My wife puts Tabasco sauce on her pizza, while I am convinced that an Italian person dies every time she does that. Help us sort this out, please.
I haven’t been arrested by Italian food cops yet so I’d say it’s fine. Do whatever you want to food that makes it taste good to you because taste is a very subjective thing.
The Pizza Police, you say?
TBF, not only would that same Italian person you envision also die every time a “pizza” is made, (IRL, they’re far hardier as a people) but I personally reached a similar point in my impression of “proper” sushi. 🤷🏽♂️ For decades now, I’ve looked down on cream cheese, et al, used as ingredients in rolls of all kinds. That eventually evolved into other disdainful opinions on adjacent foods’ contents, but I’ve fairly recently discovered a simple fact: in its culture of origin, sushi is known to on occasion include ice cream as an ingredient.
Therefore? Such quixotic prescriptionism is worse than useless: it restricts access to experiences based on fabricated and imaginary rules (or, face the piercing judgment of… actually no one at all).
Fuck what “people” say. Engage with your wife’s view, and maybe even join her in exploring what other curious ways one can enjoy weird shit. 🫀🖖🏽
Yup, there’s three rules about food:
- Don’t eat what will kill you.
- Eat stuff that tastes good.
- Eat stuff that’s good for you.
As long as you never break rule one and only occasionally break rules 2 and 3, you’ll have a good time.
I felt somewhat similarly about cream cheese in sushi, then I watched some video of a guy in Japan taking Americanized sushi to an old traditional sushi chef. When he liked the cream cheese, I unclutched my pearls a bit.
The closer I get to that “old chef” icon myself, the more I come to realize that the majority of it is projected onto the concept from the surrounding culture… (I blame that very thing for contributing in large part to the robbing us all of Bourdain, in fact. 🙇🏽♂️💔)
Well, let’s be real, pizza isn’t some kind of holy thing that is only Italian.
It’s not like they’re the only people to ever put things on flat dough and bake it.
But ignoring that, food is a living thing, just like most languages, like music, like fashion and art. You can try to stick a pin in it, but you kill the thing by doing so.
It reaches a point where it’s ludicrous to try and claim a thing is possessed in its entirety by the place that first named something.
Once a cultural idea spreads far enough, you can only specify one type of the thing. It’s why we have champagne, and sparkling wine. It’s a way of putting a pin in something but recognizing that there’s still living versions out there.
Or, look at it like the difference between formal and colloquial language.
Pizza may have started in Italy as a term, but it’s like kleenex and qtips. Pizza is now the generic term for stuff cooked on flat dough. It can even be applied to stuff being placed on flat bread, and then cooked, though I don’t know why you’d not call it one of the other words for that idea other than being unaware of those words.
Put whatever you want on your dough, call it pizza, and enjoy ;)
Is she making he pizza for Italy, or for herself?
If you wanted pizza to be “italian”, it would have to have no tomatoes, peppers, pepperoni, buffalo milk cheese, basil or a whole bunch of other ingredients that are commonly added to pizza.
Pizza is a global food, do with it as you will
Don’t worry about what Italians think about how you eat pizza. Unless you are in Italy, however you are eating it is probably unappealing to most Italians no matter what you are putting on it, even in its base form with no modifications.
Put whatever you want on a pizza, its a good delivery mechanism
I’m not a big hot sauce ON pizza kinda guy, but I dip the crust in something like secret aardvark. Buffalo chicken pizza is pretty popular and that’s basically a hot sauce pizza.
if an Italian died every time “an italian dies” Italy’s population would be in the negatives by now.
Sure, why not? I put sriracha on some the pizzas we get, or make at home.
Some Italians may find this offensive, alas not as offensive as lathering pizza in ketchup.
My wife puts the nearest hot sauce on everything. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate spice, but she has no regard for the flavor profile of the sauce or the food. Maybe your wife’s the same. I’ve been slowly trying to get her to pair her spice sources thoughtfully.
Tabasco is a sup-par hot sauce for most pizzas. Red pepper flakes are best in my opinion, and pack plenty of heat and flavor. I had some serrano basil sauces that went great with pizza, which I think could be expected with any sauce featuring basil. If you’re feeling fancy, Truff goes great on pizza too. If you’re going to do Tabasco, at least do the smokey chipotle.
Different sauces taste different, and pair differently with different foods. Some flavors synergize with a dish, some overpower it, and some clash. I wouldn’t say regular Tabasco necessarily clashes with pizza, but I think it usually overpowers the other notes. There are more delicious choices.
heat improves the flavour often. If you ever cut chilli peppers into a salad, you’ll find that you won’t need to add salt
Yes, but different heat works with different flavors
Red Hot would be my preferred hot sauce, but yes.
sriracha, the one with xtra garlic
Tabasco?
I prefer hot sauce on old pizza, not vinegar
Depends if it’s good pizza or not. If you’re talking a sauce heavy Italian/Boston style slice the Tabasco is a travesty… if it’s some shitty NY slice the load that sucker up.
Ranch it up! It’s 8:40 bro!!
As someone who grew up in the NYC pizza area, but has lived in the Boston area for a few decades, this is incomprehesible to me. While there is some very good pizza to be had in the boston area, it is from very individual places, whose pizzas do not constitute any cohesive boston style (and some of which are NY style).
What I would call the closest thing to a regional style is the pizza from sub / pizza shops, usually run by greeks and so sometimes called greek pizza, which tends to be cheese heavy (and i’m not sure what the mix is, definitely not just mozerella/parm), and lacking in the sauce department, to my taste.
I’m sure there is bad NY pizza, but good NY pizza has a tastier sauce, thin crust, and a good cheese balance. And unless things have gone downhill since my last visit (which is certainly possible) even your average NY pizza is pretty decent.
I’ve made a Christmas dinner pizza with a stuffing and gravy stuffed crust. Just have fun with the food you eat. Why be boring and keep things “authentic”?
