wheat, rye, etc is right out).  (2) The sauce has to be good.  There
are a number of styles of sauce, and they tend to go with different
sorts of toppings.  They don't have to have tomato in them.  (3)  The
topping has to go with the sauce and the crust.  Cheese has to be
flavorful, and of the right consistency.

I can flat out state that I never had a California pizza that met
criteria (1): 100% of California pizza crusts that I ate when I was
out there sucked.  Put Shakeys as 2 on the 1-10 scale.  California
crusts ranked between 1 and 3.  The *average* NY corner pizza parlor
crust ranks as a 6 or 7.

My enjoyment of the flat things that they serve out west with stuff
on them was ruined by the fact that the crusts were so bad.  For that
matter, the cheese out there was pretty lame.

In my opinion, all of the toppings I've seen in this thread would tase
better on a good crust.  Right now, you can get good pizza crust (and
a good balance in traditional pizza) a lot easier in NY than in
California.  I'd put squid or smoked meat or fish on a NY pizza before
I put it on a California pizza.  Changing the sauce to pesto would
require looking at the cheese, but the NY crust would still win.

-- 
Nick Simicich - uunet!bywater!scifi!njs - njs@watson.ibm.com
SSI #AOWI 3958, HSA 318, NAUI #14065
Join the movement ---  turn 'to bush' into a verb.