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.
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. 🫀🖖🏽
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.
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 ;)
laughs Japanesely They have a dish here called something like Napolitan that’s a ketchup-based sauce on spaghetti. IIRC it was partly born out of post-war food shortages and trying to make something Western-ish by a hotel in Yokohama. It became its own food, however, and lots of people love it.
I am always amazed by how the japanese are often times very willing to experiment and be inventive in terms of melding their own culinary culture with foreign ones, considering the isolationist and conservative history and reputation they have overall as a people.
To me, that simply says that food really is one of the universal languages.
I’d love to try this dish if just for experimentation, although I suspect it wouldn’t be something I’d have more than once lol
Have you read the story of Panko breadcrumbs?
It came from food and fuel shortages in WW2 where the ingredients for bread but no ovens or equipment to cook it into anything. One guy hooked a bunch of dough up to a car battery and electrocuted it and created a crustless loaf with a weird texture. He also discovered this weird texture made for great even sized crumbs with a uniform colour and after the war ended decided to turn it into a business.
As I understand it, it was created by a hotel chef trying to find something to feed foreigners (mostly soldiers) very soon after the war, so it’s kinda different.
Tempura and Pan (bread) come from the Portuguese. They did start growing hot peppers like many after they got here via either the Portuguese and/or Dutch following the Columbian Exchange.
Much like there’s American Chinese food, there’s also Japanese Chinese suited to their tastes. Pizza is probably the most prominent examples: mayo, corn, etc. pizza is common here.
Ketchup + sour cream + grated Trappist cheese (cold) mixed with piping hot pasta is godlike though. Was a staple during my childhood.
We were poor.
Yeah, no judgement here, when one is poor they gotta do what they gotta do, and ketchup is probably cheaper than decent tomato sauce in some parts of the world I would imagine.
That said, I am willing to bet that the same pasta but with actual prepared tomato sauce (that means put it on the stove, let it simmer, add some salt, maybe a bit of pepper or a pinch of chili flakes if you like, and a drop of EVO oil when it comes off the heat) in place of ketchup would be even better.
Although in your case, the ketchup recipe likely brings back happy emotions relating to your childhood which, after all, are also part of the food experience. Cheers!
But no comment in the sour cream?!
Tbh Hungarians eat everything with sour cream.
It was the staple of Hungary during socialism and probably still is. Supposedly 70% of all cheese purchases are Trappista.
It’s very similar to what North Americans would describe as basic cheddar.
Yay. Chili flakes are great, too.
BTW, the worst pizza I ever had was served in Italy. Absolutely drowned in oil.
