Posted by Michael Stern
, July 28, 2009 14:07
It’s a good thing I am not a culinary fussbudget, because if I were, I would be cranky all the time. Eating around America couldn’t be much fun for someone with precise ideas of how certain foods must properly be cooked. If there is one rule common to all American food, it is that there are no rules. At least no rules by which too many people feel bound. Yes, I know there are barbecue purists, and not only in Texas and North Carolina, who allow only one way to cook and serve whatever meat they consider proper; and there are chili purists, hot dog purists, and Key lime pie purists, not to mention martini purists, all of whom disallow any variation on their time-honored recipe. But most eaters are happy to find something new and different and, let’s face it, a huge number of America’s signature dishes are the result of diverse cultures mixing it up. Tex-Mex, Italian-American, Pennsylvania Dutch: ours is a nation of hyphenated cuisines and make-do recipes. All of which brings me to pizza. As much as I love traditional Neapolitan pizza, pizza margherita if you will, I also like all kinds of wrong pizza, too. I have even confessed to an occasional craving for Costco pizza, for heaven’s sake! The illustration above depicts my lunch today at a local Italian eatery called Per Tutti. I am not saying it’s on a par with the magisterial pizzas of New Haven or even the wonderful pizzas made almost directly across the street at Pizzeria Lauretano, but this slice of chicken-bacon-ranch pizza, made with nuggets of fried chicken cutlet, huge amounts of bacon, mozzarella cheese, ranch dressing and barbecue sauce was one heck of a satisfying $3.50 lunch.
