“It sweats as if masturbating”
– Tom Gates, The Five Worst Pizzas In the World
It began, as many things do these days, as a single tweet. Tom Gates, who writes a fun little travel blog called waywardlife’s posterous, had dared to criticize pizza in Buenos Aires in a column on the MatadorNights website. And he didn’t stop at the one pizza from the one pizzeria that he had singled out for mention on his bottom five, but went on to trash the entire genre. One tweet grew to dozens, and probably on from there, I stopped reading them. But then the e-mails and direct tweets started – local expats suggesting that I might just write a defense of the BA pizza.
“The “Super Picante” from Belén, at the corner of Corrientes and Boulogne sur Mer, oozing oil from both cheese and gristly chorizo, no sauce to speak of, a few hard, rubbery and ice cold “roasted” peppers and a sprinkle of dusty oregano and chili flakes that were devoid of flavor…”
Now, looking at my index, I’ve reviewed 32 pizzerias to date here – and probably eaten at equally as many more. I have tried al molde, a la piedra, a la parrilla. I’ve tried simple, basic pizzas, I’ve tried the elaborate concoctions with hearts of palm and salsa golf. I’ve tried the places that tug at the heartstrings of porteños since time immemorial, or at least a decade or two, and I’ve tried the newcomers. And out of those 32, slightly more than half have gotten a thumb’s up. The three dozen or so that haven’t garnered a review didn’t warrant one – they were execrable… wretched… not fit for human consumption – leaving us at, statistically, somewhere around a quarter of the pizzas I’ve tried here being worth eating.
That doesn’t bode well for a defense. And, Tom is, I have to say, dead-on in his reasoning, at least partially. The problem, for the most part, is the cheese. Most of the mozzarella here has far too high of a fat content, there’s way too much of it piled atop the pie, and it weeps oil over plate and box at a rate that makes the Exxon Valdez look like a laughably amateurish attempt. But it’s more than just the cheese. The sauce is often little more than puré de tomate right out of can or carton, unseasoned, uninteresting, barely brushed onto the dough in any case. The seasoning of the pizza is nil – perhaps a dusting of oregano flakes and a few too many shakes of salt – no garlic, no onion, no spice nor herbs. There are virtually always olives, green or black, and 9 times out of 10, left whole, with pit, meaning that you end up eating them separately, or risk chipping a tooth. The crust, often, is the only saving grace, and I’ve had many a crust that was worth eating on its own as a piece of focaccia and would have been better left that way.
Now, one could argue that it’s a matter of taste, and, of course it is. So is eating deep-fried witchetty grubs, braised chicken anuses, and broccoli. Some like each of those, some don’t. And I’ve sat at the table while local friends have rolled their eyes in rapture as they sunk their teeth into a pizza slice that from my point of view needed to be tossed on the floor and covered with sawdust to soak up the grease and add flavor. But then, I’ve also sat at table in Italy with friends from the U.S. who rolled their eyes in disgust and couldn’t wait to get back to New York and “real pizza” (which, by the way, is a style of pizza I don’t particularly like either).
One could claim that subjectivity is, at heart, the defense of pizza porteña, and for locals, it is. And for some expats it is – the amusing thing for me, is how many of those who asked me to leap in to defend pizza here, are the same ones who when we get together and go out, moan about how bad it is. They just don’t like it when “an outsider” says the same things they say… forgetting that, they themselves are, in the eyes of Argentines, just as much outsiders, regardless of having chosen to live here.
So, in the end, do I defend the local style of pizza? No. Most of the places that a local would define as “true Buenos Aires pizza” have been among my least liked. Those that have been towards the top have been those that, for me, come closest to traditional Neapolitan pizza, or, Chicago/Midwestern style. But then, I’m from the Midwest, and have spent oodles of time in Italy – it’s simply what I like. I do, however, defend their right to like it, eat it, cherish it, and, should they wish to, defend it.
And Tom, if you come back to BA, I’d be happy to show you some places to get my idea of a good pizza, and we can jointly avoid the “big goops” of “sweating fromage” that you wax so poetic against.
Wow! I really had no idea that this pizza thing would become what it did. I’ve been doing this world trip and made note of the bad ones that I ran into. The truth is, I ran into way less than I’d have thought I would. (The one that got away was Scotland’s Deep Fried Pizza…everytime I went to find one, I ended up seeing a GOOD pizza place and, well, I have the reserve of a labrador.) I guess that this is as good a forum as anywhere to apologize for generalizing about an entire country’s pizza. I had no idea that I was running into some kind of pizza-pride parade. It does, however, make me feel better that I wasn’t completely out of my mind in my assessment of the bad ones that I’d eaten – I encountered The Valdez more often than not. I WELCOME a good pizza in Buenos Aires and look forward to finding one. I’m back for January/February and will definitely take you up on the offer. You’ll have to forgive the fact taht my first few days, though, will be spent eating the side of a cow.
Gates has all the nuance of a gangbanger on a drive-by shooting. I’ll bet that you struggled with even the idea of commenting about him. He’s not in your league, Shake.
If Tommy ever takes you up on your offer to show him a good pie or two, lemme know if I can tag along! But from his post, I seriously doubt that he’s all that curious …about anything.
Mike
Mike, one might suggest that your nuance and tact might also be… less than subtle. Still, since it appears that Tom intends to return and check out some decent pizza here (and, Tom, the offer is genuine), if you promise to behave reasonably civilly, I’d love to have you along. 😉
Well said Dan. and thanks for not defending the pizza here – enough of this empty praise, more people need to stand up and say the pizza here is terrible, how else can we affect change?
Pizza is among those dishes that have more or less lost their place of origin. I’ve had both amazingly great pizza in Italy, as well as less than great. The same in my home town of New York, in New Haven and other celebrated U.S. pizza cities. Chicago makes what’s generally my least favorite pizza.
On both of my visits to Buenos Aires, I was extremely pleased with the quality of the various pizzas I had. Some were very plain, but honest and good. Others were so good they could have come out of a brick oven in Tuscany. Of course, with Dan as a guide it would have been unusual not to eat well. BA has a heavy Italian influence, so it’s hardly surprising that the pizza there is good.
I agree with deby, there is no shame in calling a spade a spade – the majority of pizza places I visited (8-10 at least) were all uniformly horrid, all but one – Filo. And even thought that was good eats, it paled in comparison to North Beach Pizza here in San Francisco.
[…] in the photo, the one on the right looks like it’s oozing some of that goopy mozzarella I was recently talking about, but it’s actually not – instead it’s oozing bechamel sauce. The cheese is used […]
[…] of certain types of food – in particular, related to Italian food – whether it be pizza, pasta, or anything else from the canon. Pizza has too much cheese and not enough sauce, pasta is […]
[…] main thing that many of us expats complain about in regard to pizza is the overwhelming quantity of cheese on them. It’s the local style. My way around it is to either insist on “half the amount of […]
[…] Argentine pizza is famous for its mounds of cheese, there are some classics of the genre that come without. Because sometimes, you’re just not […]
[…] about in his infamous Matador Nights column that in some ways had a hand in my fascination with finding decent pizza in BA. Tom has become an online friend since that time and we even met when he came back to BA at one […]
[…] near to the Obelisco, was one of my favorite pizzerias in town. Certainly, I think, of the “Argentine style pizza” places it still tops the list, and when friends who are visiting want to find out what […]
[…] hey, if you like cheese, as Argentines tend to, it’s the proper amount. No, it’s that this cheese is oozing oil from every pore that a cheese could have. By the time I finished off a single slice of plain mozzarella pizza, […]
[…] I offer some attention back on the local approach to pizza. Now, I’ve written both pros and cons over the years – early on, I was less than enamored with pizzas heavy on cheese and light on […]
[…] those of you who’ve been with me awhile might remember when I was asked by various expats to defend local pizza. It was a bizarre request, based on an article written by someone who’s since become a […]