Wood [2175573]

I think my personal argument is not that it is bad or good on Pizza, but at a point, something only conveys the "idea" of a pizza instead of traditional elements of pizza itself. Let me try and explain using an example and some pieces of Ugly Delicious' flagship episode on Pizza.

I recently watched a Kitchen Nightmares episode where Gordon ordered a "sushi pizza" off the menu. It was awful, but my focus is more on the ingredients, which were Sushi, rice, Nori at the bottom, Mayo, and cheese at the top. By calling this dish a Pizza, the owner was trying to harken to the idea of a pizza, not claim it is a pizza itself. After all, aside from the lackluster layer of cheese, there are no other classic Pizza elements in the dish.

Now transitioning this idea to the episode of Ugly Delicious, Pizza "purists" would argue that certain toppings on pizza make it more like a flatbread and less like a pizza. Now some purists do it, as mentioned above, to gatekeep. But others do it because Pizza is part of their cultural tradition. Imagine a dish that is sacred to your country, town, or local area (Insert Philly Cheesesteak here for myself.) It is extremely frustrating when someone throws some half-assed crap into the recipe and calls it the same thing as your long standing tradition. I think people who culturally, have a very specific way of making pizza with a very limited range of ingredients, think that there is a culinary art in cooking this rustic, simple, and straightforward recipe exactly the way it is. Others create genuinely new spins and takes on pizza and see that as a culinary art.

TLDR; It's all point of view and I believe that those who feel very deeply about pizza have it stemming from cultural ties or a historic interpretation of what a pizza should be.

Fun note: There is a Pizza council in Naples, Italy, which can give (or withhold) stamps of approval to stores that make, by their definitions, true, classic Neapolitan pizzas

Wood [2175573]

I think my personal argument is not that it is bad or good on Pizza, but at a point, something only conveys the "idea" of a pizza instead of traditional elements of pizza itself. Let me try and explain using an example and some pieces of Ugly Delicious' flagship episode on Pizza.

I recently watched a Kitchen Nightmares episode where Gordon ordered a "sushi pizza" off the menu. It was awful, but my focus is more on the ingredients, which were Sushi, rice, Nori at the bottom, Mayo, and cheese at the top. By calling this dish a Pizza, the owner was trying to harken to the idea of a pizza, not claim it is a pizza itself. After all, aside from the lackluster layer of cheese, there are no other classic Pizza elements in the dish.

Now transitioning this idea to the episode of Ugly Delicious, Pizza "purists" would argue that certain toppings on pizza make it more like a flatbread and less like a pizza. Now some purists do it, as mentioned above, to gatekeep. But others do it because Pizza is part of their cultural tradition. Imagine a dish that is sacred to your country, town, or local area (Insert Philly Cheesesteak here for myself.) It is extremely frustrating when someone throws some half-assed crap into the recipe and calls it the same thing as your long standing tradition. I think people who culturally, have a very specific way of making pizza with a very limited range of ingredients, think that there is a culinary art in cooking this rustic, simple, and straightforward recipe exactly the way it is. Others create genuinely new spins and takes on pizza and see that as a culinary art.

TLDR; It's all point of view and I believe that those who feel very deeply about pizza have it stemming from cultural ties or a historic interpretation of what a pizza should be.

Fun note: There is a Pizza council in Naples, Italy, which can give (or withhold) stamps of approval to stores that make, by their definitions, true, classic Neapolitan pizzas

Catarchy [2632824]

i understand that some care a lot about the traditions of their own country/city/whatever, but it's just gatekeeping to my eyes.

changing a "traditional" recipe to make something different doesn't in any way hurt the tradition. in fact, no matter how many pizzas with pineapple have been eaten in all history, the other pizzas still exist, the whole tradition is intact and some still don't even know pineapple on pizza is a thing.

my point here is: what is tradition? i can tell you that here in Italy we have a lot of those so called "traditional recipes" that are actually very different from the historical recipes that originated them. still, some people will blame others because they use one ingredient instead of another one.
a lot of this "tradition" has been actually decided just a few decades ago.

from a subjective point of view some things can be a little too much, i perfectly understand that, but if they are just hyped recipes that have no reason to exist, then at some point they will disappear.
some other things instead are simply good ideas so they stick and, i dare to say, become new tradition. i think pizza with pineapple belongs there.