Actually, The Worst Pizza Topping Is Chicken

OR, Leave Pineapple Alone!

For as long as anyone remembers, people have been debating about pizza. There was usually a regional angle to this, the purpose being to make people feel bad about the pizza they eat as they got further from the city of New York. It seemed like a fight that was worth fighting.

But we have entered a new age of pizza warfare. An age that doesn’t care who you are or whether you know anything about pizza, and suddenly any flyover yokel is now allowed to proudly share their opinion on pizza. (It’s corny and overdone to say “Trump’s America” about stuff, but this is Trump’s fuckin’ America right here.) So the debate has moved beyond who are the authoritative voices on pizza and into less important questions like this one: Does pineapple belong on pizza?

This is currently the big pizza issue. We could be campaigning against pizza war criminal Chicago and their “it takes 40 minutes to cook and has no leftover value so is actually nothing like a pizza” pizza. Or we could give legitimate criticism to St. Louis, a city that must’ve thought pizza was too healthy because they decided it should have weird processed cheese on it. But according to the new parameters of debate the point of contention isn’t coming from Chicago or St. Louis or even the syphilitic brain of Papa John. No, apparently the problem is coming from….Hawaii? To be fair, I don’t think Hawaii cares much about their namesake pizza, but in true American fashion, we’re forcing them to be a point of interest in this conflict.

You want the verdict regarding pineapple on pizza? It’s fine. It’s actually pretty good in many cases. The anti-pineapple crowd MIGHT have an argument if the pro-pineapple crowd was eating pizza with pineapple as the exclusive topping. But in my experience, every specialty pizza that comes with pineapple has it to act as a counterbalance to another flavor like bacon or hot peppers. Sure pineapple is sweet, but if you’re going heavy on the salty and/or spicy front, the sweetness can complement very well.

This segues nicely into larger point: outside of pepperoni, there are no pizza toppings that work great as the ONLY topping on a pizza. Nobody wants a pizza with just peppers on it, they want the pizza with peppers, onions, mushrooms, olives and so on. Okay so maybe nobody‘s thrilled about olives on their pizza, but the point is you order a veggie pizza, not a single veggie. Similarly something like ground beef is a weird solo topping, but can be an important addition to a meat lover’s.

So to judge a topping like pineapple on its individual merits is a flawed argument. A pizza topping should be judged by what distinct flavors it adds to the pizza, and how it compliments the other toppings as well as the foundational elements of pizza. If we evaluate toppings by this standard there is one that is CLEARLY not pulling its weight on the slice: chicken.

Chicken as a topping seems to be fairly new in the history American pizza consumption, but it shows up on a couple of the specialty pizzas at any average pizzeria. Notice, however, that chicken almost never appears on the meat lovers pizza, because it would be rightly embarrassed next to all those flavorful meat products. For the purpose of this argument, I will refer to one that I seem to see most often: the buffalo chicken pizza. Not a bad pie, right? That’s what makes you think you like chicken on pizza. But in fact you do not. You actually like buffalo sauce and blue cheese because those things have noticeable flavors.

This is not an indictment of chicken. I like chicken. But chicken has such a generic taste and mouthfeel that there is literally an idiom about how any obscure protein source “tastes like chicken.” What makes chicken enjoyable is how it absorbs the flavors you’re enjoying it with, be it through a spice rub, glaze, dipping sauce or just good old fashioned MSG. And that’s awesome! Chicken is a very good vehicle for delivering flavors. You know what else functions as a vehicle for delivering flavors? The goddamn pizza you ordered.

In conclusion, your addition of chicken to the pizza offers no new flavor and just fills me up quicker which means I am able to eat less pizza than I would like. And limiting my pizza intake is one of the worst crimes you can commit against me. If you really want a meat on your pizza, go with a sausage or pepperoni. If you’re looking for a healthier meat, it’s also fine to just eat something that’s not pizza.