Stuff You Should Know - How Pizza Works!

Episode Date: October 12, 2012

Sure it's everywhere and there's a more-than-90-percent chance you eat it once a month. But we'll bet you don't know the full history of that pizza (or tomato pie) you're about to chow down on. Join Chuck and Josh as they explain it to you, bite by bite. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner, the residue-free, fast-drying solution especially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like stone, tile, laminate, vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. I'm a little under the weather, a little rundown, but I feel better than I sound. I am over the weather. Yeah, whatever that means. It means you're in great spirits,

good shape. Sure. You can put your hand through that wall next to you. I probably could actually on certain days. Yeah. But not today. That's good, Chuck. You doing okay? Yeah, great. Okay, glad you're feeling better, even though you sound crappy. Yeah, I really do, don't I? It's always reminiscent of the six-month period that you were sick early on. Now I'm healthy. I don't smoke. I exercise. I eat right. I juice all the time. Isn't it remarkable how you don't get sick as often when you live right? Yeah, when you treat your body correctly. Exactly. Well, Chuck, that's an excellent segue, because in my opinion, one of the best ways to treat your body is to stuff it full of really good pizza. Yeah. Have you had pizza before? Yeah. Dude,

I love pizza. I don't eat that much of it. Oh, really? No, I mean, I don't know how much. I mean, we have stats on the average American stuff. May I spit one out? Sure. Every day, Americans eat about 100 acres of pizza. I guess it would be Sicilian, because in acres, it would be squared. Although it didn't have to be square. No. You can have a round acre. Yeah, I guess you could. Just forget what I said. I've never seen a round acre before. I'm going to imagine an island if it's round. Oh, yeah. It would be round acreage. There's not really any real round islands. There's no such thing as a perfect circle. Sure. Gilligan's Island was so round. No. It was just a circle. No.

Yeah, I love pizza. I don't know how much I eat of it, though, compared to most people. Like, I'd say we order a pizza like maybe once a month. What? We'll order a pizza. Are the only pizza you have every month? Yeah, we'll order a pizza delivery, and then probably we'll throw in one visit to Antico, which- A month? You got me beat there. I need to get out there more often. Yeah, once every six weeks to two months for Antico. Yeah, here in Atlanta, Chuck and I have a pizza place. I guess everybody in Atlanta has it, but we're very fortunate to have a place called Antico Pizza. It's really good. And now I understand the name after researching this article.

Yeah, it's kind of close to the original pizzeria. I think that's the point. Is it? I would imagine. I don't think they follow the traditional rules, though. Okay. We're spoiling all of it. Man. Well, for my part, you and me and I are crazy about pizza, and we eat it all the time. Everything from frozen pizza to Domino's to pizza out by the slice. Yeah. It's good. I ate a lot more pizza when I lived up in the New York area. Yeah. Because I would get it after class, just the single slice. The big huge slice. Yeah, and you fold it in half, and it's just great. Did you want pizza while you were researching this?

No. I did. Did you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. So by the Antico, though, is really, really good pizza. The best pizza in Atlanta most people agree on. Yeah. And judging by the line out the door every single day, then I would say we're right. I've even gotten into an argument with them on the phone, which I don't do very often about whether or not you can order a pizza without cheese, and I'll still go back there after hanging up on them in anger. Wow. Yeah. They do it their way. They definitely do. That's the point. Oh, man. They also have the big dressing station, which is like the basil plants. They don't even have like, it's not dried basil or even leaves.

It's like the plant. You pick the leaves off there, and they got the big chunks of garlic, and it's just kind of so good. Yeah. You can hear your food go out. Now I want pizza. Okay. Yeah. All right. That's what I was going for, Chuck. You got me. It worked. So everybody, I'm sure, is familiar with pizza. I don't think there's going to be too many huge surprises there. No. But there's a lot about pizza that I would imagine you don't know. Yeah. We're going to tell you that kind of stuff. Agreed. Like, for example, at its core, pizza, really, is bread, cheese, and sauce. Yeah. That's it. Tomato sauce. Right. Unless you're getting funky. But you can't get funky and still call it pizza, customarily. Yeah. It's one of

those things where like, it has to be made a certain way or else it's not really pizza. It's like a tomato pie. I don't know though. Like, I would call like a pesto pizza pizza. But you were a born American. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. What do you think that was? Speaking as like a native Sicilian? Well, no, but I'm saying like maybe as a citizen of the world. Oh, okay. You know. All right. We're in the midst of globalization, Chuck. Let's do this. All right. Let's talk pizza history, though. Yeah. I used to hear from uninformed people like, you know, pizza is really American. It didn't even come from Italy. Right. They're talking about chop suey. Just not true at all. Yeah. Pizza did come from Italy in a way. We need to back up even further, probably to Greece,

where some people attribute like the original flatbreads that they would decorate with things is like the first pizza style thing. Right. You're talking like third century BC. Yeah. Long time ago. Right. But I don't think they didn't call it pizza until what 81,000 in Naples. Yeah. Of course. Well, Naples is like the cradle of pizza. Yeah. I didn't realize. I didn't notice that it went back that far. That's pretty interesting. Well, that's what was first named. Pizza meaning pie. Okay. So I also saw a discrepancy here. I saw pizza also could mean to pinch. Oh, really? Or slice. That's what I got. Pizza meant not necessarily pie. Well, that's what this person says. Okay. So we're at 81,000. Right. Yes. This is such a cool, cool date. It is. And the reason

pizza started to take off was because the peasantry didn't have that much money and this stuff was kind of easy to come by. You made your bread. You had some cheese. Maybe some kazoo marzu with the maggots. Yeah. And maybe some seasonings and some olive oil. That's about it. Yeah. It wasn't until, you know, the one of the biggest main ingredients. It wasn't until the Colombian exchange started to take place that tomatoes were introduced to Italy because those are a new world food. Yeah. I did a little tomato research because that's kind of fascinating on its own, I think. I know. Tomatoes come from Peru, they believe originally. And because the fruit of the nightshade, the deadly nightshade looks like a tomato, a lot of people thought it was poisonous

over the years. Yeah. Many years ago. Yeah. And actual stems and leaves of a tomato plant do contain a toxic tomatine. Huh. But you have to eat a lot of it. But what will happen to you? Well, I think there's been one reported death. From eating tomato stems and leaves? Yeah. Crazy. Supposedly. I don't know if that's true though. They figured out, well, the stems and leaves are kind of gross anyway. Yeah. Let's just eat the tomato. So thank you, Spain. And also interestingly, even though it came from like South America, you would think it made its way up through the states via Central America and Mexico. Yeah. But it didn't. It like took the circuitous route via European immigrants.

Probably through the Philippines too. If you're interested in that dude, you should really read 1493. It's all about that stuff. Is that going to just keep writing books? Is there going to be a 1494 or 1495? If there is a benevolent God, yes. Okay. Yeah. 1495. So anyway, tomatoes, all people discovered, hey, they're not poisonous. They're really delicious. Yeah. Let's start throwing them on the spread. Exactly. Then now we have pizza. So we're talking like the 17th century, I think was when the term, no, it wasn't. Okay. So that kind of, yeah, that goes against that research too. I think I saw somewhere that the term was coined in the 18th century, like 1738. They started making pizzas as we know them today.

You know, I think there's some discrepancies just in pizza lore. Yeah. Because that long ago, I don't think they were necessarily keeping track of all this stuff like we did today. Okay. So possibly in AD 1000 or in 1738, about 750 years later, the word pizza was used to describe this flatbread, right? Consisting of now tomato, sauce, cheese, bread, right? But the one thing that is not disagreed upon was that both of these took place in Naples. That's right. And Naples was the center of them. Like we said, the peasantry was really hip to pizza because it was cheap and it was abundant. Street food. Yeah. And so if you wanted to go find pizza, you basically had to go into the peasant

districts of Naples. And there it was in abundance being sold from street carts. Now, is that where the first pizzeria was? Yes. Okay. In 1830. The peasant land? Yeah. Okay. So Antica, Pizzeria, Portalba. Yeah. So Antica, I wonder if that's the same as Antica. Who know the differences? I don't know. Someone will probably explain it to us. Hopefully in Italian. Yes. Seren authority on that. All right. So that's 1830, the first pizzeria. Right. And also, I didn't see it in here, but I came across that a pizzaioli was a pizza maker. That was the name of a pizza maker. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the peasantry in Naples and probably it's starting to spread a little bit beyond that, but the peasantry in Naples has been

eating pizzas for well over a century, almost two centuries by the time Queen Margarita and King Umberto. Queen who? Margarita. Yeah. Does that name sound familiar in regards to pizza? Yeah, especially when you see it spelled out. Right. You're like, oh, wait a minute. That's where it came from. Exactly. Reportedly. So Queen Margarita was apparently like a pretty hip Queen. She was down with the common person and she and Umberto went and toured the country in 1889 and one of the places they went was Naples and one of the things they did was eat pizza and she was like, I love this. I want more of this. Yeah. Bring me Raphael Esposito. Her personal chef. Yeah. I don't know if it's a personal chef. It was a personal pizza chef,

at least. And he said, Queen, I'm going to make you some good pizza, including one of the Italian flag. And that is the legend, at least, of how we got Margarita pizza because you have the red tomato, the white mozzarella and the green basil. And there's your Italian flag. Yeah. It's a great story. Hopefully true. So supposedly he made her that one, the Margarita pizza, which she liked the most and is named after her. Another one with pork fat, cheese and basil. It sounds pretty awesome. Yeah. And then another one with garlic, oil, olive oil and tomatoes. Yum. All of them sound great. Yep. But she chose the Margarita and that's the one that was named after her. But the upshot of all this is that the Queen was

suddenly eating peasant food. The Queen's the most popular person in all of Italy all of a sudden. Sure. And now all of a sudden in places, other parts of Italy where pizza wasn't heard of or eaten or whatever, people are starting to make it. That's right. And that's like 1889, 1890s. Yes, which is a great time for pizza to be coming into its own because there was a little country called America. Yeah. Coming into its own. And with the arrival of Italian immigrants in the late 19th century in places like New York and Chicago and Philly, New York light, they would eat pizza. And it was again sort of like street food at the time at least. Right. Right. So about the time, I guess when Margarita was extolling the virtues of pizza, I guess her

this wave of immigration had such a tangible connection to the old world that like almost immediately they were making pizzas in these cities, like you said. Yeah. Apparently, New York was the first city with an actual pizzeria. I believe that. Lombardies. Genaro Lombardi apparently opened his shop in 1905 at 53rd and a half Spring Street, New York. I wonder what's there now. Lombardies. Oh, is it still there? I believe it's still functioning. Wow, that's pretty great. Yeah. And did we say that antico pizzeria in Naples is still in the same spot, still selling pizzas since 1830? We did not, but that is true. Yeah. And that is very cool. That makes me want to go to Naples quite badly. Yeah. I mean, you could get an original pizza from the original

pizzeria. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And we'll get to this in a little bit, but you may be kind of surprised when you eat a pizza, a Neapolitan pizza at the place where it all started. Yeah. Prepare it if you're used to like Papa John's. I had the pizza in Italy once. Yeah. You know, I was there and I figured, why not? I guess I'll do as the Italians do. Exactly. Okay, so that's pretty much, oh no, we didn't, we didn't finish the history. Yeah, United States is coming into its own, Italian immigrants coming in, bringing in pizza. Then after World War II, of course, with a lot of things, GIs came back with these flavors for different countries, foods, and drinks. Right. And they said, man, this pizza stuff is really great. So let's start building chains and

degrading the product. And we did so with the Shakies in 1954 was the first pizza chain in the United States. Yeah. California chain. Pizza Hut was founded in Kansas of all places. Yeah. Four years later. 1958. Pretty cool. And the reason apparently, as legend has it, that their name Pizza Hut was because the place, the building kind of looked like a hut and there was only room for nine spaces on the sign. So Pizza Hut. That makes sense. Yeah. Shaky, have you ever been to Shakies? No, as a matter of fact, no. The only time I've ever seen Shakies was in the movie licensed to drive with the two quarries. Yeah. Yeah, they're all over LA and, you know, sort of Pizza Hut-y and feel like a family joint, pictures of beer, not so great pizza. Yeah. But

apparently Sherwood Shaky Johnson got that name because of some like affliction he had that made him shake. No. Yeah. Goodness. But I guess he embraced it. Well, yeah. The name is very popular chain after it. And they're still around, huh? Oh, yeah. I'm surprised it hasn't spread by now. 1954, there's Pizza Hut everywhere. Yeah. I mean, I think they have them outside of California, although I'm not positive. I didn't get to look that up. But I know they don't have them over here down south over here in the southeastern Bible Belt. Yeah. All right. Doe? Yeah. So that's a piece of history. Yeah. We should probably get to the basics. Yes. And there's nothing more basic than dough. No. And there's an art to this. There's three ingredients that are demanded flour,

water, and yeast. Everything else is just icing on the cake. Yeah. But you probably are going to throw a little salt in, a little sugar, a little shortening to make it do the things you want it to do, perform like you want it to perform. Yeah. And you can go to Mellow Mushroom Pizza and get a gluten-free pizza. I myself have not had one because I don't have celiac, right? And I'm not about to just... No. Yeah. But if you are gluten-free, you are SOL in a lot of ways because the flour used in pizza crust, pizza dough, is high gluten. High gluten flour. That's why gluten-free pizza tastes like crap. I've not had it, so I can't say. Yeah. Well, that's just my opinion. Yeah. You've had it? Yeah. I've tried it. It's just not the same. Oh, I'm sorry, everybody.

They need gluten in the flour because gluten makes a crust tough. Yeah. And it won't crack apart. It makes it stand up to the water. Keeps it ropey? Yeah. Keeps it nice and ropey. Yeah. And I guess we need to talk about water at some point. Anytime. Because water is, you know, the old saying about New York pizzas is because of the water. Oh, yeah. That's like the old saying. I don't know. But they changed their water. Now they have like water you can drink right out of the tap. Did they change their water? Oh, yeah, man. They overhauled their sewer system. There's a bottle water you can buy now. That's just New York City tap water. It's stuff is so like clean and pure. Well, it's because it comes from, I think 90% of it comes from two aqua ducks and the cat skills.

Ship it into Manhattan. We should do a podcast on how Manhattan gets water. It's pretty amazing. Oh, okay. Now? No. Can we wait until we research it? Yeah. It's pretty amazing, though. But I read this wired article that kind of broke down the pizza water New York thing. And they got in touch with Mario Batali, very famous Italian chef. Yeah. And asked him and he said, well, one of the reasons before we get to water is that the oven, he said captures the Gestalt, or if you're German, the Gestalt of a beautifully cooked pizza. So basically over time, totally did say that. Over time. Well, it makes sense. Over time, you're going to get particles like volatiles particles, caking onto the walls and the roof of your oven. And then the convection

process will just like work that into whatever you're cooking over the years. Right. So because they've been making pizza for so long in New York, some of these old ovens like have this Gestalt that can't be matched anywhere else. No, he says. Okay. And in Chicago as well. But then with the water, he says, yeah, the biggest problem with California pizza is the water. It's just not the same. Yeah, poop water. Although he doesn't, he doesn't use new New York water at his restaurant Del Posto. He actually clones water from Italy. No, he doesn't. He does. No, yes. Clones. It's what he said. It's he's created his own mineral water composite working from a chemical analysis of l'acqua italiana. And it said that basically it's a clone of this Italian water. It sounds kind

of pretentious. We should go sell him some like real estate or something. But that's why I think the food detective show did a test, a blind test on New York water and pizza crust and everyone picked the New York pizza in a blind test. So there may be something to it, the mineral composition. Oh, I'm sure there is. Yeah. I mean, if you have even the slightest belief in molecular gastronomy, sure, it makes sense, which would explain why New York bagels are the best too, because bagels are boiled. Yeah, everyone knows. Or the right if you make it the right way it's boiled. Yeah. Where did you go Chuck? That's my water sidebar. Chuck on water. Well, I've always heard that, you know, New York pizzas because the water is because the water from the cat skills. Yeah,

I had heard that. I didn't know it was from the cat skills or it had anything to do with just stalt or anything like that. Get yourself. Yeah. All right. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops,

are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Our nation loves true crime. And it's no wonder in the past decade, one in four Americans have reported being victims of crime. But what happens when we survive? That's what we explore in the podcast, Survivors Heal, hosted by me, Oya El-Sharrells. I've worked as an organizer, activist and advocate for the past 15 years. And for the past five years, I've been on the ground for providing services to survivors of crime. I invite you all to listen in as we discuss the

healing side of true crime, and what I call the new survivors movement. Listen to Survivors Heal, available on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Um, the third vital ingredient is yeast. And yeast basically creates the precursor to beer. Remember in the beer episode? Did you imagine if there was no yeast? We'd be in big trouble. No pizza, no beer. What's the point? No bread. This would be, this world would be, it'd be sad. Actually, there's yeast free bread, I think. But still, you know? Yeah, no, I know. So what's the deal with yeast? Well, basically the yeast goes in and eats the sugars found in the flour. And then you may also add your own sugar to increase the fermentation. But it causes the dough to rise because it

expels gas as a byproduct. And that gas gets trapped in the dough and it causes it to rise. It makes it up more malleable. It makes it tastier. Yeah. The texture of it is softer. It's just basically yeast is, it's the happy fun guy that you add to the whole. The magic ingredient. Yeah. If you add a little salt, it's going to add some flavor, obviously. It's going to slow the fermentation. Shortening is going to make it more pliable by providing lube. And shortening would be like olive oil. You're not going to use Crisco unless you're some sort of heathen. No, you can use canola oil, but olive oil is what I would go with. Sure. Sure. Yeah, Crisco. Crisco is great, though, for some things. Oh, yeah, for like sugar cookies, especially the kind that's like just the

the shortening, the thick solid, yeah, shortening. That stuff is crazy. That's what I thought. That's the only way I thought you could cook growing up because of like my grandmothers. Yeah. I thought, well, when you cook, you get out that big can and big ice cream scoop and you cut it down. With that wadded up piece of like wax paper in there that you used to scoop it out. Yeah, yeah. It's completely covered in Crisco now. Yeah. Either that or the grandmothers also used, you know, they saved all their grease. So they would be cooking with grease that they've been using for like the past year. Yeah, it's really good. That's nice. Sugar changes the fermentation rate. Yeah, it can accelerate it. Yeah. It can increase the amount of gas released. And it also

causes the crust to brown. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's the sugar. Yep. So what if you don't put sugar? You get a glowing yellow crust. Oh, really? Doesn't brown as much? It doesn't brown. Okay. You want to ball it up? Use your hands. Yeah, I think you should say here, like you're teaching people how to make legitimate real pizza dough here. Yeah. So I mean, gold and rough strokes. Okay. Like I don't think anyone could like we're not providing measurements. You know what I'm saying? No, no, but I'm saying once you've once you've created the stove, now you're about to tell them what to do with it. Yeah, yeah. How to make it. You want to ball it up with your hands. You don't want it all cracked. You want it tight.

And you want to put it on an oiled sheet pan and then proof it, which means you cover it with wax paper and let it sit and let the yeast do its thing until it like doubles in size. Yeah, because the yeast is just sitting there eating sugars and pooping out gas gas. Then you need to retard it. You need to put it in the fridge for about 12 hours and then this slows the yeast down, but it's still doing its thing. They're like this sugar. It's cold. And then if you do this, you've got pizza dough that you can use for like three to five days. Yeah, I would imagine most people who are really, really into pizza would be like, you can't save that for three to five days. You think? I would think so. I bet fresh. You think

it's almost always preferred. Like yeah, the same day. No, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying like a pizza purist. You can't use five day old dough for a decent pizza. True. But I buy the dough sometimes like Trader Joe's, you know, or the farmer's market, like the pre-made dough balls. And those are, you know, not necessarily that day or eat the oven. Well, you left out the sauce. Most of the time it's tomato sauce, but if you're still worried that tomatoes are poisonous and that the aristocracy is trying to kill you by giving them to you, you can eat garlic butter sauce, which will give you a white pizza. Yeah. You don't like white pizza? I love white pizza. And if you go to Fellini's, I think we're going to name every single

pizza place in town. If you go to Fellini's in order a white pizza slice, you know, they use the pre-made slice and they build the white pizza on top of it. So you get a little tomato sauce with your white pizza. It's really good. But it's not white pizza then, right? No, I'm not. You're the one who calls like everything pizza. You run around and that's a pizza. Look, there's a pizza over there. I don't want to hear from you. All right. I'm not a fan of white pizza. I like some tomato sauce. I'm fine. Yeah, I'm with you if I like white pizza too. Okay. And the cheese, you know, mozzarella traditionally. Right. And the way you build it is actually kind of important too. Yeah, depending on where you are. It's not just the ingredients. It's the amount

and the distribution. Yes. Where they are in relation to one another, vertically. Well, let's go ahead then. New York is sauce, then cheese. Yeah, from the dough up. Yeah, dough, soft cheese. Right. And then not that many toppings. Well, if you're a purist again, cheese, a cheese slice is what you're going for. I'm not big on just cheese. What do you pepperoni guy? No, not anymore. Not since I was a kid. No, I'm just kind of like pepperoni. So I like a good homemade Italian sausage. Oh, yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's really good. I like sliced tomatoes on it. Not some dried fresh. Yeah, basil, black olives. Yeah, basil always. Ham. Not in olives. I like sausage. I don't like the green olives. I like

black olives. Do you like the Hawaiian pizzas? I've only in the last couple of months gotten into pineapple. Yeah. And I'm still feeling my way around it. Pineapples and strawberries. I just, I used to eat strawberries when I was a kid and I've rediscovered them recently. Yeah, when we were in the suite at the Marriott and we were doing interviews at Comic-Con. Oh, yeah, you used to eat like 15 pounds of strawberries. They were so good. The chocolate covered or regular? No, they're regular. Okay. Yeah, I don't even need chocolate covered anymore. It's like I'm free. Strawberries are delicious. Yeah. But Hawaiian, I'll tell you in a month or two. I'll try it. Emily likes that. She's big on mushroom, green pepper, and pineapple. Together. Yeah,

she doesn't do the meats, you know, at all. Just it's a food. While we're talking about wives and pizza preferences, yeah, you may have this place in DC she used to go to and she'd get like a huge slice of pizza and this place also sold Indian food so she'd get chicken sag and put the sag on the pizza and she said it was really awesome. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, we have to do the half and half and I get like sausage on one half and she does veggie and then it's like your sausage juice got on my half. Like what your mushroom got on my half. You like a cheeseburger pizza? I love cheese. I'm not too big on beef on the pizza. I'll give you one more tip. Okay. Get yourself some complete seasoning. Some, I can't remember what it is in Spanish, but complete seasoning. It's like a Mexican

blend. Okay. And put it on your pizza. It doesn't matter what kind of pizza it is. It works on popcorn too, but on your pizza, it's just, it'll make you smile. Well, my friend Eddie, who, you know, would say get the ball of ranch dressing in your all set. Oh yeah, that's good too. All right, so man. Wow. That was a sidebar. So you were saying New York you built from the dough up dough, sauce, cheese, and then maybe a couple of toppings. Yeah. Chicago, it's the opposite. Yes. And this is apparently a tomato pie the way it's built. Yeah. Super deep dish, baked in a pan. Yeah. And then you've got the cheese on the bread itself on the dough. Right. And then the toppings and then they put this like ungodly thick, delicious sauce on top. Yeah, I've not had it. Really. And I love

pizza huts, pan pizza. Well, I mean, you should definitely have like a true Chicago style pizza. I mean, it's great. You eat it with a fork and knife. I'm a New York pizza guy through and through. I like it too. But you know, every once in a while, it's like when in Chicago. Well, this is like when in Italy. Exactly. This is one of those things where I don't think you have to choose sides. No, let's just all eat all kinds of pizza all the time. Yeah, but people get really passionate about their pizza. I know, but these are, you know, it's like, man, it's pizza. Enjoy all pizza. If there's one thing we can all just settle down about it's pizza, even Mexican pizza. Come on. Yes. No. Oh yeah. That's not pizza. What are you crazy? You can't just run around saying

that what you eat is not pizza unless it's exactly what the Neapolitan's are making. It's not pizza. It's not Neapolitan pizza. No, it's not pizza. All right. So now the ovens. I guess. I thought this was an odd little thing that they put in there. What about the different kinds of ovens? Yeah, it just seemed intuitive to me. Well, sure. Well, you use a peel. Not many people know that the big spanking paddle, it's called a peel. I didn't. I have to say. Okay. So you slide it in there. They can be electric. They can be cooked right on a conveyor belt, like if you're at a big pizza chain, which you know, or if you have a conveyor belt oven at home. That's true. But the King Daddy of all is the brick oven pizza. Yeah. Cooked with wood. Yeah.

And like your crush should have little bits of black char on it if you ask me. Yeah. For the best, for the best taste. Which is actually soot. It's spent carbon. Yeah. Little spoiler there for an upcoming show. Yeah. And then here in Atlanta, the Antico, I think they brought those three ovens over from Naples if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, I can see that. So a lot of Gestalt going on there. There's tons of Gestalt. Neapolitan pizza. Yeah. So Neapolitan pizza is extremely thin crust that's bubbly crust. You put on sauce and then maybe basil and mozzarella. You don't cover the sauce. It looks like pretty much equal parts just visibly looking down over the pizza. It appears like equal splotches of basil, mozzarella, and sauce. Yeah. Kind of spare. They don't overdo it.

And to be a true Neapolitan pizza, as of December 2009, the European Union issued a protection, that regional protection that like champagne and what was the other thing we talked about recently? Was it a cheese? I had to a bit probably. Yeah. And also I think a new Chateau has regional protection as well. But basically it has to be produced in the area under these certain guidelines to be considered that. Neapolitan pizza enjoys that economic protection now as well. And to be Neapolitan, it has to be round. It can't be ostentatious. No more than 13 and a half inches in diameter. Yeah. It can only be a tenth of an inch tall, which is thin at its center. Yeah. Yeah. The crust has to be no more than three quarters of an

inch thick. So this is a really thin crust pizza, man. Yeah, but not ultra thin. I got taken to task on Facebook today. Oh, yeah. Because I said it was ultra thin. They were like, not not ultra thin. Ultra thin is a tortilla, like I said. Mexican pizza. You have to knead the dough by hand, right? Yeah. And I got a couple of more that weren't in the article. Supposedly it has to be in a wood-fired oven above 905 degrees Fahrenheit, only San Marzano plum tomatoes, which to me, that's the only tomato we're going to be cooking Italian style. Is that right? I think so. Is that canned? Yeah. Okay. Now I know what you're talking about. I mean, I'm sure you can get them fresh, obviously, but yeah, the canned San Marzano's are like what I use

in my spaghetti sauce. Have you been to the Italian market by five seasons on the west side? I have not. It is like right like half a block down and it is authentic. Really? Yeah, you should check it out if you're into that. I am into that. We'll check it out. All right. And I think that's all to buy law. And of course, no one's, they pointed out in the article I read that no one's going out and like, you know, punishing anybody. It's just a set of standards that they like to hold dear. You know, they're not going to throw you in jail for calling something a Neapolitan. Right? Yeah. Although they should. So that's Neapolitan. We talked about New York and Chicago. California pizza. Yeah. That is super thin crust. Yeah. Usually made with what vegetables

are in season. I like California pizza kitchen. It's okay. Yeah. It's pretty good. Like you like barbecue sauce on your pizza. No, they have a tostada pizza that's really good too. Man, you got to expand your horizons. It's not just New York and Chicago. There's a lot. There's a whole world of pizza. I've been to CPK. It's fine. The black bean salad there is delicious. Their guacamole is pretty good too. All right. And then Greek? Yeah. That's also in a pan like Chicago. It's just feta. I'm not thinking of feta. Feta and spinach sometimes olives. Yeah. I like feta. And then Sicilian and there's American Sicilian and Italian Sicilian. That's right. And if you're an American, you're making a Sicilian pizza. It's a rectangular square

thick crust. Not a fan. The reason it's thick is in Sicily. They bake the ingredients into the crust. Yeah. I'd like to try that actually. It's like they heard about stuffed crust pizza and started mimicking it. Oh man. Pizza that drives me nuts with all those things. It's like the rope of cheese in the crust. Or then they had the one crust. It was the one the pizza eat backwards. Yeah. Yeah. They just come up with all these things that are completely unnecessary. There was the pizza that eats you. Yeah. The pizza that eats you. Yeah. And speaking of Soviet Russia, there's some pretty crazy toppings around the world. What did they eat there in Russia? They eat something called makba, which is a blend of tuna, mackerel, sardines, onions, and salmon,

which I'd say sounds kind of good. You know what I thought was good? What? The Japanese. Yeah. The Mayo Yaga. Yaga. Yeah. Mayonnaise, bacon, and potato mixture. They cook their hot dogs in there too. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's really good to check that out. Yeah. In India, a little pickled ginger and tofu maybe, and a little minced mutton. Yeah. That's good to me. You don't like mutton? No. I had a pet goat. This is a lamb. I know. Totally different animal. They can't even eat. I don't think. Oh, I bet they could. Well, they can, but they can't reproduce. Okay. Brazil, you might get some green peas on your pizza. Yeah. Costa Rica, you might get a little coconut. Equally woof. Yeah, I think so. I'm not big on coconut. And anchovies are generally

regarded as the least favorite pizza topping. What's the number one pizza topping in America? It was pepperoni, of course. Wrong. Really? It got toppled this last, this year. Wow. Chicken. As far as protein goes, chicken. Really? Yep. And is that, how do they calculate that? Is that like in restaurants or? There's actually a surprising amount of pizza industry marketing and lobby groups and trade groups. Yeah. And it's true that pizza and this owner's association. Yeah. I ran across a blog post and I don't remember. I followed it to this press release from some pizza association. And I don't remember which one it was, but they said that chicken topped pepperoni as far as pepperoni toppings goes. So that means that Americans consume more than 250 million pounds

of chicken on their pizza. Yeah. Which makes sense because chicken's heavier than pepperoni. That's true. And that's a lot of pepperoni. Maybe they go by weight. Yeah, we've got some awesome stats here, don't we? Yeah, go ahead and fire some of those out. So the number of pizzas sold in the U.S. each year, three billion. I'm responsible for at least a million and a half of those. 350 slices sold every second. Yeah. Not bad. And every year, the average American eats 46 slices. That's child's play. 93% of Americans eat pizza at least once a month. Yeah. That's a lot. That is a lot. I mean, that means like almost every American eats pizza at least once a month. That is pretty staggering. I can't imagine that there's any other food like

that except maybe a cheeseburger. I bet pizza tops that even. I would think so. It's just such an easy go to. Because vegetarians can eat pizza, cheese pizza. Yeah. And if you go to McDonald's or something like that and you have a family of four, you're going to spend more than you would on a pizza that'll feed that family of four or two. And you don't get the cold breakfast leftovers either. Exactly. With McDonald's. You do, but what else was there? Anything else? I had a, there was a guy in my elementary school actually. You know, remember the little rectangle elementary school pizzas? Yeah. They were so great. There was one dude, Brett Standish, that did not eat pizza. And he was like the only kid I ever knew that it didn't eat pizza. So every time we had pizza,

it was like, there was a battle royal to find out who would get Brett Standish's pizza. Yeah. And he would like up his, you know, his asking price each week when I found out, you know, it was like a valuable commodity. Yeah. Smart kid. Yeah. What was the most you ever got for it? No, I have no idea. Probably a bunch of Pringles and like a little time behind the school. You know what I'm saying? No. Well, my imagination is racing right now. Okay. Okay. Oh yeah. There's this little sidebar in this article that said that more than 30 pizzerias in New York are operating under the name Raze. More than that. And that's like, that sounds like a lot until you realize there's 9,000 pizzerias in New York alone, New York City.

Well, I thought this is pretty interesting. Should we talk about Raze? Sure. If you've ever been to New York or Atlanta's got four Raze pizzas. Is that right? Famous original Raze? Atlanta has raised New York pizza. And you know, I always say since whatever year, since 1990. Right. In Atlanta. That's not too bad. But yeah, there by the count I got there are 49 pizzerias in New York that use some form of the name Ray. And here's the story behind it. Ray Ralph Cuomo. Right. Opened the first Raze on Prince Street in 1959. He's grandfather to Rivers and father of Mario. We're going to say. And his nickname he claimed to be Ray because he said it was Ralphie, then Ralphie, then Ray. I'm not quite so sure about that.

Okay. He opened a second one in the 1960s. And then someone named Rosalino Mangano. But the second Raze changed the name to famous original Raze, even though that wasn't true. So things started to get a little messy. Then Mangano now goes by Ray, which is also bogus. Opened several more famous original Raze all over the city. Sold that to a new owner who began using other variations of the Raze. So it kind of just spread. But ironically, three quote unquote Raze got together to trademark the name. None of them are named Ray. They have all gotten together to try and trademark the name Ray and to shut down, at least in name places like Atlanta's New York pizza, Raze New York pizza in Atlanta.

Who you just probably got in trouble. I don't think so. They know about them. So you don't know that. It sounds like a cartel. I think it is. Speaking of cartels, Chuck, the big three, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's. Of those three, the one that has the most urban legends associated with it is Domino's. I had heard, I think one of these with the 30 minutes or less went away because they killed some kid in a car. A delivery person did such a ready made urban legend. Supposedly, they, there were lawsuits from people being hit. At least one person was hit. But they didn't say it had anything to do with 30 minutes or less. One person was killed.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right. One person killed at least, so then at least one person hit. We're both kind of right. But they did do away with that. There was also a rumor that the owner of Domino's contributed a lot to anti-abortion groups, which may or may not have been true, but he didn't know Domino's probably at the time because of the guy who founded the company. Tom Monaghan. Yeah, he sold it in 1998 for a billion, which is pretty tiny. But he is a staunch Catholic and obviously a supporter of pro-life and is building his own little Catholic town outside of Miami. One of those, and I've heard of these before, we basically like, I'm going to build my own little town filled with people that are like me.

Exactly. Because I'm incredibly wealthy. Exactly. So I don't know what the status is on that now, but supposedly more than 30,000 residents will occupy this town. And eventually they'll go to war with Celebration Florida. And then there's all these goofy pizzas. I don't get into all this stuff. Like the 3,000 euro pizza with cognac marinated lobster and edible gold. Okay, so that holds the record. For the most expensive with gold, there's actually two categories in Guinness as far as most expensive pizza with edible gold and without. Apparently if you just want to throw some edible gold on your pizza, you can just tip the scales very wise. But if you want the most expensive pizza in the world without gold, that record was recently broken in Stevenson Pizza

Company in Vancouver, which apparently is affiliated with the guy from Hell's Kitchen. Oh, yeah. Shot it down. Yeah. Yeah. Gordon Ramsay. Yes. They have a $450 pizza called the C6 pizza. It has lobster, Thermador, black, Alaskan cod, and caviar on it. It looks kind of good. Yeah. You know, they do stuff like that to get press and get people in there. And I get it. What about the largest pizza ever built and eaten? I like that they have that caveat. Yeah, agreed. Havana, Florida from 1987. I'm surprised no one has tried to break it since then. 44,457 pounds of pizza. Over 94,000 slices. Yeah, devoured by 30,000, at least 30,000 people hanging out. How did they bake that thing, I wonder? I don't know. That's a great question.

That's the one I want to listen to mail on. Not your favorite pizza topping. No one cares about that. How did they bake that thing? I guess, I mean, maybe it was sun baked. I don't know. It was in Florida or maybe they're like, wow, this is really chewy. Like they make it and then like, oh, wait. Yeah. Because it says eaten. Or maybe there's another record tied to it for the largest pizza oven in the world. And then the longest pizza delivery, 2004. A Domino's franchise owner named Lucy Clough, delivered a pizza 10,532 miles, 16,950 kilometers from London to Melbourne. It was a vegetarian pizza as part of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. I was about to disparage it. I know. That's why I got all that out in one breath before

you could break it. Yeah, okay. I was saving you from yourself. Make-A-Wish then. I support it. Way to go Chuck. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And on the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Before. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Our nation loves true crime. And it's no wonder in the past decade, one in four Americans have reported being victims of crime. But what happens when we survive? That's what we explore in the podcast, Survivors Heal, hosted by me, Oya El Sherrells. I've worked as an organizer, activist and advocate for the past 15 years. And for the past five years, I've been on the ground for providing services to survivors of crime. I invite you all to listen

in as we discuss the healing side of true crime and what I call the new Survivors Movement. Listen to Survivors Heal, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. That's pizza. Yeah. You know what's awesome about pizza? They guarantee you there's dark corners to all this that we didn't even hit. Oh, sure. That we're going to hear about, that we want to hear about. This will be one of those, which I love. Yeah, I love pizza. If you love pizza, you can read more about it at HouseToForks.com. Type the word P-I-Z-Z-A into the switch bar at our beloved HouseToForks.com website, which is now two words, I think, as far as AP goes. What, website? Yeah. For a long time, they know. I was taught when I was hired here,

it's capital W-E-B, separate word, lower case, S-I-T-E. Right. Now it's lower case, all one word. Oh, it's all one word now. I thought you were saying it's two words now. No, no. Got you. Yeah, no, it's one word. Okay. Which is great. And if I did say two words, I was wrong. We'll find out. Anyway, I think I said switch bar in there, so it's time for listener mail. Chuck. Yes. We should tell everybody about something very special and dear to our hearts, New York City. That's right. We are going to Comic-Con and we will be doing a live podcast on Friday, October 12th at Comic-Con at the Jabbett Center. It's like our new thing. We did San Diego, now we're doing New York. That's right. Next up, Albuquerque. So if you are going to Comic-Con,

you should come by and see that. But after Comic-Con, we have one of our famous, famous to us, All-Star Tribune Knights. Right. Where is it going to be? The cutting room? It is at the grand reopening of the cutting room in the Flatiron District, which is, what's the address? It is 44 East 32nd Street in New York. And it's in the Flatiron, you said? Yep. And doors open at 7.30, trivia goes down at 8.30. And what is first come, first serve, right? Free, free, free, first come, first serve. We will have a bar there that you can buy drinks. Yeah, you can buy us drinks. That's right. We're going to basically be having a really good time. If you're not familiar with our trivia nights, like just come out and check it out. It'll be worth your while. Absolutely. And

stay tuned for info on Facebook and Twitter about the makeup of the All-Star team. We're filling that out as we speak. But we will have some special guests that you will want to meet. Yeah. And at the very least, you can come take on me and Chuck, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's just fun. So what is that? That's Friday, October 12th, right? Yep. The panel's at when? The panel is at, I believe, 6.45. Okay. And then we're going to be at the cutting room starting at 8.30. Tribby starts at 8.30. Doors at 7.30. Be there. Be square. You were good at this. Thank you. All right. Is it time for a listener mail? Yep. I'm going to call this accidents, thanks to us. We call it an accident. A good one? No. No one got hurt. Okay. This is from Annie,

and Annie was going off to college, which was several states away. So her family decided to road trip with her to the college as a little mini vacation. That is very sweet, depending on how Annie feels about her family. Well, you're about to find out. It may sound fun, but it's not easy to agree on music when you're James Blunt-loving mom, Miley Virus-loving younger sister. She is, just saying, off to college, huh? Yeah. And weird Euro-metal-loving older brother are all crammed into a car together. After a few hours of me wondering if I could get a refund on my soundproof headphones, they agreed to let me pick the music, and I picked stuff you should know. It turns out everyone loves slash doesn't hate stuff you should know. It's good. We were all

interested, more importantly, not yelling or throwing CDs out the window. Plus, it was fun to go back through my favorites. Jack the Ripper, for instance, made my mom a little green. However, you know what? We heavily edited that one. Yeah, it was worse. It was way worse. I think, yeah, I remember going through there and being like, dude, we can't say this. It was factual. No, it was. Yeah. However, during a time when it was my goofy brother's turn to drive parentheses, I really can't stress how weird he is. At the end of the cast about genius, you were reading some other listener mail from a lady truck driver and told her to honk her horn, which my brother did, really loud like a truck would do. It wouldn't have been a problem, but we were in

one of those curvy two lane highways behind a senior citizen. And basically this, this old lady thought that they were honking at her. Oh, no. She slammed on her brakes. Oh, no. And caused the person riding behind her to butt into her rear end. Oh, no. No one was hurt, but I was laughing because over the screech of tires, I actually heard Chuck say, I hope we didn't just cause an accident. Wow, this is. Everyone is fine. There was no damage to either car, but my mom made my brother give them both info because my mother thought that he was live. Thanks, mom. Yeah, exactly. She just drove him straight to jail. And she says I was the one to awkwardly explain to the old lady what a podcast was. PS, I hope my dorm mate likes you guys.

That's from Annie. Thanks a lot, Annie. That was really nice. I'm glad everyone's safe. Me too. Man, that's, that's crazy. It sounds a little made up, but oh yeah, we've fallen for it before. Sure. Man, the marriage, the wedding proposal. Yeah, I still have egg on my face about that. Sorry, man. We all do. We all do. If you have a great story about how your family's been brought together by stuffy snow, we want to hear it. We also want to know how the citizens of Havana, Florida baked their 94,000 slice pizza. Yeah. We really, really want to know that. Degree. And how delicious it was. Yeah. You can tweet to us all of this information to SYSK podcast. Seriously, our Twitter is killing it. Is it? Yes. That's great. It's one of the

best Twitter feeds on the internet. Wow. It's got it all, man. It has wacky news. It has important news. Criticism of Twitter when they suspend people's accounts. It has, we talked to people back and forth. Yeah. Sometimes we pester Hodgman for no good reason. Yeah. There's just all sorts of great stuff on Twitter. Or we'll see a tweet from the Jim Henson company that they like the Muppet podcast. Yeah, yeah. So pretty cool stuff like that is going down. Yeah, it is. It's very cool. So you can follow us on Twitter. So it's the at symbol and then SYSKPODCAST. At SYSK podcast. We're also killing it on Facebook. Our Facebook page is awesome. It's facebook.com slash stuff you should know. Yeah. Right. And you can just send us an email like a normal person would to

SYSKPODCAST. At discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Here's today's fortnight weather report. iHeartland has been hit by a major blizzard. The snow has turned iHeartland in fortnight into a winter wonderland with new festive games including a winter themed escape

room, a holiday obstacle course, ice skating, hidden holiday gifts and more. Look out for upcoming special events from your favorite artists and podcasters all month along with scavenger hunts and new how fan are you challenges. So embrace the holidays at iHeartland in fortnight. Head to iHeartRadio.com slash iHeartland today.