Stop the Pizza Madness! Can't We All Just Get Along?

We here at the Beijinger are pizza libertarians, and we believe what you enjoy on your pizza is no more anyone’s business than the color of your underwear. The same goes for what style of pizza you prefer or where you may or may not think the best pizza in the world comes from.

Is pineapple on pizza a crime? Should durian be banished? Are square slices straight-up genius, or is it triangle the only way to go? Who owns pizza? Is it Rome? Naples? Chicago? Beijing?!

These are questions that we cannot, and indeed will not answer.

After all, if someone takes away our right to enjoy our pizzas the way we want, what’s next? A slippery slope towards 1984-style Big Brother authoritarianism, that's what.

Saying that, certain slogans exhibited at this weekend's Pizza Festival by a certain pizza heavyweight (*ahem* Tube Station) has set off a wave of ill will, just as we launch the Pizza Cup. A number of commenters have gone so far to call for a boycott of the voting. As much as we understand both sides – Italians should rightly be proud of their heritage while Tube Station should be proud of their New York-style product – we're all in it for the adoration of the same doughy mess.

We also all know the Italians gave birth to pizza, and we’ll never forget that (despite clever marketing ploys designed to stir up controversy). But this beautiful Italian baby has grown up and flown the nest to deliver happiness to everyone around the globe. The world loves pizza, in all its forms, no matter how far it has since traveled from its roots. Traditional or modern and quirky, there is not a pizza that does not deserve to be loved.

Yet everyone has their favorite, and the ensuing debate is the fuel that makes for a gripping showdown during our Pizza Cup each year, where New York-style rubs shoulders with Roman-style, Neapolitan-style, and even New Zealand-style. It's the celebration of diversity that makes it worthwhile, while the undercutting helps make it a playful competition.

For that reason alone, we say, if you don't like one variety of pizza, you should put your vote where your mouth is and see that the venue that you believe has the best pie goes through to the final.

As always, it's your job to make sure the superlative pizza wins.

Read up on how we will count your votes to select the best pizza of 2018.

Image: Pedro Fernandes (via Dribble), 谱时图片直播

Comments

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We think Tube Station’s choice was in poor taste, but we have no more input over their marketing signage than we do over what they put on their pizzas. Like all our vendors, they pay for their space and create their own signage.

In many years of doing this I cannot recall ever having an incident of signage from any vendor being interpreted as offensive, so we have built no systems to regulate this.

I also don’t think that Tube Station genuinely thinks “Rome Sucks” and I think a sign featuring a cartoon superhero exclaiming this is not an attempt to smear the city of Rome; I see it as a ham-fisted attempt to make a joke promoting the fact that Tube Station markets itself as serving New York-style pizza at a festival clearly themed “Roman Holiday”. Obviously the joke misfired (as a good percentage of jokes always do) and ended up genuinely offending some people, and for that we apologize, as its never our goal with our festivals to make anyone feel bad.

Certainly in the future we will consider requiring each vendor to pass all of their event signage through our office for approval prior to the date of the event, or creating guidelines for content restrictions on signage.

 

 

 

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Unfortunately the article completely misses the point. The uproar in the Italian community is not about personal taste on pizza, nor the fact that Tube Pizza is claiming the pizza was "Italian Invented, American Perfected". The problem is that Tube Pizza used a lifesize cardbord with an illustration of Captain America and Meriling Monroe in wich the Marvel hero states "Girl, Rome Sucks!", followed by Monroe's answer "Ew, I know, let's go back to New York".

The fact that a company resolved to inappropriately use a character to publicly insult the capital of a country is, to the least, appalling. The fact that the organizers of the event let Tube Pizza display the cardboard for the whole event, it's also quite disturbing.

So, eat pizza as you like it be it with pinapple or durian or blueberry jam, we – Italians – will shake our head in disgust, but we will respect your choice. Thinking that insulting is the best way to advertise a brand, says a lot about the brand itself.