Pizza toppings are a forever hot button. Whether it’s choosing a good sauce type, debating flat vs. cupped pepperoni, or the ongoing debate over one sweet, yellow fruit, there’s always something to discuss.
The debate over what should and shouldn’t be put on a hot pie extends all the way to Italy, the birthplace of pizza. In Italy, both hot dogs and fries are used as garnishes in a style called pizza Americana.
“In Italy, yes, that’s true,” chef and Food Network star Gabriele Bertaccini told The Messenger at the New York City Wine and Food Festival. “We’ll put hot dogs on it.”
Fellow TV chef Giada De Laurentiis also shares the recipe for this dish on her website Giadzy.
Italian-born Bertaccini is a reality cooking show host. ciao housesaid that pizza Americana is common, but you can’t see him munching on it.
“Listen, there’s nothing wrong. [with] “A good hot dog, which I really enjoy when I’m in New York,” he continued, “but not so much with pizza.”
In addition to using the salted and wrapped meat as a pizza topping, it reminded me of the days in Italy when I and others around me would eat it raw without cooking it.
“We also — and this may seem gross — sometimes we eat hot dogs raw. We eat them straight out of the refrigerator.”
He jokingly criticized the practice, saying, “They could have at least warmed it up to give that feeling of, ‘I’m alive. I’m food worth eating.'”
Bertaccini also mentioned: tuber Room said it was “very strange” that the pizza Americana also included fried spuds.
Although he was born and raised in Italy, he said he still balks at the concept of putting fries or potatoes on pizza.
He believes that the combination of “starch and starch” is meaningless.
And while hot dogs and fries are welcome toppings in the birthplace of pizza, some customers still draw the line at the controversial pineapple.
That became clear when the famous Neapolitan pizzaiolo recently added “Margherita con Ananas” to its menu for 7 euros.
Gino Sorbillo told CNN that he invented the much-talked-about pineapple pie knowing it would anger his fellow Italians, who don’t take kindly to such heretical concepts as putting fruit on pizza.
“Italy is divided on this issue. It’s not just Italy,” he says, adding: “There’s a lot of debate going on about it. I don’t think the public is interested. They think there’s something different. I have a distrust of things.”
Still, people who try Sorbillo’s pineapple pie tend to walk away satisfied, he told CNN.
“I am sure that in the near future we will see pineapple pizza on the menu not only in Naples but also in other pizzerias in Naples.”