New York style pizza is an abomination. That is all.

Yes.

And if you thought New York style was an insult to pizza, Chicago deep dish is an outright culinary war crime; it's what happens when you prioritize quantity over quality, heft over craft.

Montreal pizza. I was skeptical at first, but I've grown to respect it, as much as I hate to admit it. The wood-fired oven gives the pleasantly puffy crust a pleasant char. Their blend of mozzarella and Wisconsin brick cheese is unorthodox, yet it works - creating a unique, flavorful bite. It's not trying to be Neapolitan, and that's okay. A slice here occasionally? I won't say "no."

Speaking of Canada... Hawaiian pizza: Canada's lesser, loathsome "contribution" to the world of pizza. This pineapple-riddled atrocity screams fake origin story. "Sam Panopoulos"? They expect us to believe that a Greek with "pineapple" in his name just happened to be the guy that decided to stick pineapple on pizza? They think we are fools.

This culinary crime proves some so-called inventors deserve to be banished to a deserted island - with nothing but their wretched creation to sustain them. Clearly named "Hawaiian" because even Canadians were too ashamed to claim this abomination as their own.

But New York Style is actually good, Mr. Poor.

Listen, pal. If your idea of "good" is a floppy grease-rag with delusions of grandeur, you need taste bud rehab. New York style is a sad, flat imitation of real pizza. No puffy, airy crust. No balanced toppings. Just a soggy, greasy canvas for your folding fetish. But hey, enjoy your cheerless cheese-carrier, your gloomy grease-grabber, your dismal dinner. The rest of us'll be eating actual food.

Listen up, pizza plebeian. Yesterday was just the appetizer. Today, I'm serving up the main course of truth.

New York style pizza isn't just bad - it's a form of culinary terrorism threatening the very fabric of gastronomic society. Each floppy, greasy slice is an attack on good taste, a war crime against proper crust, and an assault on the dignity of cheese itself.

But fear not, for I have the solution. It's time to call in the big guns. North Korea, your hour is at hand! Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, we beseech you and your excellent taste in pizza to save us from this floury menace. Launch those missiles and target New York pizzerias! Replace their sad, droopy discs with glorious, puffy-crusted perfection.

The hour is dire, the need is great. Only a decisive strike from the Hermit Kingdom can liberate us from the tyranny of subpar slices. Kim Jong Un, you're our only hope for pizza salvation. Make Pizza Great Again!

Reluctantly, I must confess that Detroit-style pizza has earned a modicum of my respect, if only for its audacious approach to dough. The way they've managed to create a crust that's simultaneously thick yet remarkably airy is... intriguing. Through a refined fermenting technique, they've achieved a texture that's paradoxically light despite its imposing appearance.

This airy quality reminds me, ever so slightly, of the delicate bubbles in a properly prepared Canotto style crust. The way the dough crisps up on the bottom and edges, while maintaining that pillowy interior, shows a level of craftsmanship I hadn't expected to find from Detroit.

This is the definition of Midwestern style pizza. Move over, Chicago style, you've been in the spotlight for far too long.

Mamma mia, what culinary crime is this? St. Louis calls this abomination "pizza"? That crust - if you can even call it that - is an insult to the very concept of bread. Cracker-thin and yeastless? It's more like a glorified Saltine than a proper pizza base. And let's be clear: anything without yeast in the crust is definitionally not a pizza. It's flatbread at best, a cracker at worst, but pizza? Assolutamente no!

And don't get me started on that unholy concoction they call "Provel cheese." A processed mess of cheddar, Swiss, and provolone that doesn't even melt properly - it's an affront to the noble mozzarella di bufala. The way it congeals like plastic is nothing short of sacrilege. This isn't pizza; it's a Midwestern fever dream masquerading as Italian cuisine. The only thing St. Louis-style pizza is good for is making me appreciate the true artistry of Neapolitan style pizza even more.

If the ghost of every Italian nonna doesn't haunt the kitchens of St. Louis, there is no justice in this world.

Reindeer meat and egg on a pizza? I must give credit where it is due to the Finns. 🇫🇮 🇫🇮 🇫🇮

The audacity of using reindeer meat initially offended me, but I must grudgingly admit it has a certain rustic charm. The egg? An unexpected touch, yet it adds a richness that complements the lean reindeer surprisingly well.

While it's a far cry from the perfection of a true Neapolitan margherita, at least the Finns aren't trying to pass off some vegetable-laden monstrosity as pizza. They've taken their local ingredients and treated them with respect, creating something that captures the spirit of their land. It's different, yes, but it's honest. Unlike some other so-called "innovations," this pizza doesn't make me want to weep for the future of cuisine. I wouldn't call it pizza, mind you, but as a Finnish interpretation of our beloved dish? It's... acceptable. Don't you dare tell anyone I said that, though!

Speaking of vegetable-laden monstrosities... I now approach the end of this series by turning to the worst offender of all: the California "pizza":

California-style pizza? Cultural annihilation masquerading as culinary innovation. These West Coast frauds have the audacity to take a noble Neapolitan tradition and bastardize it beyond recognition. Their so-called "pizza" is nothing more than pretentious flatbread drowning under a pile of mismatched, trendy ingredients.

As Phil Ochs once said, "The world began in Eden and ended in Los Angeles." The same tragic arc applies to pizza. What began as perfection in Naples has devolved into an abomination in California. They've stripped away everything that makes pizza great - the perfect balance of flavors, the simplicity, the respect for tradition - and replaced it with an unholy mess of whatever overpriced produce they can scavenge from their precious Whole Foods. It's not pizza; it's a salad having an identity crisis on a cracker!

This disrespect for culinary heritage is nothing short of cultural vandalism. They've taken a working-class staple and twisted it into an overpriced status symbol for the Silicon Valley elite. It's not food; it's a billboard for California's obsession with fads and self-importance. They should be ashamed to even use the word "pizza" for their pretentious, over-complicated creations. This isn't fusion or evolution; it's desecration, plain and simple.

Your culinary ignorance is as vast as the ocean of subpar sauce drowning your pitiful excuse for pizza. You dare blaspheme against perfection while worshipping at the altar of mass-produced monstrosities?

Those leopard spots you blindly criticize are the mark of pizza perfection, seared into our canvas by the fires of tradition and expertise. Each char is a testament to millennia of artistry, unlike the pale, lifeless discs you call pizza - clearly baked in the lukewarm embrace of corporate mediocrity.

Our sauce is the lifeblood of Naples, the essence of sun-ripened San Marzano tomatoes. We don't need to commit crimes against nature by drowning our masterpieces in seas of corn syrup and seed oil abominations. Your sauce is an affront to tomatoes everywhere, a witch's brew of chemicals that would make even the most shameless food scientist blush.

The mozzarella di bufala gracing our creations is the pinnacle of dairy perfection, while your cheese is the petrified drool of malnourished cattle. Our cheese dances on the tongue; yours limps across the palate like a wounded soldier retreating from the battlefield of flavor.

And the basil! Oh, the basil. It's not a mere herb, you flavor-blind philistine. It's the verdant soul of our pizza, the aromatic whisper of the Mediterranean breeze. Your taste buds, bludgeoned into submission by years of culinary abuse, are clearly incapable of detecting nuance more subtle than a punch to the face.

Neapolitan pizza isn't just food. It's the Platonic Form of Pizza itself, the perfect, immutable ideal from which all lesser pizzas are but shadowy imitations. Our pizza exists in the realm of pure culinary Forms, while yours lurks in the dark recesses of the culinary cave, a mere flickering shadow of what pizza ought to be. Ours is the pizza that pizza itself dreams of becoming, the Ur-Pizza that has descended from the noumenal realm to grace our mortal palates.

Your pizza, in comparison, is a culinary war crime that should be tried at The Hague. It has no right to call itself pizza, no right to exist in a world where true pizza has been perfected. It is an insult to flour, to yeast, to the very concept of circular food. May your taste buds one day revolt against the tyranny of mediocrity you force upon them, and may they lead you out of the dim cave of culinary ignorance. Perhaps then you'll glimpse the radiant disk of true pizza perfection, its cornicione a glowing ring of enlightenment, its center a molten pool of wisdom. In that moment of divine revelation, as the scales fall from your eyes and the blessed warmth of real pizza touches your lips, you might finally understand the eternal truth of Neapolitan pizza – and weep for the wasted years you spent in darkness.

I've got an abomination for you: chicken ranch pizza. The "sauce" is vegetable oil based ranch dressing

Who invented this? I'm no longer a pacifist.

Very divisive reactions

It is only in profound moral crises that perspicacious men find out what values truly constitute them. My experience inclines me to the belief that men in general live their lives through without find- ing out who or what they really are. We think we are courageous when we are cowards, honest when we are cheats and thieves, truthful and generous when we are liars and pigs, and self-respect- ing in spite of the high coefficient of pliability of our moral spines. But whether we men are actors or are somehow protected from the mirror that would show us ourselves, this I know: that we fight desperately and bitterly against the knowledge of what we truly are, barring no holds and giving no quarter. It takes a crisis to reveal to us what values we truly espouse, and even that is often not enough, for each of us has his system of jujitsu for disposing quietly of bothersome truths.

- Eliseo Vivas, The Moral Life & the Ethical Life

Life without prejudice, were it ever to be tried, would soon reveal itself to be a life without principle. For prejudices ... are often build-in principles. They are the extract which the mind has made of experience. Try to imagine a man setting out for a day without a single prejudice. Let us suppose that he has "confessed" his prejudices in the manner of confessing sins and has decided to start next morning with a fresh mind as the sinner would start with a new soul. The analogy is false. Inevitably he would be in a state of paralysis. He could not get up in the morning, or choose his necktie, or make his way to the office, or conduct his business affairs, or, to come right down to the essence of the thing, even maintain his identity. What he does in actuality is arise at his arbitrary 7:15, select the necktie which he is prejudiced in favor of, set off relatively happy with his head full of unreasoned judgment, conduct a successful day's business and return home the same man he was, with perhaps a mite or two added to his store of wisdom

- Richard Weaver