I was going through my feed on X and I saw someone liked a comment I made.\u00a0 As is my habit I went back to the posts from this individual to see if it was of interest.\u00a0 And as I clicked, I saw a picture of what was supposed to be a pizza.\u00a0 It was a thin crust but it had about two inches of what looked like chopped meat cooked onto it.\u00a0 I was horrified.\u00a0 But all things considered, lots of things called pizza don\u2019t seem to resemble what was called pizza back when I was a kid in Brooklyn.\u00a0 There was a pizzeria on Avenue X that served the typical Neapolitan pie.\u00a0 It was a large round thin crust with marinara sauce, mozzarella and various cheeses to taste.\u00a0 For meat lovers you could get pepperoni or sausage garnishing the surface.\u00a0 But that was about it.\u00a0 And that was plenty good.\u00a0 Watching the cooks shaping the dough and twirling it in the air was an entertainment all its own.\u00a0 Coming hot out of the oven and served on a piece of wax paper with a coke to wash it down was paradise.\u00a0 If you were rich, you might even buy two slices.\u00a0 But a slice was a nickel so one was all I could afford and no coke for me.<\/p>\n
Later on in life I found out about rectangular pizza with thick crust.\u00a0 Camera Girl\u2019s mother was Sicilian and that\u2019s how they made pizza.\u00a0 And that was very good too.\u00a0 And they had some different ideas about toppings.\u00a0 They would introduce the seafood motif; anchovies, and even bluefish.\u00a0 All very heretical to me.\u00a0 But still delicious.<\/p>\n
But her I am sixty years later and what do I see?\u00a0 Chaos.\u00a0 Pizza without tomato sauce, without mozzarella, without cheese, vegan pizza, pineapple pizza, pizza without dough!\u00a0 It\u2019s too much.\u00a0 And then there are the chain pizza joints.\u00a0 They stuff cheese in the crust.\u00a0 What the hell is that?<\/p>\n
Well, I guess it\u2019s just the way of the world.\u00a0 We live in a global environment.\u00a0 Cuisines from everywhere exist in this world civilization and are adapted to the business environment and every other factor.\u00a0 It only makes sense that a successful product will morph to expand its popularity.\u00a0 After all I don\u2019t complain that the Chinese or Thai recipes I like probably aren\u2019t authentic cuisine but instead a version that works for a restaurant competing in an American marketplace.\u00a0 Why should pizza be any different?<\/p>\n
But then I saw that monstrosity with the mound of chopped meat on top.\u00a0 That must be the sign of the end times and the four horsemen of the apocalypse must be somewhere nearby.<\/p>\n
But one good thing came from seeing that.\u00a0 It made me think back to that pizzeria on Avenue X and the perfect proportion of crust, tomato sauce, olive oil and cheeses.\u00a0 On a summer afternoon after playing ball and hanging around with the boys from the neighborhood we\u2019d go to that pizzeria and watching the pie being made and waiting for it to bake was the best feeling in the world.\u00a0 Because you almost didn\u2019t want to start eating it because it would be finished before you knew it.\u00a0 The anticipation was the thing.\u00a0 Good times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was going through my feed on X and I saw someone liked a comment I made.\u00a0 As is my habit I went back to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1263],"tags":[2046,2045,4991],"class_list":["post-34347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-brooklyn","tag-italian-americans","tag-pizza"],"yoast_head":"\n