Dave Bell > wrote:

> On Mon, 12 Feb 2007, Victor Sack wrote:
>
> > <http://www.pizzanapoletana.org/images/file/disciplinare_stg_eng.pdf>.
>
> Well, hell, Victor - that's the whole problem: Semantics!
>
> Nobody here ever claimed to make "Pizza Napoletana STG".

Ah, but the name and designation are actually incidental - it is just
the traditional way of making pizza that is being codified in the paper.

> That's a great whitepaper and defense of a particular, jealously guarded
> style, but it is not the be-all and end-all definition of "pizza"...

And I think it is just that. It is the original pizza and everything
else claiming that name has to at least strive to come close, otherwise
calling it a pizza would be ridiculous. Of course, it is semantics - as
everything ultimately is, but calling things by their particular names
facilitates communication. Somewhere the line has to be drawn to make
oneself understood at all. And we did discuss these things "here", i.e.
on rfc, before. People defended the Chicago style deep-dish pizza as
having a right to the name, too, yet not very much makes it similar to
the original pizza. People called it pizza to capitalise on the
familiar name, that is all. Otherwise, the names of some other
flatbreads could be used with the same justification, such as, for
example, those of the Ligurian focaccia, the Romagnola piadina, the
Calabrian pitta, a large crostino, the Turkish lahmaçun and, come to
think of it, the Ethiopian injera. Many, maybe most, so-called pizzas,
home-made and otherwise, have probably more in common with one or more
of these flatbreads than with the original pizza. Or is "pizza"
supposed to replace generic "flatbread"?

On the other hand, there are certainly pizzas made similarly enough to
the original that do deserve the name, the prime example being the New
York style pizza, which, if made traditionally and with traditional
ingredients, is very similar indeed to the original pizza, the main
difference being size - the New York pizza is often rather larger in
diameter.

Victor