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Why does pepperoni curl? (2019)
- t_mann 4y agoI don't remember the exact chemical reaction names, but pepperoni shouldn't really be heated like this anymore. I think the reason is that some of the resulting chemicals are cancerogene.
- atdrummond 4y agoIt’s nitrates, which become nitrosamines. As I posted below, here’s a basic summary: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/nitrosamines https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/nitrosamin...
- pc86 4y agoHeated like what? Do you mean in an oven, or in a manner in which part of it chars? I haven't heard anything specific to pepperoni; but I have heard that about charred meat generally (primarily beef), but there are so many confounding factors in everything from genetics to temperature to cooking method to cut of meat it's all but a worthless statement.
- colechristensen 4y agoAs with all things the size of the effect matters. There are many risks I’m willing to take and unless the expected value of eating a pizza sometimes is going to take years off my life, I just don’t care (and I’m thinking of buying a motorcycle so it’s not like very many risks actually matter any more)
- t_mann 4y agoThe charring, yes. Some of the salts used in curing salami undergo some unfavourable reactions what I remember. So it is much more specific than red meat in general.
- BenjiWiebe 4y agoCitation? I did some googling and some wikipeding and can't find anything like that.
- atdrummond 4y agoHe’s referring to nitrates becoming nitrosamines. The only way to avoid this is to cook meats low and slow - which results in frankly unfavorable texture characteristics for pork products like bacon and pepperoni. See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/nitrosamines https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/nitrosamin...
- causality0 4y agoIf I'm eating pepperoni pizza I'm not too concerned about a little creosote.
- torgian 4y agoEh. Somehow I doubt that eating charred food or fast-cooked pepperoni is going to kill me faster
- PufPufPuf 4y agoPerhaps you mean the Maillard reaction? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
- Justin_K 4y agoI'd venture to say the outside top edge cooks first and dries out, thus shrinks when the fat and moisture escapes.
- throwawayboise 4y agoIt's because the top side is closer to the sun.
- rocqua 4y agoSo they cup upside down at night!
- rflrob 4y agoIn the spirit of TFA, if your hypothesis were true, what evidence could we find that would be consistent with it? What evidence would disprove it?
- hirundo 4y agoRelated helpful kitchen tip: To stop pepperoni from curling on a pizza, take away their little brooms.
- cwillu 4y agoOr you could stop eating frozen pizza…
- qbasic_forever 4y agoThe simple fix for this is to carefully pick the pepperoni off the pizza, and replace it with pineapple chunks.
- onionisafruit 4y agoYou are a monster.
- heywoodlh 4y agoFor some reason, I find this ironic coming from "onionisafruit"
- Markoff 4y agoNot in Sweden.
- robin_reala 4y agoPizza fruit of choice here is the banana.
- Kliment 4y agoThe only fruit that belongs on pizza is durian.
- Ekaros 4y agoI have always known there is something fundamentally wrong with Sweden... Thankfully we are not enslaved by them anymore.
- croon 4y agoAnd you got a better version of Taskmaster (guessing Norway, but it would be true for the other two as well).
- 4y ago
- bee_rider 4y agoIt is funny, I've never thought of it, but pepperoni curling is a strong sign of quality to me, on a thicker crust pizza at least. For a thin, greasy pizza, I expect a flat pepperoni for some reason. This is a bit weird because thin, greasy pizzas are obviously the better kind.
- fartcannon 4y agoWhy do people want thin pizza? I think its because they are used to shitty dough. The dough is 1/3rd the of magic on a good pizza and I want to enjoy it. Could you imagine people demanding thin toast? Thin bagette? It's a ludicrous idea to me.
- elzbardico 4y agoThick pizza seems to me like bread with toppings, it can be tasty, but it is not true Italian pizza.
- AlchemistCamp 4y agoBut only a fool would be searching for something other than true Chicago pizza to begin with!
- fartcannon 4y agoChicago style is really incredible.
- rlv-dan 4y agoOn the other hand, Italian pizza can be too thin. For me, I like a crust that is thin but still has a soft inside with that lovely bread taste.
- mlindner 4y agoPizza is American though, not Italian.
- 4y ago
- kretash 4y agoI love Kenji, he’s so methodical when it comes to testing food.
- Markoff 4y agoAs European that looks like very very small salami almost closer to kielbasa, I'm regularly preparing pizza, maybe if you used bigger salami (diameter) it would be less likely to curly, smaller the diameter, more likely to curl. Salami (6-7cm?) curls for me very little while kielbasa (~3cm?) is much more likely to curl, naturally this can be avoided by cutting thicker pieces.
- can16358p 4y agoSeeing the title, I honestly thought there is a tool/command named pepperoni, which for some unknown reason, using curl to fetch data from URLs.
- TonyTrapp 4y agoBecause they don't know how to Wget :-)
- tryauuum 4y agoI'd rather have my pepperoni curled than wgot
- coldtea 4y agoBecause it's not food, but recycled food industry waste. It's not even a proper name for this topping, it means "pepper" in Italian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5AZhjhbxf8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5AZhjhbxf8
- deanCommie 4y agoMost cured meat products are ways to preserve cheaper cuts of meat for a long time. Salamis, mortadellas, head cheese. That doesn't mean they're not delicious.
- zdkl 4y agoI'm afraid the downvoters don't want to know how the sausage is made. (Sorry)
- coldtea 4y ago>Most cured meat products are ways to preserve cheaper cuts of meat for a long time. Which is neither here, nor there. We're a long from that being the only case, in italy, france, spain, etc. there are cured meat products that cost more than your house (well, close enough), as well as tons of excellent, well prepared, well aged, high quality cured meat. "Pepperoni" is not that. It's the cured meat equivalent of spray cheese.
- brorfred 4y agoAnd there is absolute crap cured meat in those countries too. The most disgusting pizza I've ever had was a Dr Oetker's frozen pizza with gross salami as topping. Seems like the brand is sold in Italy: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005856/Ristorante-Italys-popular-pizza-manufactured-Lancashire-Dr-Oetker.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005856/Ristorante-...
- coldtea 4y ago>Dr Oetker's frozen pizza I'll stop you right here... If you're Italian you don't buy "frozen pizza". You make your own, or you go to a good pizzeria...
- andix 4y agoI never understood why you would call salami pepperoni instead. How do you order a pizza with peppers (=pepperoni) in the US?
- wodenokoto 4y ago> How do you order a pizza with peppers just like that. "pizza with peppers".
- felipelemos 4y agoBecause it is seasoned with (bell)peppers.
- magicalhippo 4y agoJust let me say what a disappointment it was when I ordered a pepperoni pizza after a long flight, expecting lovely sausage but got a bunch of bell peppers on there instead... I can imagine it must be just as bad for a vegetarian experiencing the reverse situation.
- puttycat 4y agoA friendly reminder that the friendly name "Pepperoni" is actually pork, which is actually pig, who have the intelligence of >= 3 year-old humans.
- h2odragon 4y agoThey taste much better than humans.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- djmips 4y agoI honestly thought this was going to be about a new version of cURL with a hipster name.
- Fnoord 4y agoWhat it should look like is [...] "picture of burned pepperoni". I don't eat pepperoni but either way we disagree here. Yes sometimes parts of a pizza get burned. We don't eat those parts. But whereas that appears feasible with a part of dough, it does not with a topping like that.
- iampivot 4y agoCut a small slit on the edge of the pepperoni.
- hathym 4y agoto check if there is internet connection?
- r00tanon 4y agoTruly a tour de force of culinary engineering on par with the best that the CIA* has to offer. *Culinary Institute of America