In last week's episode, we talked about pizza.
Let's see what you had to say.
FNBH on the subreddit and a couple other people
pointed out the great differences
between pizza culture in the United States
and, arguably, a lot of other parts of the world.
And Northern Europe-- specifically, FNBH
talks about Swedish pizza and the idea
that when one gets a pizza in Sweden,
it is always a personal thing, and so there isn't
this cultural ideal of pizza is a food for sharing, which
I think is really interesting, and does align
with the time that I have spent in northern Europe
and eaten pizza.
But the conversation that followed this, I think,
was really interesting, and talks
about the commercialization, I think,
of the personal pan pizza in the United States
is a really interesting thing.
Because I think that a lot of them
want you to feel less bad about having
an entire pizza for yourself, but still
want you to feel like you've had an entire pizza when
you're done with it, which is not always a great feeling.
Let's put it that way.
And so they do occupy, I think, the personal pizza,
a very strange place in portion sizes.
Because to me, they're always-- look like they're slightly too
small, but after you're done eating them,
turns out they may be slightly too big.
This week in Mike Rugnetta Mispronounces Things,
Lou "Malteze's"-- no, "Malnati's" Lou Malnati's.
I apologize to my Chicago friends.
I have no excuse other than the fact
that I have a long, long history of being
bad at pronouncing things.
So not necessarily comment-related,
but I think also very worth mentioning,
there were two edits of the video
where people took every time I said pizza and strung it
all out.
And if you would like to experience semantic satiation,
if you would like the word "pizza" to turn
into a sound and no longer a word that has meaning,
I highly recommend watching both of them, one right
after the other.
We'll put links to those in the place where the links go
Mr-Dr-Prof started a really good conversation
on the subreddit about the homogeneity of the tomato
and how it does not have a necessary place in pizza.
I think that there are a lot of people who
feel very strongly about this.
I'm not one of them, but I can respect the idea
that the tomato really does-- it keeps us all oppressed
and under its boot heel as far as pizza is concerned.
Good Bean, CS Dragon, Fernando, and a bunch of other people
pointed out the selection bias that was maybe present
in the episode, which was we are trying
to tell a global history of pizza in eight slices--
how cute-- and that requires us to leave out
certain kinds of slices.
And so there were secondary mentions
that just didn't happen, like Saint Louis pizza
and California pizza and other certain kinds
of international pizzas.
The one that I really missed out on saying
was talking about-- I really wanted
to talk about French bread pizza,
because I feel like that has a really big-- a weird importance
in my childhood.
I think it was-- was it Amelio's or something?
French bread pizza was a thing that I
think I ate hundreds of times that deserved a mention.
And a special Connecticut seafood pizza
that-- I think it's Newport pizza--
is also a very interesting and regional version of the pizza.
So yeah, there were tons of different kinds of pizzas
that got completely left out.
So I apologize if I didn't get to your specific regional
pizza.
Wizzy433 points out that in Brazil, there
is an argument as to whether or not ketchup belongs on pizza.
And I have had a similar argument
with people who believe that mustard belongs on pizza.
And I would say that in both cases, people
who put those things on pizza-- I'm sure they're very nice
and they have great personalities.
No, but seriously, I think this is a really great facet
of pizza, which is something that Undeny points out
in their comment that pizza is something that
can simultaneously bring people together while also splitting
the ranks and creating factions and causing people to fight,
but not in such a way that you're really
causing any longstanding harm, just
like really good conversation.
And so that is why, as Undeny says,
there cannot be such a thing as too much pizza,
just like there's not such a thing as too much good
conversation.
So I love it.
I think this is great.
Samuel, I prefer to think of a pizza and sandwiches
as more of a Delusian assemblage.
They are a collection of heterogenous elements
that come together to form a relationship
with the social world around them,
and then they all become a sum that
is greater than their parts.
Also, yes-- it is definitely food.
If there is one very large lesson that I have taken away
from making the pizza episode, it
is that the pineapple jalapeno fandom
is much larger than I thought it was,
and I no longer feel alone.
Coroder-- yes, down the street from where
we shoot Idea Channel, there is a pizza place
called Vinny's, and they have certain kinds
of specialty pizzas.
They have-- they call it the special bored, B-O-R-E-D.
And they occasionally have things like the baked macaroni
and cheese pizza.
But my personal favorite is for a little while,
you could get slices with tiny numbers on them-- not sliders,
but tiny hamburgers.
And they even sold a slice topped
with smaller slices of pizza.
Jason Smith, for better or worse,
the answer to that question was yes.
Finally, this is not comment-response related,
but I'm so excited about it, and I'm really proud of it.
Look what we can do now.
Just wait for it.
Just give it a second.
We're getting there.
We're almost there.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
See everybody in two weeks.