I put Franks Red Hot on pizza all the time. It's no problem.
Pizza isn't owned by the Italians anyway. Many variants are decidedly American anyway, so it would be like a French person complaining about how the British cook a roast dinner.
That sounds pretty good to me. Though I would prefer crushed peppers, jalapenos, or Salsa Yucateca, Tabasco is a little too sour. Why do you care? Are you literally gatekeeping her pizza?
I haven't been arrested by Italian food cops yet so I'd say it's fine. Do whatever you want to food that makes it taste good to you because taste is a very subjective thing.
TBF, not only would that same Italian person you envision also die every time a "pizza" is made, (IRL, they're far hardier as a people) but I personally reached a similar point in my impression of "proper" sushi. 🤷🏽♂️ For decades now, I've looked down on cream cheese, et al, used as ingredients in rolls of all kinds. That eventually evolved into other disdainful opinions on adjacent foods' contents, but I've fairly recently discovered a simple fact: in its culture of origin, sushi is known to on occasion include ice cream as an ingredient.
Therefore? Such quixotic prescriptionism is worse than useless: it restricts access to experiences based on fabricated and imaginary rules (or, face the piercing judgment of... actually no one at all).
Fuck what "people" say. Engage with your wife's view, and maybe even join her in exploring what other curious ways one can enjoy weird shit. 🫀🖖🏽
Well, let's be real, pizza isn't some kind of holy thing that is only Italian.
It's not like they're the only people to ever put things on flat dough and bake it.
But ignoring that, food is a living thing, just like most languages, like music, like fashion and art. You can try to stick a pin in it, but you kill the thing by doing so.
It reaches a point where it's ludicrous to try and claim a thing is possessed in its entirety by the place that first named something.
Once a cultural idea spreads far enough, you can only specify one type of the thing. It's why we have champagne, and sparkling wine. It's a way of putting a pin in something but recognizing that there's still living versions out there.
Or, look at it like the difference between formal and colloquial language.
Pizza may have started in Italy as a term, but it's like kleenex and qtips. Pizza is now the generic term for stuff cooked on flat dough. It can even be applied to stuff being placed on flat bread, and then cooked, though I don't know why you'd not call it one of the other words for that idea other than being unaware of those words.
Put whatever you want on your dough, call it pizza, and enjoy ;)
As an italian my strong belief is that your wife should put whatever she wants on pizza. Hell it’s a flatbread with condiments, go crazy. It’s meant for it. If you want a none pizza with left meat, you should have a none pizza with left meat.
Now if you put ketchup on pasta, I will judge your culinary literacy. Ketchup makes for a terrible pasta sauce
laughs Japanesely They have a dish here called something like Napolitan that's a ketchup-based sauce on spaghetti. IIRC it was partly born out of post-war food shortages and trying to make something Western-ish by a hotel in Yokohama. It became its own food, however, and lots of people love it.
I am always amazed by how the japanese are often times very willing to experiment and be inventive in terms of melding their own culinary culture with foreign ones, considering the isolationist and conservative history and reputation they have overall as a people.
To me, that simply says that food really is one of the universal languages.
I’d love to try this dish if just for experimentation, although I suspect it wouldn’t be something I’d have more than once lol
Yeah, no judgement here, when one is poor they gotta do what they gotta do, and ketchup is probably cheaper than decent tomato sauce in some parts of the world I would imagine.
That said, I am willing to bet that the same pasta but with actual prepared tomato sauce (that means put it on the stove, let it simmer, add some salt, maybe a bit of pepper or a pinch of chili flakes if you like, and a drop of EVO oil when it comes off the heat) in place of ketchup would be even better.
Although in your case, the ketchup recipe likely brings back happy emotions relating to your childhood which, after all, are also part of the food experience. Cheers!
Don't worry about what Italians think about how you eat pizza. Unless you are in Italy, however you are eating it is probably unappealing to most Italians no matter what you are putting on it, even in its base form with no modifications.
Not one single actual Italian gives a flying fuck how you eat anything, as long as you eat enough.
The only "Italians" who say this shit are people that claim to be Italian because their great great great great grandfather once got a hand job in a Fiat 500
If you wanted pizza to be "italian", it would have to have no tomatoes, peppers, pepperoni, buffalo milk cheese, basil or a whole bunch of other ingredients that are commonly added to pizza.
Put whatever you want on a pizza, its a good delivery mechanism
I'm not a big hot sauce ON pizza kinda guy, but I dip the crust in something like secret aardvark. Buffalo chicken pizza is pretty popular and that's basically a hot sauce pizza.
Italians are well-known for being sticklers about the right way to prepare their food, often implying it is ancient. Unless it is a low-oil focaccia or a salad (ancient Roman), it is surprisingly often the case that it is a dish that is 50-100 years old with a foreign influence.
Naples has been making pizza for about 200 years as a basic flatbread with tomatoes, mozarella, and basil. If you eat pizza with a tomato sauce... that's an American change. Pizza was not often eaten outside Naples [Edit:whoopsie] until around WWII. The most common variations around the world are all based on the American version.
Carbonara was a WWII-era invention with tons of variations at first and an American origin. I've known Italians that get actually upset if you prepare carbonara with the "wrong" ingredients even though they were ingredients used on "original" carbonaras less than 50 years ago.
If you go back just a bit farther, every dish that needs tomatoes or potatoes or peppers is from the Americas, not Europe. And Europeans were not big on tomatoes for a looong time. It's only been in much use there for about 250 years.
I never saw this until moving to Japan. Everywhere I've dined in with pizza gives tabasco. I tried it and I like it. Especially for vinegar-based or otherwise more acidic sauces, it cuts through the fattiness from the meats and cheese and brightens things up. I also like spicy things (we frequently do habanero hot sauce these days). I think maybe a splash of something like white wine vinegar might be nice if someone isn't into the heat.
You can do whatever you want to food, I wont stop you. Some would keep the gates closed to others; deeming this or that ingredient taboo. These people have never been to Naples, never had to make a frozen cheese pizza more palatable with canned peaches or starve to death. Hypocrites! Let them scoff, and weep at our scrambled egg sriracha breakfast pizza. They will never be happy like we are.
I've made a Christmas dinner pizza with a stuffing and gravy stuffed crust. Just have fun with the food you eat. Why be boring and keep things "authentic"?
I like it spicy, but I can't stand the vinegar taste of Tabasco on pizza. In some restaurants you could request chilli oil, which suits my taste better.
I find it very tasty, however, I think hot sauce is adding more moisture to a food that's already pretty wet. I prefer red pepper flakes to balance this out. But she should do what she wants
Italians die regardless. If it tastes good, go your gang, live a little. I put mayonaise on my frozen pineapple/ham pizza. Best hangover breakfast ever.
Food is food. Do what you want to do to your food because you are eating it. Other people aren't eating it so they don't get a say. If most people saw what the original pizzas were they wouldn't recognize them and some wouldn't like them, including modern Italians.
Tabasco, in my opinion, is just like eating a pizza with peppers or a bunch of pepper flakes on it, or as I sometimes do, ground cayenne pepper.
Depends if it's good pizza or not. If you're talking a sauce heavy Italian/Boston style slice the Tabasco is a travesty... if it's some shitty NY slice the load that sucker up.
As someone who grew up in the NYC pizza area, but has lived in the Boston area for a few decades, this is incomprehesible to me. While there is some very good pizza to be had in the boston area, it is from very individual places, whose pizzas do not constitute any cohesive boston style (and some of which are NY style).
What I would call the closest thing to a regional style is the pizza from sub / pizza shops, usually run by greeks and so sometimes called greek pizza, which tends to be cheese heavy (and i'm not sure what the mix is, definitely not just mozerella/parm), and lacking in the sauce department, to my taste.
I'm sure there is bad NY pizza, but good NY pizza has a tastier sauce, thin crust, and a good cheese balance. And unless things have gone downhill since my last visit (which is certainly possible) even your average NY pizza is pretty decent.
Restaurants here often have a spicy oil on the table that I’ve see plenty of Italians put on their pizza. I don’t see it as being all that different. However, if it was a hot sauce with any amount of pineapple and you’d get your Italian citizenship revoked. 😅
I think that hot sauce on pizza is awesome and I have been doing it for years. My apologies if I am making their population decline, but I won't be stopped.
Here’s my take: most countries outside of the US are lacking when it comes to condiments and sauces. It’s your food, dress it how you wish. One of my recent favorites for pizza is Bachan’s Original Japanese Bbq sauce
As a pineapple on pizza enjoyer I am not gonna judge, taste is subjective so no one but you decides what goes on your food. Honestly, this is how new recipes are made. If no one tried new variations then we wouldn't have most of our favorites!
Depends on the pizza. If you are eating a traditional pizza just like mamma mia made back in the old country, skip the Tabasco.
If you're eating greasy sloppy pizza from a dirty little place called, "Joe's" load up that Tabasco and the chili flakes, and add some of that artificial Parmesan powder that comes in little packets!
If you are eating pizza by italian standards, theres only 1 topping besides cheese on there, 2 if you are daring. I like to bend the rules when it comes to personal preference and I also put tabasco on pizza sometimes.