What Should Not Ever Go on Pizza?

wensleydale

Well-Known Member
I have heard rumblings about what does and does not constitute a proper pizza topping on another thread. What should, in your opinion, never be allowed on pizza? Suggest a proper pizza topping as well.

I'm very opposed to Hawaiian pizza, much to the consternation of some of my relatives. Also, more than one or two toppings (three if one of them is garlic) ought to be illegal. It makes for a soggy crust and in my opinion that makes for a lousy pizza. And I don't understand white pizza (I hope I never get a tomato allergy.)
 
@wensleydale : I respectfully agree with your relatives! Hawaiian pizza, IMO, combines the visceral joy of eating meat with the pleasure of tasting juicy, cold fruit. I do, however, eschew the idea that barbecue sauce is an adequate replacement for tomato sauce. Barbecue sauce is great for ribs, but on pizza it just doesn't work.
 
Personally, I hate the taste of tomatoes and onions. I do, however enjoy cheese on flatbread with other stuff. I love za'atar (Lebanese flatbread), and pide Turkish flatbread (especially with cheese and sucuk) I enjoy lahmacun (another Turkish flatbread) even though it involves onion and tomato, because it's not overpowering and the texture is good. And of course I love pizza with pesto sauce or garlic and olive oil.

I've often thought that pizza with either chugochujang (Korean pepper paste mixed with vinegar and sesame seeds), mole, or salsa verde would be delicious, but I agree that barbecue sauce on pizza sounds terrible. On the other hand, I've always been skeptical of benefits of putting barbecue sauce on actual BBQ; it's too sweet, at least the tomato paste-based sauces (which fortunately taste nothing like tomato) which dominate the Mississippi valley and the parts of the US without native BBQ traditions.

On the other hand, I don't understand margherita pizza. The point of a white pizza to me is avoiding tomato. So why does the standard white pizza at every pizza parlor replace the tomato sauce with actual tomatoes?

While I have a long list of things that shouldn't go on my pizza (tomatoes, olives, and mushrooms top the list) there's nothing edible that I think absolutely shouldn't go on a pizza. In Georgia I had a flatbread that contained cheese, egg, and butter. And in Turkey I tried a pide with cheese, pistachios, and sugar. While these aren't quite pizzas, the principle is close enough. For the unhealthiness-to-flavor ratio I don't think either butter or sugar is a worthwhile pizza topping, but both dishes were still enjoyable. So at this point, I figure that if you want to put gummi bears or Chex mix or fried ox testicles on your pizza, more power to you.
 
@wensleydale : I respectfully agree with your relatives! Hawaiian pizza, IMO, combines the visceral joy of eating meat with the pleasure of tasting juicy, cold fruit. I do, however, eschew the idea that barbecue sauce is an adequate replacement for tomato sauce. Barbecue sauce is great for ribs, but on pizza it just doesn't work.

I had the misfortune of encountering a barbecue chicken pizza once truly an abomination.
 
I had the misfortune of encountering a barbecue chicken pizza once truly an abomination.

Really? I've enjoyed those many times.

But my all-time favourite was a chocolate-and-marshmallow pizza. However, I had to be very careful as the marshmallow was at a temperature akin to lava.

:p

Hix
 
Sardines and Anchovies, those are best left for the seals, sea lions, and other species that actually like them.
 
Really? I've enjoyed those many times.

But my all-time favourite was a chocolate-and-marshmallow pizza. However, I had to be very careful as the marshmallow was at a temperature akin to lava.

:p

Hix

Granted every single food item (excepting the fish and chips oddly) that comes from said establishment (as unfortunately the place is somehow still in business) is an abomination. As in enough grease to light the entire town on fire and have it burn for a for a month comes with almost every item, oddly excluding the fish and chips, and there are better places in town to get fish and chips (though even the fish and chips have plenty of grease, but well, they are fish and chips.) An aside, they offer you a choice between french fires (chips) and chips (I believe you Brits who are reading this refer to them as crisps). Isn't that weird. I mean, who would want that?
 
Which said establishment? The place that makes the chocolate and marshmallow pizza? They don't do fish and chips.

:p

Hix
 
An aside, they offer you a choice between french fires (chips) and chips (I believe you Brits who are reading this refer to them as crisps). Isn't that weird. I mean, who would want that?
I don't understand this. Are you saying that they have regular fish and chips, but they also offer fish and crisps? Why would anyone want fish and crisps? Or are you confusing what crisps are?
 
Which said establishment? The place that makes the chocolate and marshmallow pizza? They don't do fish and chips.

:p

Hix

An establishment located in an almost antipodal (literally and figuratively) location where you get your barbecue pizza. Obviously you have access to a better pizza place.

My apologies, I could have written the last post a little more clearly.
 
I don't understand this. Are you saying that they have regular fish and chips, but they also offer fish and crisps? Why would anyone want fish and crisps? Or are you confusing what crisps are?

Evidently. They sometimes offered us a choice between potato chips and french fries, aka what you are supposed to get, and we always said give us french fries. Like you said, why would anyone want that?

Crisps are what you call potato chips, right?
 
chips in fish and chips are cut potatoes. French fries are thinly-cut chips. You don't have french fries as a part of fish and chips, because then that would be fish and french fries.

Maybe that is the distinction they are making. Or do Americans call any thickness of chips "french fries"?

If that's the case then I have no idea.
 
We were offered a choice between our incarnation of potato chips (like say, lays) and good french fries (not thin but not too thick), if that helps.

Surely you can agree that the version with french fries is closer to what you would might see somewhere like the U.K.?
 
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that is just weird.

But on the subject of "crisps" (in New Zealand we just call them chips), some people put them on pizza here.
 
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