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Oh I know it can be tasty, I have eaten my fair share of greasy pizzas too. And I’m not saying neapolitan is the only possible pizza style, although in my opini

Oh I know it can be tasty, I have eaten my fair share of greasy pizzas too. And I’m not saying neapolitan is the only possible pizza style, although in my opinion it’s the best one. Neapolitan is actually charred on the crust too, but it’s not that extreme - the crust from the pizza above is basically coal... Don’t get me wrong, I would eat it anyway (maybe skipping the crust), but it definitely doesn’t look like a “best in the world” pizza. As for the ingredients, I’m not sure why Italy would have inherently better local ingredients. I can understand why northern Europe has shitty tomatoes (too cold to grow compared to, for example, southern Italy), but with its size, population and diversity of climates I imagine you can grow pretty much anything in the US at a decent quality, without the need to grease stuff to give it flavor.

ReptileMan 7y ago
PDO and PDI help a lot when it comes to providing excellent and consistent ingredients. You could grow anything in the US and there are indeed great producers for everything. The problem is recognition. PDO/DOP Parmigiano, prosciutto and olive oil and san marazano tomatoes are in the you cannot do wrong cathegory. They are always excellent. A pizza maker in the US will have a lot harder time discovering great ingredients made in US. Not because they don't exist, but because anyone can label almost anything.
oarsinsync 7y ago
> I imagine you can grow pretty much anything in the US at a decent quality I believe this is true, subject to the original source material (seeds?) being imported. > but with its size, population and diversity of climates This makes it tricky, as producing enough of the high quality ingredients in appropriate locations, that can survive the transportation distances, creates a whole new range of problems. Solving this at Italy scale is a different matter to solving this at USA scale.
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  > Solving this at Italy scale is a different matter to solving this at USA scale. Italian cuisine is all about letting the ingredients speak for themselves and success really depends on having high quality ingredients. So, yes, selecting for tomatoes that have long shelf life and trucking them long distances would violate Italian food sensibilities. The Italian point of view would be to make the most of the ingredients that are available where you are. In other words, if you don't have fresh tasty tomatoes in the middle of winter, don't substitute subpar global-supply-chain tomatoes from the supermarket. Instead, use something else, like high-quality sundried tomatoes or don't use tomatoes at all. This is what happens in Italy, and it's why what visiting Americans might consider "iconic" Italian dishes aren't always present or recognizable.
shantly 7y ago
The quality of American produce is surprisingly mixed. For a lot of it, you've got to shop around and maybe pay a little more to get the same as baseline normal quality in large parts of Europe. I don't know why, but that's how it is. OTOH we have lots and lots of very cheap, kinda bad produce. So there's that. It's also possible to live among wheat fields and not be able to buy good bread for anything less than insane luxury food prices here. All I can figure is our ovens cost more to run? I mean I know it's not that but I can't figure out WTF else could be the problem. Decent cheese is also a lot more expensive—but again, we have lots and lots of fairly bad but very cheap options. And the cheaper end of our wine market is (much) less consistently good than in, say, France.
pizza_dave 7y ago
imo what makes neapolitan pizzas so outstanding and difficult to reproduce is the quality and freshness of the tomatoes. there are lots of pizza joints with the same kinds of ovens that they use in naples. but the tomatoes in naples are grown in the volcanic soil of mt vesuvius, and iirc they don't use tomatoes out of a can; only fresh. neapolitan tomatoes are exported abroad (san marzanos) but they're canned and not as tasty.

ReptileMan 7y ago

PDO and PDI help a lot when it comes to providing excellent and consistent ingredients. You could grow anything in the US and there are indeed great producers for everything. The problem is recognition. PDO/DOP Parmigiano, prosciutto and olive oil and san marazano tomatoes are in the you cannot do wrong cathegory. They are always excellent. A pizza maker in the US will have a lot harder time discovering great ingredients made in US. Not because they don't exist, but because anyone can label almost anything.

oarsinsync 7y ago

> I imagine you can grow pretty much anything in the US at a decent quality I believe this is true, subject to the original source material (seeds?) being imported. > but with its size, population and diversity of climates This makes it tricky, as producing enough of the high quality ingredients in appropriate locations, that can survive the transportation distances, creates a whole new range of problems. Solving this at Italy scale is a different matter to solving this at USA scale.

crispyambulance 7y ago
> Solving this at Italy scale is a different matter to solving this at USA scale. Italian cuisine is all about letting the ingredients speak for themselves and success really depends on having high quality ingredients. So, yes, selecting for tomatoes that have long shelf life and trucking them long distances would violate Italian food sensibilities. The Italian point of view would be to make the most of the ingredients that are available where you are. In other words, if you don't have fresh tasty tomatoes in the middle of winter, don't substitute subpar global-supply-chain tomatoes from the supermarket. Instead, use something else, like high-quality sundried tomatoes or don't use tomatoes at all. This is what happens in Italy, and it's why what visiting Americans might consider "iconic" Italian dishes aren't always present or recognizable.

shantly 7y ago

The quality of American produce is surprisingly mixed. For a lot of it, you've got to shop around and maybe pay a little more to get the same as baseline normal quality in large parts of Europe. I don't know why, but that's how it is. OTOH we have lots and lots of very cheap, kinda bad produce. So there's that. It's also possible to live among wheat fields and not be able to buy good bread for anything less than insane luxury food prices here. All I can figure is our ovens cost more to run? I mean I know it's not that but I can't figure out WTF else could be the problem. Decent cheese is also a lot more expensive—but again, we have lots and lots of fairly bad but very cheap options. And the cheaper end of our wine market is (much) less consistently good than in, say, France.

pizza_dave 7y ago

imo what makes neapolitan pizzas so outstanding and difficult to reproduce is the quality and freshness of the tomatoes. there are lots of pizza joints with the same kinds of ovens that they use in naples. but the tomatoes in naples are grown in the volcanic soil of mt vesuvius, and iirc they don't use tomatoes out of a can; only fresh. neapolitan tomatoes are exported abroad (san marzanos) but they're canned and not as tasty.