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Posted on 01/06/2022 11:44:54 AM PST by mylife
We all know the two great pizza quotes, right? The first is Sam Sifton's Pizza Cognition Theory, which goes like this: "The first slice of pizza a child sees and tastes...becomes, for him, pizza." The second is the old chestnut about pizza and sex: even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.
Then we get to the St. Louis-style pizza made popular by their local chain, Imo's , which seems to buck both of these statements. Of the myriad styles of pizza we've got in this country, it's got to be the most maligned.* Its thin, unleavened cracker crust bears no resemblance to the real dough that great pizza is built on. It gets loaded high with toppings that span all the way from edge to edge. It's so unbalanced that it has to be cut into squares just to be able to support its own weight. And let's not get started on that Provel cheese—if it can even be called cheese, am I right?
And yet, ever since tasting it for the first time, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. And I've finally figured out why I love it so much. St. Louis-style pizza is not pizza. It's a big, pizza-flavored nacho. Hear me out.
My wife Adri and I ate a lot of things last summer when we were driving from New York to San Francisco. A LOT of things. Many of them hyper-regional,
(Excerpt) Read more at seriouseats.com ...
the bad pizza I had in Tokyo was at a Shakeys,
Cuttlefish and Squid.. Yeeew.... No clams? ;)
Sorry Danny but it isn’t real
I love thin crispy pizzas and thick sicilian pizzas. I like them all. lol
I sometimes make tortilla pizzas as a quick snack. Mission tortillas, tomato sauce and cheese. Nice, thin and crispy.
Daily, daily, daily and then some more.
If it isn’t New Haven pizza it isn’t pizza.
“Chicago-style thin crust pizza is just retarded.”
Well, either you’ve never had a good one, or you have no taste.
Either people like it or they don’t. It is just that simple. I happen to love the pizza. And I also love Pizza Hut pan pizza and Pie pizza. It is a unique pizza style from St. Louis - that’s all. It is no Nacho.
Mama Cozzis, its next to the lunch meat and sausages.
There had been a product that I believe was also marketed under that name. It was the “individual pizzas” you buy in a bag of 6 or whatever from the freezer. Like all these “individual pizzas” it was a pottery shard covered covered by a layer of snot, then a layer of ketchup, and that was covered in a layer of white and pink flower paste mockups of cheese and pepperoni bits. Horrible stench but its what the kind of people that buy those things like.
My clients used to buy those and it was the only “Mama Cozzi” I was familiar with when my children asked me to buy the take and bakes from the deli. I assured them that they were going to be horribly disappointed. They persisted and I bought a couple.
I was wrong and they were right. The deli take and bakes are really very good. Better than the national frozen brands, better than most frozen local brands Ive experienced. Not a “real pizzaria” experience but good enough at a much lower price than a real one.
Squares, degenerate behavior.
No cracker crusts for me.
No square slices for me.
No cracker crusts for me.
No Siree Bob!
“Extremely thin and crispy crust - like cracker thin and crispy.”
That’s what I like.
I had my first Italian pizza in 1976 in Sicily. Basically it is crust (baked in a clay oven) with tomato sauce on it. When I asked about toppings, the manager told me that in Italy pizza is just a cheap meal/snack- nothing special. While very simple, the crust was very good and very cheap.
I have traveled extensively world wide and had pizza in most of the places I have been.
The best is in the USA.
The worst has to be Scotland, with Norway a close second. The crust was weird, the sauce unflavorful, and the cheese is suspect.
I prefer NY thin crust, but Chicago deep dish has its place and should not be discounted. Most places in the country the pizza is too bready for my preference. I’ve also had the St Louis stuff and the author is correct, it’s a pizza flavored nacho rather than pizza pie. If you get it from the right place, it is really good. But like Chicago deep dish you’re eating it with a fork.
It shouldnt.
The thing we call pizza didnt start out as Italian.
The thing we call pizza now has nothing to do with what Italians called pizza historically. Theirs was a large pastry round with no defined toppings. They would slap any leftover crap on it and sell it a week old.
When an American restaurant promises to sell you “Real Italian” pizza they are promising you bad food or calling you an idiot to your face.
The idea of the thing we call a pizza was Italian. People in Italy ate them and it had been brought here with immigrants. Nobody else in Europe ate the thing Italians called pizza and we werent eating it here either. Recently Ive seen people claiming that we didnt eat pizza because it was due to anti-Italian racism. No, its because what they called pizza was crap.
After WWI, the pizzarias in NY began fiddling with the ingredients and making it palatable to Americans.
With WWII and subsequent occupations the Italian immigrant derived Americanized pizza spread around the world.
Thats part of the reason we have different styles of pizza here in the States, the thing we call pizza is really a recent American invention and like everything else here each producer creates their own version with some catching on and becoming the regional style.
I agree with you. But I'd definitely eat whatever it is they made there in St. Louis and probably like it. But, yes, Modern Apizza on State Street New Haven CT for my favorite.
I grew up in the city of Chicago, the home of great pizza. For years now, I have been living in St. Louis, the home of a provel-laden, food-like product they think of as pizza. Imo’s calls itself “the square beyond compare.” I call it “the square beond repair.”
What sets Imo's apart from anything else is the Provel cheese. That is an acquired taste--one I've never acquired.
I’m not sure about the Provel cheese at the place I mentioned. I doubt it - it tastes like standard fare mozzarella to me.
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