Posted on Nov 30, 2022
St. Louis pizza is the style everyone loves to hate. Why can't Missouri be proud of that?
199
7
3
4
4
0
Is there any other regional pizza in the country that elicits as much debate and shame as St. Louis-style? A square-cut, thin-crust pie topped with ooey, gooey Provel cheese, this unconventional pizza is the result of decades of St. Louis ingenuity — and yet, even many locals apologize for their unique creation.
St. Louis pizza is the style everyone loves to hate. Why can't Missouri be proud of that?
Posted from kcur.org
Food/Chow
St. Louis
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 3
1
1
0
PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."No apologies
Sam Sifton, food editor for the New York Times, has a “pizza cognition theory” asserting that, for every individual, the first style or type of pizza they eat will remain, for the rest of their life, their personal definition of “pizza.”
Most people really like that first pizza they eat, whether it’s New York’s giant slices or Detroit’s rectangular pan pizza, but López-Alt claims that St. Louis was the exception.
“It was funny because everybody thinks that their town has the best pizza, but St. Louis was the only town I've seen where there were equal parts, people who seemed to love it and people who kind of apologized for it,” López-Alt says.
St. Louis Public Radio
Joshlin Herrin, 37, takes a customer’s order over the phone on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022, at Imo’s Pizza in St. Louis’ Downtown West neighborhood.
During López-Alt’s adventures, he found Provel to be a consistent hang-up — the element that determines whether people think St. Louis-style pizza is crave-able or cringeworthy.
But he also offers a different perspective.
“There is sort of this, I think, European chauvinism about processed American food. The idea that America doesn't have its own food culture because we just imported culture from everywhere else,” he explains. “First of all, all cheese by definition is processed, right? It's all American cheese, it just happens to have an extra emulsifying salt added to it.
“The analogy I use is, if you say that American cheese is not real cheese, well, then it’s like saying sausage is not real meat,” López-Alt continues. “A sausage is made from meat and it has a couple other things added to it and then you kind of knead it together. That's what a sausage is. And American style cheese, or Provel, starts with regular cheese, whatever kind of cheese you want, then you add a couple of ingredients to it and you mix it together and that's American cheese.”
López-Alt may be an outsider, but he wants to see St. Louisans embrace their pizza — in all its unconventional glory.
“I still think it's great to sort of celebrate the uniqueness of where you live, because that's what makes it interesting to travel and what makes it interesting to meet other people,” he says. “Especially with something like pizza where, the landscape is dominated by a few major cities – Naples and New York and Chicago and Detroit these days. I think you can celebrate your own regional pizza style, partaking in its history, appreciating it for what it is, you know?”
A pizza influenced by many, but duplicated by none. Much like St. Louis itself."
..."No apologies
Sam Sifton, food editor for the New York Times, has a “pizza cognition theory” asserting that, for every individual, the first style or type of pizza they eat will remain, for the rest of their life, their personal definition of “pizza.”
Most people really like that first pizza they eat, whether it’s New York’s giant slices or Detroit’s rectangular pan pizza, but López-Alt claims that St. Louis was the exception.
“It was funny because everybody thinks that their town has the best pizza, but St. Louis was the only town I've seen where there were equal parts, people who seemed to love it and people who kind of apologized for it,” López-Alt says.
St. Louis Public Radio
Joshlin Herrin, 37, takes a customer’s order over the phone on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022, at Imo’s Pizza in St. Louis’ Downtown West neighborhood.
During López-Alt’s adventures, he found Provel to be a consistent hang-up — the element that determines whether people think St. Louis-style pizza is crave-able or cringeworthy.
But he also offers a different perspective.
“There is sort of this, I think, European chauvinism about processed American food. The idea that America doesn't have its own food culture because we just imported culture from everywhere else,” he explains. “First of all, all cheese by definition is processed, right? It's all American cheese, it just happens to have an extra emulsifying salt added to it.
“The analogy I use is, if you say that American cheese is not real cheese, well, then it’s like saying sausage is not real meat,” López-Alt continues. “A sausage is made from meat and it has a couple other things added to it and then you kind of knead it together. That's what a sausage is. And American style cheese, or Provel, starts with regular cheese, whatever kind of cheese you want, then you add a couple of ingredients to it and you mix it together and that's American cheese.”
López-Alt may be an outsider, but he wants to see St. Louisans embrace their pizza — in all its unconventional glory.
“I still think it's great to sort of celebrate the uniqueness of where you live, because that's what makes it interesting to travel and what makes it interesting to meet other people,” he says. “Especially with something like pizza where, the landscape is dominated by a few major cities – Naples and New York and Chicago and Detroit these days. I think you can celebrate your own regional pizza style, partaking in its history, appreciating it for what it is, you know?”
A pizza influenced by many, but duplicated by none. Much like St. Louis itself."
(1)
(0)
1
1
0
1
1
0
Been to St Louis, never heard of it. Next time I am there I may have a look see.
(1)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google