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The Ridiculous Secret of "Supreme" Pizza · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the Myth, the Legend, Max, the teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtle,
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  Speaker 1: Williams Cowa bunga Radical Tubula.
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  Speaker 2: That's Noel Brown. I've been bulling.
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  Speaker 1: We have a great, very weird episode for you today, folks.
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  Speaker 1: But before we continue, now that I've brought up the
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  Speaker 1: legendary turtles, I've got to ask you, guys, if we
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  Speaker 1: haven't talked about it on air, which turtle would you be?
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  Speaker 2: I think we were. I think most people were fans
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  Speaker 2: of Michelangelo because he was the sort of you know,
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  Speaker 2: party dude, party dude, but he only he didn't He
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  Speaker 2: didn't like, you know, don't do drugs kids. He just
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  Speaker 2: ate lots of pizza and had pizza parties and talked
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  Speaker 2: like a surfer. Though I don't know that there's evidence
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  Speaker 2: that Michael Angelo ever had access to surfing, although they
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  Speaker 2: could have gone to Coney Island and done a surf,
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  Speaker 2: but they were trying to keep it low key, so
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if surfing Ninja Turtles would have would
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  Speaker 2: have been though. I will also say that there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of weird stuff that got trickled into the toy
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  Speaker 2: lines of the Ninja Turtles. And I want to say
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  Speaker 2: somewhere along the line there had to have been a
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  Speaker 2: surf and mic.
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  Speaker 1: A million percent there had to. Okay, so we've got you,
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  Speaker 1: mister Brown. As I name my first cat, Michelangelo, he
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  Speaker 1: was all right doubling down. So Noel Brown is the
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  Speaker 1: Michelangelo of the crew. What about you, Max Williams.
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  Speaker 3: I gotta admit this is a weird one right here.
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  Speaker 3: I I never was really exposed to teenage median Nina Turtles.
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  Speaker 3: It wasn't part of my zeitgeist as a child, Harry.
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  Speaker 3: People talk to me about like that kind of stuff,
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  Speaker 3: and I'm like, I cannot relate.
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  Speaker 2: You're a little younger than us, Max, and for us
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  Speaker 2: for a gentleman or humans, yeah, humans of a certain age.
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  Speaker 2: Ninja Turtles were kind of inescapable. They were on TV
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  Speaker 2: all the time. The first movie came out, it was huge,
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  Speaker 2: and of course the action figures were just, you know,
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  Speaker 2: on every kid's wish list. How about you, Ben, you
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  Speaker 2: see you strike me as a as a raff guy.
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  Speaker 2: Oh no way, that's the worst one. That's the opposite.
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  Speaker 2: It was angsty.
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  Speaker 1: I don't like him. I I always aspired to be
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  Speaker 1: a Donna Tello. Unfortunately, I believe in practice I'm probably
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  Speaker 1: a Leonardo.
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  Speaker 2: Donna Tello is the smart one. Leonardo was sort of
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  Speaker 2: the leader.
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  Speaker 1: See I want to beat the Donna Tello. But one
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  Speaker 1: thing these guys have in common, these turtles, is that
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  Speaker 1: they love pizza. That Max, that's their formative mythology. Of
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  Speaker 1: course they are. That's not the best one. But it's
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  Speaker 1: like an ugly pass thrown by Joe Montana. No matter how,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if.
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  Speaker 2: It looks good, it makes it to the finish line,
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  Speaker 2: still better than a pass that, you know, a civilian
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  Speaker 2: might throw.
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  Speaker 1: Oh boy, I appreciate that though. It's funny because remember
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  Speaker 1: when you and I were just yesterday, when we were
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  Speaker 1: up in New York and we were doing some episodes
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  Speaker 1: with our pals Gandhi and Diamond from a sauce on
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  Speaker 1: the side, I did attempt a couple pivots.
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  Speaker 2: And I believe I complimented you on them copiously. Oh geez, man,
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  Speaker 2: do you like pizza? I do like pizza, and there's
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  Speaker 2: nothing more in New Yorky than a good New York Slice.
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  Speaker 1: No, have you guys ever had pizza in Italy like
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  Speaker 1: from Italians.
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  Speaker 2: I've not been to Italy personally. I may have been
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  Speaker 2: when I was a small child, too young to remember,
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  Speaker 2: but certainly on my list. We do have a fabulous
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  Speaker 2: Neapolitan pizza spot here in Atlanta called Antiico. The by
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  Speaker 2: all accounts, is up there, you know, with some of
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  Speaker 2: the best pieces of pizza you might get over there
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  Speaker 2: in Italy. The New York Slice, however, really differs from
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  Speaker 2: that kind of classic Italian style. It's the big old
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  Speaker 2: floppy piece you got the Grandma p high which I'm
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  Speaker 2: also a big fan of the square the rectangular pieces.
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  Speaker 2: And I tried a new spot this trip called Scars
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  Speaker 2: Pizza that I think used to be kind of a
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  Speaker 2: hot spot where you couldn't get in, and the hype
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  Speaker 2: seems to have died down a little bit, and I
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  Speaker 2: was able to get in and it was worthy of
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  Speaker 2: the hype, but without.
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  Speaker 1: The line, but without the lie, and we like that
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  Speaker 1: part as well. Now, if you are traveling through these
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  Speaker 1: great United States and you are familiar with the original
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  Speaker 1: og Italian pizza. What you will find is that the
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  Speaker 1: United States version of pizza becomes very regional and often
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  Speaker 1: is not what Italian people themselves would consider pizza.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: Max Here has pointed out something from his travels in
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  Speaker 1: Saint Louis.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was in Saint Louis, and I'm saying it
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  Speaker 3: with my buddy Nate, who is from Atland as well.
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  Speaker 3: He moved out there a couple of years ago. But
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  Speaker 3: his partner, she's like born and raised in Saint Louis,
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  Speaker 3: and they have this. Uh, you know, every place now
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  Speaker 3: has a style of pizza, and there's is Saint Louis
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  Speaker 3: style with something called provel cheese.
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  Speaker 2: Not We've talked about this and it's not related to provalone.
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  Speaker 3: Right, you know what. That's what she told me, And
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  Speaker 3: she's a liar, oh liar to the Google AI. It
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  Speaker 3: is a lend of provolone, Swiss and Cheddar.
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  Speaker 2: Don't quote the Google an.
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  Speaker 3: You can do better, Okay, according to according to Wikipedia.
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  Speaker 2: Fine, we accept the Wikipedia and cheese.
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  Speaker 3: Provelled cheese is I'm doing this live a combination of cheddar, Swiss,
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  Speaker 3: provolone and liquid smoke.
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  Speaker 2: There we go. That's well, you know you can get
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  Speaker 2: a nice smoked provolone, and unless you get a really
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  Speaker 2: fancy kind, it's probably gonna get that smoky flavor from
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  Speaker 2: a liquid smoke as well. That sounds okay to me.
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  Speaker 2: I think we've also talked in these regional pizza conversations
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  Speaker 2: about Pittsburgh pizza, uh cold toppings including cheese, and our
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  Speaker 2: buddy Theo you know as well, Ben swears by the stuff,
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  Speaker 2: and it just doesn't do it for me. It's kind
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  Speaker 2: of sounds like you just took fistfuls of cold toppings
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  Speaker 2: out of the prep trays, you know, on the on
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  Speaker 2: the little prep counter, and just just dumped them on
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  Speaker 2: the pie and just kind of called it a day.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know about that, but I'm willing to give
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  Speaker 2: it a try. Sure, We're going to give every regional
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  Speaker 2: pizza a try, and we'll get to the very weird
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  Speaker 2: pizza toppings at the end of this episode, as well
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  Speaker 2: as the world's most expensive pizza. Right now, we're asking
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  Speaker 2: ourselves about really Americana, about how the United States has
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  Speaker 2: always been a land of excess since the close.
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  Speaker 1: Of World War Two. Remember, Nold, you and I were
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  Speaker 1: talking earlier to our pal Gandhi about how this is
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  Speaker 1: the only country that could have invented crack cocaine because
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  Speaker 1: regular cocaine just wasn't enough of a zip.
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  Speaker 2: We just need, I mean, we need to do we
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  Speaker 2: need to do better, y'all. We're an aspirational country. If anything,
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  Speaker 2: there we go aspirational. We look at the pizza, we
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  Speaker 2: say more cheese, more stuff. We are the supersized nation.
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  Speaker 2: So it's no surprise that Erica collectively looked at regular
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  Speaker 2: old pizza and one day decided to make something they
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  Speaker 2: call supreme.
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  Speaker 1: But no'l riddle me this. What is a supreme pizza?
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  Speaker 2: Well, that is a really important question, Ben, because it's
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  Speaker 2: the crux of this entire discussion. Actually, to me, I
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  Speaker 2: always thought, because you got your meat lovers, you got
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  Speaker 2: your veggie lovers. You know, maybe that's a branding thing,
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  Speaker 2: probably a pizza Hut invention. But when I think of supreme,
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  Speaker 2: at least back in the day when maybe there were
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  Speaker 2: fewer toppings available, I always thought of a supreme pizza
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  Speaker 2: as being all the toppings.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, me too, man, I'm right there with you. We're
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  Speaker 1: going to answer the question of what makes a supreme
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  Speaker 1: pizza supreme? And just be aware of folks, there is
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  Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory at the end. No, maybe we start
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  Speaker 1: with pizza, just like the early years. Who came up
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  Speaker 1: with this idea pizza?
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  Speaker 2: The early years? I love that sounds like a like
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  Speaker 2: a Ken Burns documentary. Well, you know, as soon as
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  Speaker 2: folks humans that is, figured out how to make bread,
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  Speaker 2: it kind of became a medium for piling on all
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  Speaker 2: kinds of other stuff. You know, how do we one
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  Speaker 2: up bread? We're already asking ourselves the question of how
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  Speaker 2: do we do a good thing and make it more extra.
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  Speaker 2: The grandfather, not the grandma of all pizza we know
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  Speaker 2: and love, is, of course, the flatbread, which isn't too
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  Speaker 2: different from like a matza kind of situation or like
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  Speaker 2: some you know, a let's see a pita or there
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  Speaker 2: are there's of course that really interesting type of bread
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  Speaker 2: you get at Ethiopian restaurants. These are all kind of red.
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  Speaker 2: That's the one to the humble flat bread. It was
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  Speaker 2: a super popular street food throughout Africa, Egypt, Greece and
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  Speaker 2: of course the Roman Empire.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and honestly you can still see versions of this
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  Speaker 1: stuff around today because it is delicious. But to be clear,
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  Speaker 1: as we're pointing out these flatbreads, these ancestors of pizza
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  Speaker 1: don't look like the stuff you would find in your
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  Speaker 1: local pizza spot today. The Greeks were known to gnauch
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  Speaker 1: on flatbread with herbs and oil. It was more like
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  Speaker 1: what we would call ficautia today. And that's because they
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  Speaker 1: didn't have tomatoes.
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  Speaker 2: Which is a discussion onto itself, which I think we've
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  Speaker 2: had actually, if I'm not mistaken, at the very least
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  Speaker 2: in passing in other food topics, the idea that tomatoes
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  Speaker 2: were not native to Italy, right.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't until the Spanish conquistadors explored the America's hard
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: air quotes around explored and Hernan Cortes his crew ravages
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  Speaker 1: Mexico in fifteen nineteen. They returned to Spain and they
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  Speaker 1: carry a bunch of treasures and spoils war with them.
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  Speaker 1: They also are carrying tomatoes. Tomatoes are most likely from Peru.
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting because does that make all pizza incan?
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  Speaker 2: I guess it does. Ben But they don't really get
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  Speaker 2: the props that they deserve. So we're going to give
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  Speaker 2: them their flowers today. We're talking specifically from the Andes
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  Speaker 2: Mountains of Peru, and sometime in the distant past we
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  Speaker 2: began to see tomatoes spread to most of South and
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  Speaker 2: Central America, eventually reaching Mexico. The Incas first cultivated tomatoes
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  Speaker 2: about a thousand years ago and eventually traded the seeds
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  Speaker 2: to the Aztecs and the Mayans to the north of them.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of historical botany historians, I guess, consider the
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  Speaker 2: tiny little scraggly bush known as the solanum is a
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  Speaker 2: great name, by the way, pimpanilla phillium, pimp panilla phillium,
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  Speaker 2: or pump and strong, as the ancestor of all of
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  Speaker 2: the tomatoes that you know and love and or tolerate.
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  Speaker 2: Some people don't like tomatoes today, itself becoming an endangered species.
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  Speaker 2: The origin the prot tomato.
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  Speaker 1: The og pimp, so the proto tomato. The og pimp
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  Speaker 1: is now an endangered species, but it gave birth to
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  Speaker 1: so many of the tomatoes that you consume today, folks.
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  Speaker 1: And it's weird. We have talked about this on air,
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  Speaker 1: but it bears repeating. The tomato as consumable became popular
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  Speaker 1: in Europe way before it was popular in North America.
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  Speaker 1: Colonial Americans associated the tomato with nightshade, and it is
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  Speaker 1: a close cousin of that toxic vine, and that's why
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  Speaker 1: the leaves and vines of a tomato plant are fairly toxic.
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  Speaker 1: There's this legend, right, we got to mention the legend
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  Speaker 1: about the guy who made tomatoes edible in America.
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  Speaker 2: What do they say, print the legend. That's what we're
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  Speaker 2: gonna do. We're gonna speak it though. Right, you're talking
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  Speaker 2: about Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson. Yes, yes, no relation to
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  Speaker 2: the primate, I think, no, no, no, that's true. I
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  Speaker 2: do love a Gibbon.
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  Speaker 4: Uh.
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  Speaker 2: He proved to Americans through you know, trial and error,
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  Speaker 2: through demonstration that tomatoes were in fact not poisonous on
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  Speaker 2: June twenty eighth, eighteen twenty by like in a feat
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  Speaker 2: of strengths demonstration, very etal to evil. Yeah, he ate
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  Speaker 2: a whole basket of the things and Salem, New Jersey
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  Speaker 2: on the courthouse steps. Yeah, white a flex public protest.
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  Speaker 2: Gibbon Johnson.
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  Speaker 1: Right, And according to the legend, again, as you said, nol,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people at this time believed tomatoes were deadly.
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  Speaker 1: That was probably due to the lead poisoning from acidic
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  Speaker 1: tomatoes on pewter plates. Anyway, a bunch of people gathered
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  Speaker 1: around to watch Colonel Johnson consume tomatoes and die. They're
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: kind of like the people who go to a NASCAR
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  Speaker 1: race hoping to see one of the cars crash because
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  Speaker 1: they were convinced he would die. And because he did
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  Speaker 1: not die. According again to the legend, the crowd went wild.
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  Speaker 2: Where those train crash expos Yes, yeah, yeah, are fun. Sorry,
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  Speaker 2: Just remind we never saw one live. No, we didn't.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: We did. We did speak of them on an episode
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  Speaker 2: I think on that very topic. Do check that one out.
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  Speaker 2: It's an interesting one and it does end in tragedy.
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  Speaker 1: What no way stage collisions?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, not the best, not the best idea. What could
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  Speaker 2: go wrong?
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  Speaker 1: So because this guy didn't die, Colonel Johnson didn't die,
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  Speaker 1: according to the legend, the rest of North America immediately
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  Speaker 1: fell in love with tomatoes. That's the end of our
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  Speaker 1: tomato sidebar. We just love the story. We've got to
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  Speaker 1: get back to Europe and get back to the history
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  Speaker 1: of pizza because it's going to lead us back to
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  Speaker 1: the United States and the supreme Pizza.
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  Speaker 2: But for now, we're going to go to Italy's Campagna region.
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  Speaker 2: Most famously home to the waterfront city of Naples or Napoli.
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  Speaker 2: There we go.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Napoli or Naples is founded in its modern version
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  Speaker 1: round six hundred BCE, and it went through all the
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  Speaker 1: triumphs and tribulations of any nation state at the time.
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  Speaker 1: By the late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, it
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  Speaker 1: got a bit of a reputation similar to Portland today
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  Speaker 1: in the United States. They said, this is home to
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  Speaker 1: hordes of working poor what they called lazzaroni.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, almost like in the style of a caste system,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: at least in the way that they're referred to. These
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: folks were not the typical which you might imagine or
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: picture as the unhoused population of today. They were, however, hustlers.
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  Speaker 2: They were out there, you know, wheeling and dealing, haggling, hugling,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: you know that's a word, out in public spaces, hunting
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  Speaker 2: for jobs. Often they didn't have the luxury of being
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  Speaker 2: able to be welcome in say a public house, or
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  Speaker 2: the ability to cook in a home because they were
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  Speaker 2: just too busy for it. So pizza became a solution.
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  Speaker 2: It was available ingredients again, a simple medium that you
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  Speaker 2: could just pile stuff on top of and it's portable,
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  Speaker 2: let's not forget and affordable.
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  Speaker 1: Portable and affordable pizza. The solution a silver bullet.
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  Speaker 2: You can have that, Yeah, I love it.
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  Speaker 1: A silver bullet for a hungry stomach and a skinny wallet.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: The well to do of Italy this story the Jedi
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  Speaker 1: won't tell you, folks, The upper pizza crust of Italy
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  Speaker 1: initially hated this idea, kind of like lobster back in
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  Speaker 1: the day, right, peasant food? Oh yeah, they called it
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  Speaker 1: poor people food. But if we fast forward, we go
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  Speaker 1: to the moment where Italy sort of unifies in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty one, and there are these two big deal royals
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  Speaker 1: who visit Naples.
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  Speaker 2: Man, this is a tail as old as time. You
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  Speaker 2: got something that was seen as a little low brow,
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  Speaker 2: and then when some royal or some well to do individual,
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  Speaker 2: high society type gets a taste for the stuff and
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  Speaker 2: judges it up a little bit and names it after themselves,
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  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you got yourself a regular culinary phenomenon.
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  Speaker 2: And this came in the form of King Umberto the
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  Speaker 2: First and Queen Margherita, who you might you know know
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  Speaker 2: from the drink and the pizza. Don't take the drink
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: is named after her, but the pizza definitely is. They
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  Speaker 2: were on tour like you do, I guess, doing like
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: a whistle stop tour kind of situation, visiting the people England,
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  Speaker 2: hands babies, the allo, all the stuff exactly, and they
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  Speaker 2: visited Naples in eighteen eighty nine. Now, another legend has
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  Speaker 2: it that the traveling pair got bored of their steady
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: diet of French hate cuisine, which I think Ben you
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  Speaker 2: and I might also agree, while considered some of the
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  Speaker 2: finest food in the land. It's rich and it can
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  Speaker 2: be a lot I wouldn't want to eat, you know,
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  Speaker 2: Coco Vans for every meal, duck colm Thief for every meal.
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  Speaker 1: It's not Christmas if it's every day, you know, cassulet is.
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  Speaker 1: Cassule is a beautiful dish that is not an everyday dish.
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  Speaker 2: It's also not crispy. It's kind of it's like, you know,
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  Speaker 2: really fancy mush, really fancy slop it is.
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  Speaker 1: It's a bean souper duck at it so okay, So
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  Speaker 1: of course the King and the Queen get a bit satiated.
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  Speaker 1: They want some variety, and they reportedly ask for a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of pizzas from Naples Pizzeria Brandy. And this is
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  Speaker 1: like when our pal Alex French takes us to a
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  Speaker 1: restaurant and tells the server take us on a journey.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm pretty sure he got that from Queen Margharita
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  Speaker 2: and King Emberto the first who told the locals to
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  Speaker 2: take them on a culinary journey. The Queen in particular
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  Speaker 2: enjoyed a familiar sounding version, a pie topped with soft
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: white mazzarel, red tomatoes, and of course green basil. We
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: told you the name already, you know it, you love it,
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  Speaker 2: the humble Margharita pizza.
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  Speaker 1: So just as you were saying, Noel, this peasant food
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  Speaker 1: or this poor people food gets a co sign from
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  Speaker 1: the royals, right from the biggest celebrities of the day.
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  Speaker 1: Pizza then becomes much more widely accepted. But here in
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the United States it takes a much longer time for
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: pizza to become popular. The nineteen forties when we see
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: tons of Italian immigrants arriving at the US en mass
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: and a lot of these folks in this particular wave
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: of immigration are from Naples, and food is culture, right,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: So these folks bring their culture and their food along
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and they adapt it to whatever ingredients are available.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: At the time. For sure. I mean it's very similar
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: to the story of Americanized Chinese food and even the
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Thai cuisine. The exporting of Thai cuisine. You got to
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: kind of read the room and play to the audience,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: and that is what's happening and part of the reason
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: we see so many regional variations of the stuff. So
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: there's a lot more to the story and the evolution
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: of pizza as a dish and as a culinary tradition.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: The Supreme Pizza, however, we're going to get into the
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: story of now which took a little bit more time
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: to cook, right, Yeah, it.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Takes some more time in the kitchen. Supreme Pizza. If
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you live in the United States, you have seen it
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: on a menu. It is not always the same thing.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And I'll say it, it's a bit of a self
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: important name, is it not.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: For sure? I think you know, Ben, I am a
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: fan of the Supreme brand of things. We even joked
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: on sauce on the side with Gandhi. We were both
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: wearing some Supreme pieces and when we talked about this
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Supreme as a company and as a brand to these
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: exclusive drops, whether it be hats or shirts so whatever.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: But they sometimes do ridiculous items like a brick branded
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: with the Supreme red box logo. What they had when
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I was there this past trip was a toaster and
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: it wouldn't surprise me for them, and I bet if
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: we looked into it, they've done it. If they had
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: their own like Supreme pizza boxes or like those, but
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: you know those cool pizza shaped carrying back delivery folks
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: use that'd be a lot of fun.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Oh that's smart. If they haven't done it yet, you're welcome, Supreme.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: That's a beautiful idea that the stuff that we're talking
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: about when we talk about a literal supreme pizza is
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: generally going to be acknowledged by the number of toppings,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the variety of toppings, but those toppings aren't always consistent.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, Supreme pizza is a thoroughly American idea, right
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: where the land bigger and more better, Just get it.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: All in there, you know what I mean.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Three shots of espresso on my eyes. Yeah, So the
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Supreme pizza, we could argue, is an escalation of that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: cultural pattern. There's not a codified list of ingredients like
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: in the Margherita pizza. But also we will argue at
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the end of this that the Supreme Pizza is not
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the true end of the line. It's not the final
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: form for how far we can take pizza as a concept.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: The real story of Supreme Pizza is a story of business.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: It's a story of commerce capitalism writ large.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, nol. Can you introduce us to pizza chains?
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: For sure? It's once again that example of taking a
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: beloved culinary tradition and commercializing the hell out of it,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: sell it to the lowest common denominator US. Pizza Chaine
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: really started to take off after World War Two, evolving
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: from the aforementioned local eateries to nationwide delivery giants. I
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: didn't know this, Ben, but Shaky's Pizza was actually the
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: first franchised chain. I don't know that there's many of
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: those around. If there are, they're probably some of those
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: like beloved Sacred cows. We're going to keep a couple
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: of Shaky's around. But maybe that's not true. Let's see
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: if Shaky's is still kicking.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: I like the idea though, as a of a restaurant
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: concept as an endangered species. Well, like there's a Blockbuster
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: video somewhere in the Yeah, I'm thinking Blockbuster is an
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: excellent example, and I love the joke like there are
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: only two Blockbusters left in Alaska.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: They won't reproduce exactly because it's just too cold. Shaky's
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: is absolutely still around, and it is not nearly as
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: as a you know, popular or ubiquitous as it once was.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Shaky's in nineteen fifty four, the first franchise chain was
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: followed by, not too far after, Pizza Hut with the
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: you know, famed hat shaped buildings that now you see
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: repurposed into other stuff, because what are you gonna do
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: with a hat shaped building other than like tear it down.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: We have a couple of those here in Atlanta that
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: are still around that are repurposed pizza huts. They've rebranded
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: and gone through a whole thing, and they don't do
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: the hat shape anymore. But that's nineteen fifty eight. Then
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty nine, just a year later, we have
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Little Caesars on I only recently found out Ben Pizza
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Pizza is based in Detroit, which makes sense because the
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: classic Detroit style pizza is square, is that kind of
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Grandma slice with the really good cheese crown, the crispy
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: bits along the side, and you know, Little Caesars doesn't
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: exactly do it the best, but it is sort of
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: what they're what they're going for. They didn't say they're good,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: they said they're got and ready. You gotta eat, Ben,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: you gotta gotta eat. I think the big the arena
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: there in Detroit, I've only visited once, and I went
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: for the first time a couple of years ago, is
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: called like Little Caesar's Arena.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Which you guys like the Detroit person to chime in, yeah,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: of course, yeah, little arena. That's where the Pistons and
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: the Red Wings play. It replaced Joe Louis Arena.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was taking it back because I'm like, I
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: don't really think of Little Caesars like that, But you.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: Go, illas family, they that's that's Little Caesar's people. They own.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: They owned the Tigers and the Pistons. No, the Tigers
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: and the Red Wings.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know the Pistons, Okay, I didn't know that.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: So that's a big, a big family there in Michigan.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: One other huge Little Caesar's fact we have to mention, well,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: child was not aware of I didn't know Little Caesars
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: dated that far back, I didn't know was from Detroit.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: But the founder of Little Caesars, I remember this story,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: a guy named Mike Illich. He is a huge philanthropist
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: and he privately, for more than ten years paid Rosa
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: parks rent.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: That's incredible.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they donated more than thirty five million dollars to
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: various feed the hungry kind of initiatives, and he had
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Rosa Parks back.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Could on you Little Caesars guy, you love to hear that.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Just a year later, Ben, we have I want to
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: do you think Domino's has sort of overtaken Piete's in
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: terms of like the ubiquitous, you know, pizza chain. Yeah,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: I think so. I think people more think of Dominoes. Then,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: of course you got your Papa John's and all of
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: that stuff problematic, But that's nineteen sixties. So just a
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: year apart, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, and Dominoes, with Shaky's
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: being first to market, all of these chains revolutionized fast, consistent,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: uniform product delivery.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Dun dun, dun, dun, dun, dun dun.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: We have McDonald's, of course, setting the tone for this
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: kind of thing. Already, you know, in terms of like
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: what fast food would become.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the pizza market stumbles on a beautiful idea
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: delivery service. McDonald's will make uniform products, but you have
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: to go to a McDonald's to get them. However, these guys,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: who may all be in the same town, they want
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: to send a driver to you. This is a hot
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: pizza arm race. It's so weird. Through the nineteen sixties
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and nineteen seventies, the United States is in love with pizza.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: It's a hot new craze and cities and towns across
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the country, which means a lot of pizza chains are
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: popping up like gangbusters. There's there's something we have to
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: mention at this point. In addition to being incredibly popular
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: to the public, or as Max said, incredibly in the Zeitgeist,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: pizza is also incredibly profitable as as a business.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It's like how popcorn costs ten dollars at the theater
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: but cost a nickel to make.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: It's a good point ben cheap is the name of
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: the game. It's also easy to mass produce these things,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: and of course we are talking about largely folks selling
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: entire pies and delivering whole pies. But then of course
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: you get into the pizza parlors of New York, like
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: we were talking about earlier, where you could just get
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: a single slice if you wanted to. The markup on
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: a slice, I mean, that's some good money right there.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Those the most sopranos you have ever sounded. Thank you
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: rewatching it. Remember when I mentioned the Esplanade yesterday podcast
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: with the way we were talking in reference to some
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: of the grifts that the government night right now is
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: pulling in terms of budget slashing and like having like
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: a line item that's like one hundred gazillion dollars for
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: a chair or a mouse pad. You know, very sopranos
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: of them.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: The slice shops are a huge part of New York culture.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: The ingredients for pizza shops in general are dirt cheap
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: as long as you don't get too specialized, so you
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: can not only sell a slice or a whole pie
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: at a hefty markup, but you can still hit a
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: price point low enough for the average customer to feel
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: like they're getting a good deal. And from there you
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: sell your side stacks, right, you sell your two leaders
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: of soda, You branch out to other items, endless wings,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: your garlic knots. Yeah, so it's no prize that the
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: market quickly becomes saturated. I mean, yeah, of course, if
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: we started the ridiculous pizza store we I'm gonna write
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: it though, we could make a lot of money as
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: long as those other new pizza joints across town don't
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: take all our customers. We got to do something different.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: We have to differentiate ourselves in the market. This is
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: where pizza chains enter, this bold experimental phase. It reminds
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: me of do you guys remember a few years back
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: when the roast beef chain Arby's just sold Viticon for
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a second.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: No, but Arby's came up yesterday with me and my
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: kid referring to it, both both of us as I
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: think the worst fast food in existence, and I do
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: also to that point, Ben, I didn't know about Venison,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: but I do remember a time where Arby's was marketing
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: no pun intended to hear these market fresh sandwiches that
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: were like big old you know, Dagwood type, you know,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Scooby Doo sandwiches, And I remember liking those when I
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: was younger, but they seemed to have declined significantly in
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: quality since those days.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they were up so Arbi's briefly here in
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the Atlanta area where we record had a Venison sandwich
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: or a Venison Burger. They just wanted to see what works,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and pizza chains back in the sixties and seventies were
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: doing the same thing. This probably irritated the heck out
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: of Italian pizzeono, the folks who make pizza right, the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: more conservative old school guys who still probably think Margarita
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: pizza is a little bit out there. They hated what
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: American pizza companies were doing because these folks were adding
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: everything they could. It's very again American dream stuff. They
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: were putting vegetables, meats, all kinds of weird cheeses.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: See what works.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Not every idea is a hit, but that showbiz pizza baby.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Oh no, showbiz pizza. Chucky cheese, Charles Entertainment cheese who
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: was recently given a purp walk. Yeah, what's happened? What's
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: happening in this country?
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Ben, We we can't even trust Charles Entertainment. So while
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: these pizza companies are trying to, you know, be the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: most enticing shop around in a very saturated market, they
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: stumble on the idea of creating what we call a
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: loaded pie. Let's take some portion of all the toppings
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: we will put on separate pizzas, put them onto one.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: We'll call it supreme.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: You know it's funny too, Ben, and I'd love to
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: look maybe we can do a quick cursor of Google
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: for this, but we of course know maybe not, of course,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: but the word supreme it can be attack to lots
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: of different foods. A chicken supreme, and a nacho supreme,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: and a cutlass supreme supreme. Yeah, that's a tenacious d
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: ref but it's true. The supreme Moniker isn't just for pizza.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: It is, however, very much fast food type chain term.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, one hundred percent, because you can add the
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: word supreme here in the United States to any kind
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: of food that you sell, and the FDA can't do
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: anything about that because you are not promising health benefits.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: You're not promising a specific set of ingredients.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Nine out of ten physicians recommend to pizza for your
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: health and a pack of pal Mall's right, right.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: How would you describe this, Senator, Well, I would describe
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: it as supreme and delicious. So what makes a pizza supreme.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: It's weird.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like a Bloody mary right because there's
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a base, but there's no set qudified list of ingredients.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Right, there's Bloody Mary's with chicken nuggets in them. Man,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: No they're not, Yes, there are. I'm not a Bloody Many, brother.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: There are these places that specialize in these bonkers. Ask
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Bloody Mary's. Max is chiming in is from his bartending
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: days that have like bacon and like I've seen one
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: with a whole roasted chicken hanging off the side. Max,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on this phenomenon?
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Very popular? I mean I made kind of a weird
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: bloody mara of but nowhere as weird as other people did.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: But yeah, you'll have like full on gerkins in them
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that. Yeah, you have everything. You'll have
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: stuff where they make the straw out of like a
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: chicken finger or something like that. Like you know, it
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: is as novelty as it comes. Personally, I think it's
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: the mustard. The mustard is the key.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: But what if we took a soup and made it
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: a drink and added lots of alcohol and you drink
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: it in the morning, sell it and.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Then someone said, let's name it after a creepy religious thing,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: and I'm sold.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, creepy religious thing or even like, gosh, there's
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of Well, no, Bloody Mary was the queen
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: who who murdered everybody. She was the real Protestant one. No, no,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: she was the Catholic one who fought back against the
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Protestant thing when she came into power and like killed
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: all the Protestants because she secretly held this like Catholic
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: grudge toward all this Protestant nonsense.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Isn't all? Isn't she one of King Henry's daughters, and
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: like you know.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: The one that's all that stuff rubbed her the wrong way. Yes,
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: they had all all the children of like King Henry.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: They're like, you know, they became monarch of England. We're
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: a different mothers said, different backstories.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: And of course Bloody Mary we spoke to her through
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the magic of editing, and she could not be more flattered.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I thought you meant when we did the ritual
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: and the mirror together the right. Yeah.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I thought we were supposed to go in one at
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: a time, but we had some schedule conflicts, so we
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: had to double dragon it, but maybe Bloody Mary would
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: be immensely flattered that a ridiculous alcoholic day drink is
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: named after her. It is I would pause. It still
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: similar to supreme pizza.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: And I know we took a little bit of a
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: side quest there, Ben, but I think it was worth it.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: And you're absolutely right, because there is no one way
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: to make a Bloody Mary, and there is.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: No one way, apparently to make a supreme pizza. You
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: were talking about the Grandma slice. There's a supreme pizza
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: version of that. There's a supreme pizza version of thin
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: crust or hand tossed crust. It's all about a sally
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: whatever ingredients are around at the time, whether you're a
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: home cook or whether you're working at a professional pizza shop.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Also, most pizza shops these days have other specialty pies
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: you mentioned Antiko, right, they have their own takes on things.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the meat Lovers from Domino's and Pizza Hut
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: or the Veggie Supreme.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: A big one these days that I think we're both
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: fans of. Ben. Where was that great pizza place that
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: we all went, me, you and our brother Matt that
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: had an excellent spicy hot honey helice. Yeah, and that
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: place also did really good vegan pizza. Oh geez, hold on,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: I got to give him a shout. My friend just
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: texted me about it the other day. Poly Gees Polyg's Pizza.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, shout out to you poly GE's.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: So yeah, a very fashionable pizza topping these days has
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: become hot Honey. And that's one of those things that
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: kind of got it start at places like Polyg's, are
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: these more local or regional slice shops, and then it
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: gets so popular that you got like a MIC's Hot
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Honey brand that is now collabing with you know, your
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: pizza huts and your Dominoes, etc.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: And the reason that most pizza places will have their
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: own spin on a supreme pizza is due to the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: profit margins. They're going to select ingredients based on the
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: cost of those ingredients and how much they can sell
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: them for, and they're usually going to prioritize ingredients that
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: can be used in other pizzas or other dishes at
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: the restaurant. So this is all fun of games, right,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Who doesn't love to talk about pizza. You might be
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: wondering why we've dedicated an entire episode to what seems
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: like a small story, and that's because of this Max
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: give us a creepy music change.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: There we go.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: You see ridiculous historians, Noel, Max and I have a
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: man on the inside of the pizza shop.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Is Chef Ben.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: It is Chef Ben in exclusive source who revealed to
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: us one of the conspiracies afoot at your local pizzeria.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: It turns out Supreme may not be exactly what you think.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Here's our big reveal.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Say the thing, say the thing from the other show. Ben.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: Who thank you, good afternoon, fellas. This is Chef Ben
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: in Chicago. I'm not calling about stuff they don't want
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: you to know. I'm calling about ridiculous history. So this
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: is like, I'm your boss and you didn't show up
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: for work and I can't get a hold of you.
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: So I called your girlfriend right like, I'm aware it's
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: not a good way to get ahold of ridiculous history.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: It's kind of a time machine. So in the episode
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: that I'm listening to now, which is about ping pong,
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: which I'm not terribly interested in, but I'm here to
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: learn stuff. Man. You guys lead with Tza a great
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: way to get me invested in the episode. So here's
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: my shameful, shameful admission. I have been in the restaurant
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: industry for thirty three years. Now, that's not a shameful part.
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: My first two jobs were in pizza. That was the
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: first three years of my career. And the very first
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: job was a mom and pop Italian place in my
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: hometound that made pizza, and I was the pizza guy
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: the way that I was trained to do this, and
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: I take the responsibility for it. Now, I was fourteen
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: and I didn't know any better. When we made our
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: supreme pizza, well, let me back up. When we made
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: any pizza, the pizza was topped on a table, right,
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: so you would have the pizza dough on the screen
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: that went into the oven. You would put the sauce
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: in the cheese, and then whatever toppings the customers wanted,
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: and you'd put it in the oven. Well, that tabletop
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: quickly became covered in the detritus of making those pizzas, right,
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: and cheese sort of off to the sides of where
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: the pizzas normally landed. We were instructed to scrape all
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: of that off to the side of the table and
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: whenever we got a Supreme pizza, those were the toppings
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: for the Supreme pizza. What.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Oh dude, it is a bit of a tut as
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: you would say, Ben, it is a bit of a boo,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: But it's not inherently uh what's the word non hygienic?
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: You know, I mean, because technically it's coming from the
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: same stuff. It's already out in the open, you know,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: on the prep station. I've worked in pizza. I worked
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: with Ala Mushroom for many years with friend of the
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: show Frank, and I do know about this accumulating stuff.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I guess there's something about it though, that makes it
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: feel like that dare of like drinking the drip tray
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: from the bar, you know, And it does feel like
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: a bit of a bait and switch. But I don't
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: think it's inherently as gross as it might seem, other
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: than maybe flavor wise, it's like making a you know
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: what they used to call a suicide out of all
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: the sodas.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and it's also we've got to mention this part.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: It also here's the gross thing to us, And thank you,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: againing chef Ben, You're just the best.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The gross thing to.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Us is that this is being prior as a premium pizza. Right,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: it's more expensive then you could sell it if you
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: called it what it is, the leftover pizza, garbage pizza.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and if I can jump in real quick, I
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: was just thinking about this. There was a pizza place
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: by I'm a Georgia State University grad. It was a
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: pizza place by campus and had a sticker on the
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: oven said pizza is like sex. When it's good, it's great,
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: and when it's bad, it's still pretty good. And it's
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: also kind of grows sometimes but still pretty good.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you keep that.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: I remember so many directions on that one.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: So we're not here to disparage the good folks of
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: the world's pizza shops. I think it's fair to say, Noel,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: that we are thankful they have continued a centuries old,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: ridiculous saga of one of the world's best foods. Ever,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: but it's also fair to say, just like beauty, supreme
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: can mean different things to different people.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: M hmm, definitely in the yeah, the eye of the beholder.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: There we go, man, this episode went a little bit
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: longer than we thought. We hope you appreciated the grand reveal. Noel,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: what's the weirdest pizza you have personally encountered?
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Gosh, Ben, trying to think. I typically I'm a little
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: bit of vanilla when it comes to pizza, though, I
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: really do love these hot honey varietals that are popular
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: these days, and like some Calabrian chili's on top. Perhaps
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: not a huge fan of anchovies, but that's because a
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: lot of the times they're not very good quality anchovies.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: But if you have a really fine pizza spot and
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: they offer anchovies, they're gonna be the real deal, like
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: nice chopped white anchovies, not the kind that come in
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: the can that are just mega mega salt personified. And
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: I would recommend giving that a try. It's like having
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: a roasted fresh beat versus a canned, slimy slide out
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: of the can kind of beat. You know, how about you, Ben,
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: You're the kind of more adventurous eater, especially from your
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: snack stuff days. Oh geez, thank you for.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: The setup there at I've eaten unimaginable things on an
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: horror that you've seen, I know, right with that distant
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: seven leagues stare right, I think the I guess weird
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: is also in the eye of the beholder. Some of
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the strangest, most unfamiliar pizzas I have had have been
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: in obviously in East Asia, right where there there is
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: a lot less of a normalization of cheese and dairy,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: so Mayo replaces cheese in a lot of ways. Yeah,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: and seafood is more frequently found on pizza. There's one
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: that I haven't tried yet. We're gonna have to try
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: it while we all get over there together on a
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: ridiculous road trip. There's apparently a pizza with dury in
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: on it.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never had the dury in. I've never cracked it.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: I've seen them in the shops, some of the h
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Marts and Asian grocery stores that we have over here,
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: if anyone's not familiar. It is the fruit that is
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: banned in the subways over there because of how stinky
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: it is. Apparently it tastes kind of good, like has
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: a custard he taste, but it just is so darn
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: smelly that it can put you off from even getting
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: as far as sticking it in your mouth.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: It tastes pretty good. I had some recently, some fresh
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: dury and you're right about the smell. It's worse than
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you're imagining, folks. It's not like Scandinavian rotted shark's head bad,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: but it is. It smells like a diaper.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Can I just name drop a friend of the show,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: and I think you and I both have worked with
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Gabby Watts, who's a really great stand up. We've worked
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: with her on podcast stuff with School of Humans and
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: now she lives in New York and is doing really
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: gangbusters as a stand up. She had a really funny whurse.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: She was talking about her button and said she has
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: a dumps dump dump truck butt, not because of the size,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: because of the smell. I just thought that was very
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: bad fun.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Check out Gabby Watts everybody coming to a stage near you.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Check out her previous work with her on podcasts. There's
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: so much more to get to here, but we primarily
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: wanted to put our stuff they don't want your no
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: hats on and bust the myth of the supreme pizza
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: will We will be back with more pizza episodes if
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: you are interested. We did learn the world's most expensive
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: pizza is the Louis thirteen. It sells for twelve thousand dollars.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: What's on it? Like gold gold leaf? I mean, of
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: course that's not even that outlandish. There's gold leaf on
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: But why wouldn't you sell it for thirteen thousand dollars
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: if it's the Louie thirteenth.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at that point it's just kind of your nickel
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: and diamond, and just do it for the cloud, just
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: you know, make it match up more with the branding.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: What is on the thirteen thousand dollars pizza though, Ben
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: hiring minds want you to know.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Oh well, we're happy to share it. Three types of
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: caveat Lobster from Norway, Buffalo, mazzarell as you would say, Noel,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: And the big flex is they go to your house
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: to make it okay? All right, So still you know,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: carrying on the grand tradition of pizza delivery. Just plussing
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: it up a little bit.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Just plussing it up a little bit.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: And thank you so much, fellow Ridiculous historians for plussing
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: it up with.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Us a bit on the show to date.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams. Max
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: pop beeck in on the chat here real quick because
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: we want to make this official Noel and I have
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: told you off air, but as soon as we can
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: get that condition repaired, we're taking you out for pizza.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Heck yeah. Huge thanks to christ Frociotis needs, Jeff Coates
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: here and Spirit Max's Darling brother, friend of the show
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: and genius composer Alex Williams, soon in fact composed this
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: bang and bop.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Big big thanks of course to the rude dudes at
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, you'll love them. Big
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: things to aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor Rachel Big, Spinach, Lance.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: And you know, Noel, I've never thought about it.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Does Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister Pizza?
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: I think so, as long as it doesn't have shellfish
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: on it.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: He's such a Raphael.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: He has a bit of a Raf. Remember that scene
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: in the Ninja Turtles movie where Raf is really upset
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: and he goes on a rooftop and he just goes,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: damn us. That was the first swear I ever heard.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.