Americans Love Their Pizza

This is a "loaded" topic, since everyone's got an opinion. "I'm from Noo Yawk," they'll say, "and I know pizza." Or "South Philly pizza's da best," or South Jersey's, or Chicago deep-dish, or Frank's New Haven "apizza," and so on. So, okay, you guys are all right, There's a whole lot of styles because each big city used to have a Little Italy, settled by immigrants from different regions, each bringing a unique culinary culture from the Old Country.

The pizza above, by the way, is from Tutta Bella right here in Seattle, part of a new menu for summer. They do everything they can to produce an authentic "Neapolitan" pizza, using imported 00 flour, DOP San Marzano tomatoes, and baking the pies in a 900-degree, wood-fired oven that's been certified by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, right down to the blisters on the crust. And Tutta Bella's founder, Joe Fugere, was recently named VP of the AVPN; he was also one of the Seattle business leaders invited to have lunch with President Obama earlier this year.

But we Merkins are a nation of culinary tinkers. We'll deconstruct something as straightforward as pizza and reimagine it six ways from Sunday: as flatbread, as tarte flambée, as pissaladière, as soca. There's pizza topped with doner kebabs in Sweden and a Pizza Hut outpost in Peshawar, Pakistan.

And then there's Chuck E. Cheese. Not a pizza chain (550 stores and counting) so much as family-fun destination (the corporate name is CEC Entertainment), and they've come out with a "new recipe" for their pies. Here's the video; note how the employees aren't so much cooks as equipment operators.




If you're still with me after watching that, ask yourself if it isn't worth $14 to have this prosciutto and porcini pizza at Tutta Bella, and not have to play Skee Ball. 

Tutta Bella, 4411 Stone Way N., Seattle, 206.633.3800 Additional locations in Columbia City, Westlake and Issaquah.

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