The best pizza in the U.S. comes from....

[Andy Mink]

The best pizza I ever had was in Helsinki after almost two weeks on a field trip in the USSR in 1982 or so. The food in Soviet Russia was awful. The tea and pastries were good, but the rest was not. We stopped in Helsinki and had a layover and there was a pizza joint somewhere we were. Greasy and not very good but SOOOO good for a bunch of high school kids who hadn't had a good meal for 10 days.

 

[dan ross]

and all the s**t that is not fit for hot dogs and sausage go into scrapple...I have recently learned that the best comes from Palm Springs Ca.

I’ve never had scrapple but I hear the best is in some joint in Delaware. Reminds me of fried Spam which I’ve only seen in Hawaii. ..thankfully.

 

[dan ross]

Holy crap, there are 6 pages of this thread already? I was just posting from the first page.

Safe to say some things are sacred and taken seriously-among them Pizza, Lobster Rolls , Beer ,Wine ,Cheese and Ice Cream. I’ve gained 5 pounds just reading this thread.

 

[Uncle-A]

I used to frequent those take out places when I worked in Westchester. I don't think of the food as Chinese food. I am perfectly OK with calling it Chinese American food. They served pretty decent food for the money. That's all it matters.
Kind of bring me back to pizza. To me pizza, burgers are American comfort food. We all grow up with them in the States. So whatever version of pizza, burgers and Chinese food we grow up with is the best version. It's simply the comfort food we are accustomed to. It's all good.

I think you are correct in calling it Chinese-American and we should add Italian-American and any other nationality to the mix. I have eaten in northern Italy and it is very different from what we have here. Although I have often thought that what Americans see as Italian food is very southern Italian and Sicilian food. In the early 1900's when the major Italian emagration took place the poorest in southern Italy and Sicilians came here first the better off in the north stayed longer before coming here. That is why much of the Italian food is like the food of the southern Italy.

 

[Jim McDonald]

Pardon me, but...scrapple is to Spam as beer is to used beer!

 

[wallyk]

As far as the water in NJ you may find that we have a good reservoir system collecting water especially in the northern part of the state and that is where we have some of our breweries.

Nailed it........the same applies for the reservoir system that feeds NYC. Have to have a superior base to make a superior product. All starts with the water.

 

[Philpug]

Nailed it........the same applies for the reservoir system that feeds NYC. Have to have a superior base to make a superior product. All starts with the water.

The same with the bagels.

 

[Uncle-A]

Pardon me, but...scrapple is to Spam as beer is to used beer!

Like I have said you don't buy beer you just rent it.

 

[wallyk]

Pizza is easy in concept but difficult in execution. To have an entire city like New Haven, Trenton, and MAYBE Philly consistently execute for decades to produce a superior product is hard. While Portland, Austin, Seattle and other large and small cities have restaurants with wood or coal fired brick ovens and cooks that can make solid pies, the pizza scene in these cities, Portland for the CNN article, is immature at best. Lack of execution for over 50 years makes a difference.

I've been to Schoalls and Ken's in Portland. Good but nothing special. New Haven pizza from establishments (Pepe's, Modern, Sally's) that have been executing to perfection and set the bar for the rest of county for 50+ years w/ a superior product is the gold standrad. It's that easy.

 

[Bad Bob]

Still maintain the 2 elements that go into a great pizza experience:
The people you are eating it with.
The beer (quantity based) you are drinking.

 

[Philpug]

Pizza is easy in concept but difficult in execution.

Like many things, just because it is simple, does not mean it is easy.

 

[Scruffy]

I took a couple of cooking classes a decade or so ago from a native of Naples, or I should say Napoli, and she was appalled at what was called pizza in this country, too much overkill with extraneous ingredients. Traditional pizza from Napoli was more like focaccia, with the emphasis on the quality of the crust and fresh tomatoes rather than tomato sauce, and maybe some fontina cheese, used sparingly.

Yup, less is more for traditional Napoletana pizza. It's all about the 00 crust- harkens back to the roots centuries ago of simple round disks of flatten leavened dough baked in wood fired mud, then brick, ovens, topped with garlic and herbs, maybe a few veggies, no tomatoes until mid 18th century.

 

[cantunamunch]

Yup, less is more for traditional Napoletana pizza. It's all about the 00 crust- harkens back to the roots centuries ago of simple round disks of flatten leavened dough baked in wood fired mud, then brick, ovens, topped with garlic and herbs, maybe a few veggies, no tomatoes until mid 18th century.

Yeh, I didn't want to muddy the pizza squid sauce waters^ by going on a pide/manoush/manakish "flatbreads are all over the place" side bar

 

[Uncle-A]

My father's mother came from Avellino Italy, it is not far from Naples she use to teach cooking. I fact my mother said several times that she learned more about cooking from her mother-in-law than from her own mother. I never remember my grandma making Pizza and I do remember her cooking other Italian dishes, just not Pizza. My mom's pizza was is one of the standards that all others are judged by and it was a very simple pie, dough into a thin crust, tomato sauce, two types of cheese and spices. It was cooked in a pan in a normal kitchen oven, nothing fancy just a simple pizza. I am guessing that she learned that from her mother-in-law not her mom.

 

[Seldomski]

Best pizza I ever had was from a cafe in Rome that I am guessing was run by a french pastry chef. Went there on a weekday for lunch and there was a line of business people out the door getting their fix.

The pizza was served cut into rectangles, folded in half, and wrapped in parchment paper. The crust was buttery flakey goodness -- closer to croissant or savory pie/quiche crust than the chewy doughy bread common to US 'pizza.' Tomato sauce not ubiquitous on these -- most were just cheese + something else. It was 20 years ago... but I think I got one slice of 4 cheese and one slice with mushroom. May have gone back in and gotten another slice. So good. Never had anything close to it in US- well maybe some that we homemade, but even that was a stretch.

 

[RobSN]

Still maintain the 2 elements that go into a great pizza experience:
The people you are eating it with.
The Chianti (quantity based) you are drinking.

FIFY

 

[James]

Some very untraditional pizzas in Italy, including fried.

 

[John Webb]

As an aside... on the NYC thing... I'd think the best thing there is that if you like NY pizza, it's hard to find a bad pizza. Even the crappy places are pretty good, IMO. Of course, I'm not that picky about pizza. (Toppings, yes, but not the pizza itself.)

Yes, any small hole in the wall joint in NYC sadly has better pizza than anything on the west coast or DC area. Ledo's in Adelphi Md was kind of good at one time
Then they went on a franchise binge and closed the original location -all downhill.

 

[John Webb]

I had a conversation with one of my niece's friend. He was sprouting some nonsense about gourmet hot dog.

Me:; Do you know what goes into hot dog?
Him: Beef?
Me: All the s**t that is not fit to be put into sausage.
Him: But, but, but...
Me: You young'uns are just trying to glorify peasant food.

Ralph Nadar gave a talk at our college. I thought it would be about the Corvair.
Instead it was about how bad hot dogs are.
1/3 water, 1/3 fat, 1/3 parts of the cow you don't want to know about.

 

[John Webb]

and all the s**t that is not fit for hot dogs and sausage go into scrapple...I have recently learned that the best comes from Palm Springs Ca.

Yes worse than hot dogs ! I was force fed scrapple some as a kid and hated it. I think I'd throw up if I got scrapple again.