Novelty’s not the issue. It’s podunk towns trying to compete with internationally-recognized de-facto standards for style. Especially when half of them are ‘we don’t cook half the ingredients’ or ‘we use too much of one ingredient (and for some reason that ingredient is not cheese).’
For comparison, I love some weird sandwiches. I’ll try whatever absurd combination of pickled veg and preserved meat emerged from a broken truck axle and an opportunistic deli owner in nineteen-aught-two. Traditional toppings are egg salad and fennel? Sure, seems legit. Pass the paprika.
But if you say you serve Reubens on sourdough… no you do not. That is not a valid Reuben. Pick another Jewish name. That one is taken, and if you substitute so much as provolone, you’re just doing it wrong.
Sure, some dishes have specific ingredients. But pizza isn’t one of them. It’s like arguing that if you use provolone it’s not a sandwich, because an authentic sandwich is just wheat bread and beef.
The “original” pizza didn’t even have sauce, just olive oil and cheese, because the tomato wasn’t in Europe yet.
The dish just covers too much variety to argue that there’s any real cutoff if someone wants to argue that something in particular is pizza, if you want to include things that everyone agreesis pizza.
Every dish has rules. That’s what makes it a dish. Nouns, as a concept, require limited flexibility - but the flexibility is as requisite as the limitation. Otherwise we could not mean things when we say words.
You can’t call poutine pizza because no one calls it pizza, they call it poutine. If there’s a dish that is commonly understood to mean pizza, you can call it pizza in the context that it’s understood to mean that.
Saying “___ style pizza isn’t pizza” is just weird, because you’re referring to it as pizza to say that it isn’t.
What’s the difference to you between a Reuben and a pizza? Why can I add ingredients to a pizza and it’s still pizza, but if I add something to a Reuben it stops being one? Why isn’t sandwich, which was originally a specific preparation, given the same regard?
Pizza is like sandwich, not like Reuben. It’s not a specific variety, it’s a category.
Novelty’s not the issue. It’s podunk towns trying to compete with internationally-recognized de-facto standards for style. Especially when half of them are ‘we don’t cook half the ingredients’ or ‘we use too much of one ingredient (and for some reason that ingredient is not cheese).’
For comparison, I love some weird sandwiches. I’ll try whatever absurd combination of pickled veg and preserved meat emerged from a broken truck axle and an opportunistic deli owner in nineteen-aught-two. Traditional toppings are egg salad and fennel? Sure, seems legit. Pass the paprika.
But if you say you serve Reubens on sourdough… no you do not. That is not a valid Reuben. Pick another Jewish name. That one is taken, and if you substitute so much as provolone, you’re just doing it wrong.
Sure, some dishes have specific ingredients. But pizza isn’t one of them. It’s like arguing that if you use provolone it’s not a sandwich, because an authentic sandwich is just wheat bread and beef.
The “original” pizza didn’t even have sauce, just olive oil and cheese, because the tomato wasn’t in Europe yet.
The dish just covers too much variety to argue that there’s any real cutoff if someone wants to argue that something in particular is pizza, if you want to include things that everyone agreesis pizza.
Behold, pizza.
Every dish has rules. That’s what makes it a dish. Nouns, as a concept, require limited flexibility - but the flexibility is as requisite as the limitation. Otherwise we could not mean things when we say words.
You can’t call poutine pizza because no one calls it pizza, they call it poutine. If there’s a dish that is commonly understood to mean pizza, you can call it pizza in the context that it’s understood to mean that. Saying “___ style pizza isn’t pizza” is just weird, because you’re referring to it as pizza to say that it isn’t.
What’s the difference to you between a Reuben and a pizza? Why can I add ingredients to a pizza and it’s still pizza, but if I add something to a Reuben it stops being one? Why isn’t sandwich, which was originally a specific preparation, given the same regard?
Pizza is like sandwich, not like Reuben. It’s not a specific variety, it’s a category.
Behold, a nameless food: