Some people really do believe that the cuisine of their homelands is the best and that the people outside of their cultures are never going to be able to imitate that food. Lots of Hardcore Italians think of American pizza places in this manner. Obviously, there are lots and lots of American pizza places, and they’re not all going to get the scorn of Italians and Italian Americans who insist that the best pizza in the world comes from Italy. However, there is a general sentiment that American pizza either barely qualifies as pizza, or will never hold a candle to the great pizza of Italy.
Some American pizza places get more scorn than others. Pizza Hut tends to get more criticism than a lot of the other pizza places in the United States from hardcore Italians, as does Domino’s Pizza. These are the pizza places that tend to serve pizza that deviates substantially from the pizza served at the small Italian pizza places that people will find in Italy itself or at least in places like Little Italy. Genuine Italian pizza tends to have thin crusts.
Most of the Italian pizza that people consider real is wood-fired pizza, and the difference is usually very apparent. People can usually taste the ash and the results of lots of other pizzas burning in the same place. These pizzas have crispiness to them that is completely lost with the pizzas that are made in the utilitarian manner of a lot of modern American pizzas. However, when it comes down to lots of the specific details, Italians, Americans, prolific foreign travelers, and everyone in between is going to have a very different set of opinions regarding pizza.
Some people think that American pizza is fine as long as people acknowledge that Italian pizza is different. Other people swear that Americans should just stop serving pizza at once. Other people think that pizza is a versatile and varied dish and that there is really only so much that anyone can do when it comes to categorizing it. At any rate, coming up with an objective international standard for pizza is never going to happen, even if a lot of Hardcore Italians want it to happen.
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- Main Image: Sydney Troxell from Pexels
