March 24, 2026 • 48 mins
The results are in: pretty much everyone loves pizza... but what doth a pizza make varies from place to place. Obsessed with a game-changing message from a former pizzaiolo on the inside, Ben, Noel and Max dive into the delicious (and arguably disturbing) conspiracy of what makes a pizza "supreme".
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man,
the Myth, the Legend, Max, the teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtle,
Williams Cowa bunga Radical Tubula.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
That's Noel Brown. I've been bulling.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
We have a great, very weird episode for you today, folks.
But before we continue, now that I've brought up the
legendary turtles, I've got to ask you, guys, if we
haven't talked about it on air, which turtle would you be?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I think we were. I think most people were fans
of Michelangelo because he was the sort of you know,
party dude, party dude, but he only he didn't He
didn't like, you know, don't do drugs kids. He just
ate lots of pizza and had pizza parties and talked
like a surfer. Though I don't know that there's evidence
that Michael Angelo ever had access to surfing, although they
could have gone to Coney Island and done a surf,
(01:25):
but they were trying to keep it low key, so
I don't know if surfing Ninja Turtles would have would
have been though. I will also say that there's a
lot of weird stuff that got trickled into the toy
lines of the Ninja Turtles. And I want to say
somewhere along the line there had to have been a
surf and mic.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
A million percent there had to. Okay, so we've got you,
mister Brown. As I name my first cat, Michelangelo, he
was all right doubling down. So Noel Brown is the
Michelangelo of the crew. What about you, Max Williams.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I gotta admit this is a weird one right here.
I I never was really exposed to teenage median Nina Turtles.
It wasn't part of my zeitgeist as a child, Harry.
People talk to me about like that kind of stuff,
and I'm like, I cannot relate.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
You're a little younger than us, Max, and for us
for a gentleman or humans, yeah, humans of a certain age.
Ninja Turtles were kind of inescapable. They were on TV
all the time. The first movie came out, it was huge,
and of course the action figures were just, you know,
on every kid's wish list. How about you, Ben, you
(02:30):
see you strike me as a as a raff guy.
Oh no way, that's the worst one. That's the opposite.
It was angsty.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I don't like him. I I always aspired to be
a Donna Tello. Unfortunately, I believe in practice I'm probably
a Leonardo.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Donna Tello is the smart one. Leonardo was sort of
the leader.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
See I want to beat the Donna Tello. But one
thing these guys have in common, these turtles, is that
they love pizza. That Max, that's their formative mythology. Of
course they are. That's not the best one. But it's
like an ugly pass thrown by Joe Montana. No matter how,
(03:15):
it doesn't matter if.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It looks good, it makes it to the finish line,
still better than a pass that, you know, a civilian
might throw.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Oh boy, I appreciate that though. It's funny because remember
when you and I were just yesterday, when we were
up in New York and we were doing some episodes
with our pals Gandhi and Diamond from a sauce on
the side, I did attempt a couple pivots.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
And I believe I complimented you on them copiously. Oh geez, man,
do you like pizza? I do like pizza, and there's
nothing more in New Yorky than a good New York Slice.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
No, have you guys ever had pizza in Italy like
from Italians.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I've not been to Italy personally. I may have been
when I was a small child, too young to remember,
but certainly on my list. We do have a fabulous
Neapolitan pizza spot here in Atlanta called Antiico. The by
all accounts, is up there, you know, with some of
the best pieces of pizza you might get over there
in Italy. The New York Slice, however, really differs from
(04:34):
that kind of classic Italian style. It's the big old
floppy piece you got the Grandma p high which I'm
also a big fan of the square the rectangular pieces.
And I tried a new spot this trip called Scars
Pizza that I think used to be kind of a
hot spot where you couldn't get in, and the hype
seems to have died down a little bit, and I
was able to get in and it was worthy of
(04:55):
the hype, but without.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
The line, but without the lie, and we like that
part as well. Now, if you are traveling through these
great United States and you are familiar with the original
og Italian pizza. What you will find is that the
United States version of pizza becomes very regional and often
(05:21):
is not what Italian people themselves would consider pizza.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Max Here has pointed out something from his travels in
Saint Louis.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, I was in Saint Louis, and I'm saying it
with my buddy Nate, who is from Atland as well.
He moved out there a couple of years ago. But
his partner, she's like born and raised in Saint Louis,
and they have this. Uh, you know, every place now
has a style of pizza, and there's is Saint Louis
style with something called provel cheese.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Not We've talked about this and it's not related to provalone.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Right, you know what. That's what she told me, And
she's a liar, oh liar to the Google AI. It
is a lend of provolone, Swiss and Cheddar.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Don't quote the Google an.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You can do better, Okay, according to according to Wikipedia.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Fine, we accept the Wikipedia and cheese.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Provelled cheese is I'm doing this live a combination of cheddar, Swiss,
provolone and liquid smoke.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
There we go. That's well, you know you can get
a nice smoked provolone, and unless you get a really
fancy kind, it's probably gonna get that smoky flavor from
a liquid smoke as well. That sounds okay to me.
I think we've also talked in these regional pizza conversations
about Pittsburgh pizza, uh cold toppings including cheese, and our
(06:44):
buddy Theo you know as well, Ben swears by the stuff,
and it just doesn't do it for me. It's kind
of sounds like you just took fistfuls of cold toppings
out of the prep trays, you know, on the on
the little prep counter, and just just dumped them on
the pie and just kind of called it a day.
I don't know about that, but I'm willing to give
it a try. Sure, We're going to give every regional
(07:07):
pizza a try, and we'll get to the very weird
pizza toppings at the end of this episode, as well
as the world's most expensive pizza. Right now, we're asking
ourselves about really Americana, about how the United States has
always been a land of excess since the close.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Of World War Two. Remember, Nold, you and I were
talking earlier to our pal Gandhi about how this is
the only country that could have invented crack cocaine because
regular cocaine just wasn't enough of a zip.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
We just need, I mean, we need to do we
need to do better, y'all. We're an aspirational country. If anything,
there we go aspirational. We look at the pizza, we
say more cheese, more stuff. We are the supersized nation.
So it's no surprise that Erica collectively looked at regular
old pizza and one day decided to make something they
(08:06):
call supreme.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
But no'l riddle me this. What is a supreme pizza?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Well, that is a really important question, Ben, because it's
the crux of this entire discussion. Actually, to me, I
always thought, because you got your meat lovers, you got
your veggie lovers. You know, maybe that's a branding thing,
probably a pizza Hut invention. But when I think of supreme,
at least back in the day when maybe there were
fewer toppings available, I always thought of a supreme pizza
(08:35):
as being all the toppings.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, me too, man, I'm right there with you. We're
going to answer the question of what makes a supreme
pizza supreme? And just be aware of folks, there is
a conspiracy theory at the end. No, maybe we start
with pizza, just like the early years. Who came up
(09:00):
with this idea pizza?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
The early years? I love that sounds like a like
a Ken Burns documentary. Well, you know, as soon as
folks humans that is, figured out how to make bread,
it kind of became a medium for piling on all
kinds of other stuff. You know, how do we one
up bread? We're already asking ourselves the question of how
do we do a good thing and make it more extra.
(09:25):
The grandfather, not the grandma of all pizza we know
and love, is, of course, the flatbread, which isn't too
different from like a matza kind of situation or like
some you know, a let's see a pita or there
are there's of course that really interesting type of bread
you get at Ethiopian restaurants. These are all kind of red.
(09:47):
That's the one to the humble flat bread. It was
a super popular street food throughout Africa, Egypt, Greece and
of course the Roman Empire.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, and honestly you can still see versions of this
stuff around today because it is delicious. But to be clear,
as we're pointing out these flatbreads, these ancestors of pizza
don't look like the stuff you would find in your
local pizza spot today. The Greeks were known to gnauch
(10:19):
on flatbread with herbs and oil. It was more like
what we would call ficautia today. And that's because they
didn't have tomatoes.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Which is a discussion onto itself, which I think we've
had actually, if I'm not mistaken, at the very least
in passing in other food topics, the idea that tomatoes
were not native to Italy, right.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
It wasn't until the Spanish conquistadors explored the America's hard
air quotes around explored and Hernan Cortes his crew ravages
Mexico in fifteen nineteen. They returned to Spain and they
carry a bunch of treasures and spoils war with them.
They also are carrying tomatoes. Tomatoes are most likely from Peru.
(11:08):
It's interesting because does that make all pizza incan?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I guess it does. Ben But they don't really get
the props that they deserve. So we're going to give
them their flowers today. We're talking specifically from the Andes
Mountains of Peru, and sometime in the distant past we
began to see tomatoes spread to most of South and
Central America, eventually reaching Mexico. The Incas first cultivated tomatoes
(11:35):
about a thousand years ago and eventually traded the seeds
to the Aztecs and the Mayans to the north of them.
A lot of historical botany historians, I guess, consider the
tiny little scraggly bush known as the solanum is a
great name, by the way, pimpanilla phillium, pimp panilla phillium,
(11:55):
or pump and strong, as the ancestor of all of
the tomatoes that you know and love and or tolerate.
Some people don't like tomatoes today, itself becoming an endangered species.
The origin the prot tomato.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
The og pimp, so the proto tomato. The og pimp
is now an endangered species, but it gave birth to
so many of the tomatoes that you consume today, folks.
And it's weird. We have talked about this on air,
but it bears repeating. The tomato as consumable became popular
(12:33):
in Europe way before it was popular in North America.
Colonial Americans associated the tomato with nightshade, and it is
a close cousin of that toxic vine, and that's why
the leaves and vines of a tomato plant are fairly toxic.
There's this legend, right, we got to mention the legend
(12:55):
about the guy who made tomatoes edible in America.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
What do they say, print the legend. That's what we're
gonna do. We're gonna speak it though. Right, you're talking
about Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson. Yes, yes, no relation to
the primate, I think, no, no, no, that's true. I
do love a Gibbon.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
He proved to Americans through you know, trial and error,
through demonstration that tomatoes were in fact not poisonous on
June twenty eighth, eighteen twenty by like in a feat
of strengths demonstration, very etal to evil. Yeah, he ate
a whole basket of the things and Salem, New Jersey
on the courthouse steps. Yeah, white a flex public protest.
(13:36):
Gibbon Johnson.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Right, And according to the legend, again, as you said, nol,
a lot of people at this time believed tomatoes were deadly.
That was probably due to the lead poisoning from acidic
tomatoes on pewter plates. Anyway, a bunch of people gathered
around to watch Colonel Johnson consume tomatoes and die. They're
(14:01):
kind of like the people who go to a NASCAR
race hoping to see one of the cars crash because
they were convinced he would die. And because he did
not die. According again to the legend, the crowd went wild.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Where those train crash expos Yes, yeah, yeah, are fun. Sorry,
Just remind we never saw one live. No, we didn't.
We did. We did speak of them on an episode
I think on that very topic. Do check that one out.
It's an interesting one and it does end in tragedy.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
What no way stage collisions?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, not the best, not the best idea. What could
go wrong?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So because this guy didn't die, Colonel Johnson didn't die,
according to the legend, the rest of North America immediately
fell in love with tomatoes. That's the end of our
tomato sidebar. We just love the story. We've got to
get back to Europe and get back to the history
of pizza because it's going to lead us back to
the United States and the supreme Pizza.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
But for now, we're going to go to Italy's Campagna region.
Most famously home to the waterfront city of Naples or Napoli.
There we go.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, Napoli or Naples is founded in its modern version
round six hundred BCE, and it went through all the
triumphs and tribulations of any nation state at the time.
By the late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, it
got a bit of a reputation similar to Portland today
(15:36):
in the United States. They said, this is home to
hordes of working poor what they called lazzaroni.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, almost like in the style of a caste system,
at least in the way that they're referred to. These
folks were not the typical which you might imagine or
picture as the unhoused population of today. They were, however, hustlers.
They were out there, you know, wheeling and dealing, haggling, hugling,
you know that's a word, out in public spaces, hunting
(16:08):
for jobs. Often they didn't have the luxury of being
able to be welcome in say a public house, or
the ability to cook in a home because they were
just too busy for it. So pizza became a solution.
It was available ingredients again, a simple medium that you
could just pile stuff on top of and it's portable,
(16:31):
let's not forget and affordable.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Portable and affordable pizza. The solution a silver bullet.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
You can have that, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
A silver bullet for a hungry stomach and a skinny wallet.
The well to do of Italy this story the Jedi
won't tell you, folks, The upper pizza crust of Italy
initially hated this idea, kind of like lobster back in
the day, right, peasant food? Oh yeah, they called it
(17:01):
poor people food. But if we fast forward, we go
to the moment where Italy sort of unifies in eighteen
sixty one, and there are these two big deal royals
who visit Naples.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Man, this is a tail as old as time. You
got something that was seen as a little low brow,
and then when some royal or some well to do individual,
high society type gets a taste for the stuff and
judges it up a little bit and names it after themselves,
all of a sudden, you got yourself a regular culinary phenomenon.
And this came in the form of King Umberto the
(17:37):
First and Queen Margherita, who you might you know know
from the drink and the pizza. Don't take the drink
is named after her, but the pizza definitely is. They
were on tour like you do, I guess, doing like
a whistle stop tour kind of situation, visiting the people England,
hands babies, the allo, all the stuff exactly, and they
(18:01):
visited Naples in eighteen eighty nine. Now, another legend has
it that the traveling pair got bored of their steady
diet of French hate cuisine, which I think Ben you
and I might also agree, while considered some of the
finest food in the land. It's rich and it can
be a lot I wouldn't want to eat, you know,
(18:22):
Coco Vans for every meal, duck colm Thief for every meal.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It's not Christmas if it's every day, you know, cassulet is.
Cassule is a beautiful dish that is not an everyday dish.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
It's also not crispy. It's kind of it's like, you know,
really fancy mush, really fancy slop it is.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
It's a bean souper duck at it so okay, So
of course the King and the Queen get a bit satiated.
They want some variety, and they reportedly ask for a
bunch of pizzas from Naples Pizzeria Brandy. And this is
(19:03):
like when our pal Alex French takes us to a
restaurant and tells the server take us on a journey.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he got that from Queen Margharita
and King Emberto the first who told the locals to
take them on a culinary journey. The Queen in particular
enjoyed a familiar sounding version, a pie topped with soft
white mazzarel, red tomatoes, and of course green basil. We
(19:33):
told you the name already, you know it, you love it,
the humble Margharita pizza.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So just as you were saying, Noel, this peasant food
or this poor people food gets a co sign from
the royals, right from the biggest celebrities of the day.
Pizza then becomes much more widely accepted. But here in
the United States it takes a much longer time for
(19:58):
pizza to become popular. The nineteen forties when we see
tons of Italian immigrants arriving at the US en mass
and a lot of these folks in this particular wave
of immigration are from Naples, and food is culture, right,
So these folks bring their culture and their food along
and they adapt it to whatever ingredients are available.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
At the time. For sure. I mean it's very similar
to the story of Americanized Chinese food and even the
Thai cuisine. The exporting of Thai cuisine. You got to
kind of read the room and play to the audience,
and that is what's happening and part of the reason
we see so many regional variations of the stuff. So
there's a lot more to the story and the evolution
(20:44):
of pizza as a dish and as a culinary tradition.
The Supreme Pizza, however, we're going to get into the
story of now which took a little bit more time
to cook, right, Yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Takes some more time in the kitchen. Supreme Pizza. If
you live in the United States, you have seen it
on a menu. It is not always the same thing.
And I'll say it, it's a bit of a self
important name, is it not.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
For sure? I think you know, Ben, I am a
fan of the Supreme brand of things. We even joked
on sauce on the side with Gandhi. We were both
wearing some Supreme pieces and when we talked about this
Supreme as a company and as a brand to these
exclusive drops, whether it be hats or shirts so whatever.
But they sometimes do ridiculous items like a brick branded
(21:41):
with the Supreme red box logo. What they had when
I was there this past trip was a toaster and
it wouldn't surprise me for them, and I bet if
we looked into it, they've done it. If they had
their own like Supreme pizza boxes or like those, but
you know those cool pizza shaped carrying back delivery folks
use that'd be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Oh that's smart. If they haven't done it yet, you're welcome, Supreme.
That's a beautiful idea that the stuff that we're talking
about when we talk about a literal supreme pizza is
generally going to be acknowledged by the number of toppings,
the variety of toppings, but those toppings aren't always consistent.
(22:25):
I mean, Supreme pizza is a thoroughly American idea, right
where the land bigger and more better, Just get it.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
All in there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Three shots of espresso on my eyes. Yeah, So the
Supreme pizza, we could argue, is an escalation of that
cultural pattern. There's not a codified list of ingredients like
in the Margherita pizza. But also we will argue at
the end of this that the Supreme Pizza is not
the true end of the line. It's not the final
(22:59):
form for how far we can take pizza as a concept.
The real story of Supreme Pizza is a story of business.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
It's a story of commerce capitalism writ large.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah, yeah, nol. Can you introduce us to pizza chains?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
For sure? It's once again that example of taking a
beloved culinary tradition and commercializing the hell out of it,
sell it to the lowest common denominator US. Pizza Chaine
really started to take off after World War Two, evolving
from the aforementioned local eateries to nationwide delivery giants. I
(23:42):
didn't know this, Ben, but Shaky's Pizza was actually the
first franchised chain. I don't know that there's many of
those around. If there are, they're probably some of those
like beloved Sacred cows. We're going to keep a couple
of Shaky's around. But maybe that's not true. Let's see
if Shaky's is still kicking.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I like the idea though, as a of a restaurant
concept as an endangered species. Well, like there's a Blockbuster
video somewhere in the Yeah, I'm thinking Blockbuster is an
excellent example, and I love the joke like there are
only two Blockbusters left in Alaska.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
They won't reproduce exactly because it's just too cold. Shaky's
is absolutely still around, and it is not nearly as
as a you know, popular or ubiquitous as it once was.
Shaky's in nineteen fifty four, the first franchise chain was
followed by, not too far after, Pizza Hut with the
(24:40):
you know, famed hat shaped buildings that now you see
repurposed into other stuff, because what are you gonna do
with a hat shaped building other than like tear it down.
We have a couple of those here in Atlanta that
are still around that are repurposed pizza huts. They've rebranded
and gone through a whole thing, and they don't do
the hat shape anymore. But that's nineteen fifty eight. Then
(25:01):
in nineteen fifty nine, just a year later, we have
Little Caesars on I only recently found out Ben Pizza
Pizza is based in Detroit, which makes sense because the
classic Detroit style pizza is square, is that kind of
Grandma slice with the really good cheese crown, the crispy
bits along the side, and you know, Little Caesars doesn't
(25:22):
exactly do it the best, but it is sort of
what they're what they're going for. They didn't say they're good,
they said they're got and ready. You gotta eat, Ben,
you gotta gotta eat. I think the big the arena
there in Detroit, I've only visited once, and I went
for the first time a couple of years ago, is
called like Little Caesar's Arena.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Which you guys like the Detroit person to chime in, yeah,
of course, yeah, little arena. That's where the Pistons and
the Red Wings play. It replaced Joe Louis Arena.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah. I was taking it back because I'm like, I
don't really think of Little Caesars like that, But you.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Go, illas family, they that's that's Little Caesar's people. They own.
They owned the Tigers and the Pistons. No, the Tigers
and the Red Wings.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
I don't know the Pistons, Okay, I didn't know that.
So that's a big, a big family there in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
One other huge Little Caesar's fact we have to mention, well,
child was not aware of I didn't know Little Caesars
dated that far back, I didn't know was from Detroit.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
But the founder of Little Caesars, I remember this story,
a guy named Mike Illich. He is a huge philanthropist
and he privately, for more than ten years paid Rosa
parks rent.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, they donated more than thirty five million dollars to
various feed the hungry kind of initiatives, and he had
Rosa Parks back.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Could on you Little Caesars guy, you love to hear that.
Just a year later, Ben, we have I want to
do you think Domino's has sort of overtaken Piete's in
terms of like the ubiquitous, you know, pizza chain. Yeah,
I think so. I think people more think of Dominoes. Then,
of course you got your Papa John's and all of
that stuff problematic, But that's nineteen sixties. So just a
(27:11):
year apart, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, and Dominoes, with Shaky's
being first to market, all of these chains revolutionized fast, consistent,
uniform product delivery.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Dun dun, dun, dun, dun, dun dun.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
We have McDonald's, of course, setting the tone for this
kind of thing. Already, you know, in terms of like
what fast food would become.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, and the pizza market stumbles on a beautiful idea
delivery service. McDonald's will make uniform products, but you have
to go to a McDonald's to get them. However, these guys,
who may all be in the same town, they want
to send a driver to you. This is a hot
(27:53):
pizza arm race. It's so weird. Through the nineteen sixties
and nineteen seventies, the United States is in love with pizza.
It's a hot new craze and cities and towns across
the country, which means a lot of pizza chains are
popping up like gangbusters. There's there's something we have to
(28:14):
mention at this point. In addition to being incredibly popular
to the public, or as Max said, incredibly in the Zeitgeist,
pizza is also incredibly profitable as as a business.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
It's like how popcorn costs ten dollars at the theater
but cost a nickel to make.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
It's a good point ben cheap is the name of
the game. It's also easy to mass produce these things,
and of course we are talking about largely folks selling
entire pies and delivering whole pies. But then of course
you get into the pizza parlors of New York, like
we were talking about earlier, where you could just get
a single slice if you wanted to. The markup on
(28:54):
a slice, I mean, that's some good money right there.
Those the most sopranos you have ever sounded. Thank you
rewatching it. Remember when I mentioned the Esplanade yesterday podcast
with the way we were talking in reference to some
of the grifts that the government night right now is
pulling in terms of budget slashing and like having like
(29:16):
a line item that's like one hundred gazillion dollars for
a chair or a mouse pad. You know, very sopranos
of them.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
The slice shops are a huge part of New York culture.
The ingredients for pizza shops in general are dirt cheap
as long as you don't get too specialized, so you
can not only sell a slice or a whole pie
at a hefty markup, but you can still hit a
price point low enough for the average customer to feel
(29:46):
like they're getting a good deal. And from there you
sell your side stacks, right, you sell your two leaders
of soda, You branch out to other items, endless wings,
your garlic knots. Yeah, so it's no prize that the
market quickly becomes saturated. I mean, yeah, of course, if
we started the ridiculous pizza store we I'm gonna write
(30:10):
it though, we could make a lot of money as
long as those other new pizza joints across town don't
take all our customers. We got to do something different.
We have to differentiate ourselves in the market. This is
where pizza chains enter, this bold experimental phase. It reminds
(30:32):
me of do you guys remember a few years back
when the roast beef chain Arby's just sold Viticon for
a second.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
No, but Arby's came up yesterday with me and my
kid referring to it, both both of us as I
think the worst fast food in existence, and I do
also to that point, Ben, I didn't know about Venison,
but I do remember a time where Arby's was marketing
no pun intended to hear these market fresh sandwiches that
were like big old you know, Dagwood type, you know,
(31:04):
Scooby Doo sandwiches, And I remember liking those when I
was younger, but they seemed to have declined significantly in
quality since those days.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah, yeah, they were up so Arbi's briefly here in
the Atlanta area where we record had a Venison sandwich
or a Venison Burger. They just wanted to see what works,
and pizza chains back in the sixties and seventies were
doing the same thing. This probably irritated the heck out
(31:35):
of Italian pizzeono, the folks who make pizza right, the
more conservative old school guys who still probably think Margarita
pizza is a little bit out there. They hated what
American pizza companies were doing because these folks were adding
everything they could. It's very again American dream stuff. They
(31:56):
were putting vegetables, meats, all kinds of weird cheeses.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
See what works.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Not every idea is a hit, but that showbiz pizza baby.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Oh no, showbiz pizza. Chucky cheese, Charles Entertainment cheese who
was recently given a purp walk. Yeah, what's happened? What's
happening in this country?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Ben, We we can't even trust Charles Entertainment. So while
these pizza companies are trying to, you know, be the
most enticing shop around in a very saturated market, they
stumble on the idea of creating what we call a
loaded pie. Let's take some portion of all the toppings
(32:44):
we will put on separate pizzas, put them onto one.
We'll call it supreme.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
You know it's funny too, Ben, and I'd love to
look maybe we can do a quick cursor of Google
for this, but we of course know maybe not, of course,
but the word supreme it can be attack to lots
of different foods. A chicken supreme, and a nacho supreme,
and a cutlass supreme supreme. Yeah, that's a tenacious d
(33:13):
ref but it's true. The supreme Moniker isn't just for pizza.
It is, however, very much fast food type chain term.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent, because you can add the
word supreme here in the United States to any kind
of food that you sell, and the FDA can't do
anything about that because you are not promising health benefits.
You're not promising a specific set of ingredients.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Nine out of ten physicians recommend to pizza for your
health and a pack of pal Mall's right, right.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
How would you describe this, Senator, Well, I would describe
it as supreme and delicious. So what makes a pizza supreme.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
It's weird.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
It's kind of like a Bloody mary right because there's
a base, but there's no set qudified list of ingredients.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Right, there's Bloody Mary's with chicken nuggets in them. Man,
No they're not, Yes, there are. I'm not a Bloody Many, brother.
There are these places that specialize in these bonkers. Ask
Bloody Mary's. Max is chiming in is from his bartending
days that have like bacon and like I've seen one
with a whole roasted chicken hanging off the side. Max,
what are your thoughts on this phenomenon?
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Very popular? I mean I made kind of a weird
bloody mara of but nowhere as weird as other people did.
But yeah, you'll have like full on gerkins in them
and stuff like that. Yeah, you have everything. You'll have
stuff where they make the straw out of like a
chicken finger or something like that. Like you know, it
is as novelty as it comes. Personally, I think it's
the mustard. The mustard is the key.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
But what if we took a soup and made it
a drink and added lots of alcohol and you drink
it in the morning, sell it and.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Then someone said, let's name it after a creepy religious thing,
and I'm sold.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Oh yeah, creepy religious thing or even like, gosh, there's
a lot of Well, no, Bloody Mary was the queen
who who murdered everybody. She was the real Protestant one. No, no,
she was the Catholic one who fought back against the
Protestant thing when she came into power and like killed
all the Protestants because she secretly held this like Catholic
(35:31):
grudge toward all this Protestant nonsense.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Isn't all? Isn't she one of King Henry's daughters, and
like you know.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
The one that's all that stuff rubbed her the wrong way. Yes,
they had all all the children of like King Henry.
They're like, you know, they became monarch of England. We're
a different mothers said, different backstories.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
And of course Bloody Mary we spoke to her through
the magic of editing, and she could not be more flattered.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Well, I thought you meant when we did the ritual
and the mirror together the right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
I thought we were supposed to go in one at
a time, but we had some schedule conflicts, so we
had to double dragon it, but maybe Bloody Mary would
be immensely flattered that a ridiculous alcoholic day drink is
named after her. It is I would pause. It still
similar to supreme pizza.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
And I know we took a little bit of a
side quest there, Ben, but I think it was worth it.
And you're absolutely right, because there is no one way
to make a Bloody Mary, and there is.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
No one way, apparently to make a supreme pizza. You
were talking about the Grandma slice. There's a supreme pizza
version of that. There's a supreme pizza version of thin
crust or hand tossed crust. It's all about a sally
(37:00):
whatever ingredients are around at the time, whether you're a
home cook or whether you're working at a professional pizza shop.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Also, most pizza shops these days have other specialty pies
you mentioned Antiko, right, they have their own takes on things.
You mentioned the meat Lovers from Domino's and Pizza Hut
or the Veggie Supreme.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
A big one these days that I think we're both
fans of. Ben. Where was that great pizza place that
we all went, me, you and our brother Matt that
had an excellent spicy hot honey helice. Yeah, and that
place also did really good vegan pizza. Oh geez, hold on,
I got to give him a shout. My friend just
texted me about it the other day. Poly Gees Polyg's Pizza.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
That's right, Yeah, shout out to you poly GE's.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
So yeah, a very fashionable pizza topping these days has
become hot Honey. And that's one of those things that
kind of got it start at places like Polyg's, are
these more local or regional slice shops, and then it
gets so popular that you got like a MIC's Hot
Honey brand that is now collabing with you know, your
pizza huts and your Dominoes, etc.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
And the reason that most pizza places will have their
own spin on a supreme pizza is due to the
profit margins. They're going to select ingredients based on the
cost of those ingredients and how much they can sell
them for, and they're usually going to prioritize ingredients that
can be used in other pizzas or other dishes at
(38:36):
the restaurant. So this is all fun of games, right,
Who doesn't love to talk about pizza. You might be
wondering why we've dedicated an entire episode to what seems
like a small story, and that's because of this Max
give us a creepy music change.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
There we go.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
You see ridiculous historians, Noel, Max and I have a
man on the inside of the pizza shop.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Is Chef Ben.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
It is Chef Ben in exclusive source who revealed to
us one of the conspiracies afoot at your local pizzeria.
It turns out Supreme may not be exactly what you think.
Here's our big reveal.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Say the thing, say the thing from the other show. Ben.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Who thank you, good afternoon, fellas. This is Chef Ben
in Chicago. I'm not calling about stuff they don't want
you to know. I'm calling about ridiculous history. So this
is like, I'm your boss and you didn't show up
for work and I can't get a hold of you.
So I called your girlfriend right like, I'm aware it's
not a good way to get ahold of ridiculous history.
It's kind of a time machine. So in the episode
(39:45):
that I'm listening to now, which is about ping pong,
which I'm not terribly interested in, but I'm here to
learn stuff. Man. You guys lead with Tza a great
way to get me invested in the episode. So here's
my shameful, shameful admission. I have been in the restaurant
industry for thirty three years. Now, that's not a shameful part.
(40:05):
My first two jobs were in pizza. That was the
first three years of my career. And the very first
job was a mom and pop Italian place in my
hometound that made pizza, and I was the pizza guy
the way that I was trained to do this, and
I take the responsibility for it. Now, I was fourteen
and I didn't know any better. When we made our
supreme pizza, well, let me back up. When we made
(40:26):
any pizza, the pizza was topped on a table, right,
so you would have the pizza dough on the screen
that went into the oven. You would put the sauce
in the cheese, and then whatever toppings the customers wanted,
and you'd put it in the oven. Well, that tabletop
quickly became covered in the detritus of making those pizzas, right,
and cheese sort of off to the sides of where
(40:48):
the pizzas normally landed. We were instructed to scrape all
of that off to the side of the table and
whenever we got a Supreme pizza, those were the toppings
for the Supreme pizza. What.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Oh dude, it is a bit of a tut as
you would say, Ben, it is a bit of a boo,
But it's not inherently uh what's the word non hygienic?
You know, I mean, because technically it's coming from the
same stuff. It's already out in the open, you know,
on the prep station. I've worked in pizza. I worked
with Ala Mushroom for many years with friend of the
(41:21):
show Frank, and I do know about this accumulating stuff.
I guess there's something about it though, that makes it
feel like that dare of like drinking the drip tray
from the bar, you know, And it does feel like
a bit of a bait and switch. But I don't
think it's inherently as gross as it might seem, other
than maybe flavor wise, it's like making a you know
(41:42):
what they used to call a suicide out of all
the sodas.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Oh yeah, and it's also we've got to mention this part.
It also here's the gross thing to us, And thank you,
againing chef Ben, You're just the best.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah. The gross thing to.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Us is that this is being prior as a premium pizza. Right,
it's more expensive then you could sell it if you
called it what it is, the leftover pizza, garbage pizza.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
Yeah, and if I can jump in real quick, I
was just thinking about this. There was a pizza place
by I'm a Georgia State University grad. It was a
pizza place by campus and had a sticker on the
oven said pizza is like sex. When it's good, it's great,
and when it's bad, it's still pretty good. And it's
also kind of grows sometimes but still pretty good.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
I don't know if you keep that.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
I remember so many directions on that one.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
So we're not here to disparage the good folks of
the world's pizza shops. I think it's fair to say, Noel,
that we are thankful they have continued a centuries old,
ridiculous saga of one of the world's best foods. Ever,
but it's also fair to say, just like beauty, supreme
can mean different things to different people.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
M hmm, definitely in the yeah, the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
There we go, man, this episode went a little bit
longer than we thought. We hope you appreciated the grand reveal. Noel,
what's the weirdest pizza you have personally encountered?
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Gosh, Ben, trying to think. I typically I'm a little
bit of vanilla when it comes to pizza, though, I
really do love these hot honey varietals that are popular
these days, and like some Calabrian chili's on top. Perhaps
not a huge fan of anchovies, but that's because a
lot of the times they're not very good quality anchovies.
(43:35):
But if you have a really fine pizza spot and
they offer anchovies, they're gonna be the real deal, like
nice chopped white anchovies, not the kind that come in
the can that are just mega mega salt personified. And
I would recommend giving that a try. It's like having
a roasted fresh beat versus a canned, slimy slide out
(43:56):
of the can kind of beat. You know, how about you, Ben,
You're the kind of more adventurous eater, especially from your
snack stuff days. Oh geez, thank you for.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
The setup there at I've eaten unimaginable things on an
horror that you've seen, I know, right with that distant
seven leagues stare right, I think the I guess weird
is also in the eye of the beholder. Some of
the strangest, most unfamiliar pizzas I have had have been
(44:28):
in obviously in East Asia, right where there there is
a lot less of a normalization of cheese and dairy,
so Mayo replaces cheese in a lot of ways. Yeah,
and seafood is more frequently found on pizza. There's one
(44:50):
that I haven't tried yet. We're gonna have to try
it while we all get over there together on a
ridiculous road trip. There's apparently a pizza with dury in
on it.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, I've never had the dury in. I've never cracked it.
I've seen them in the shops, some of the h
Marts and Asian grocery stores that we have over here,
if anyone's not familiar. It is the fruit that is
banned in the subways over there because of how stinky
it is. Apparently it tastes kind of good, like has
a custard he taste, but it just is so darn
(45:22):
smelly that it can put you off from even getting
as far as sticking it in your mouth.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
It tastes pretty good. I had some recently, some fresh
dury and you're right about the smell. It's worse than
you're imagining, folks. It's not like Scandinavian rotted shark's head bad,
but it is. It smells like a diaper.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Can I just name drop a friend of the show,
and I think you and I both have worked with
Gabby Watts, who's a really great stand up. We've worked
with her on podcast stuff with School of Humans and
now she lives in New York and is doing really
gangbusters as a stand up. She had a really funny whurse.
She was talking about her button and said she has
a dumps dump dump truck butt, not because of the size,
(46:05):
because of the smell. I just thought that was very
bad fun.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Check out Gabby Watts everybody coming to a stage near you.
Check out her previous work with her on podcasts. There's
so much more to get to here, but we primarily
wanted to put our stuff they don't want your no
hats on and bust the myth of the supreme pizza
will We will be back with more pizza episodes if
(46:30):
you are interested. We did learn the world's most expensive
pizza is the Louis thirteen. It sells for twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
What's on it? Like gold gold leaf? I mean, of
course that's not even that outlandish. There's gold leaf on
all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
But why wouldn't you sell it for thirteen thousand dollars
if it's the Louie thirteenth.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah, at that point it's just kind of your nickel
and diamond, and just do it for the cloud, just
you know, make it match up more with the branding.
What is on the thirteen thousand dollars pizza though, Ben
hiring minds want you to know.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Oh well, we're happy to share it. Three types of
caveat Lobster from Norway, Buffalo, mazzarell as you would say, Noel,
And the big flex is they go to your house
to make it okay? All right, So still you know,
carrying on the grand tradition of pizza delivery. Just plussing
it up a little bit.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Just plussing it up a little bit.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
And thank you so much, fellow Ridiculous historians for plussing
it up with.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Us a bit on the show to date.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Big thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams. Max
pop beeck in on the chat here real quick because
we want to make this official Noel and I have
told you off air, but as soon as we can
get that condition repaired, we're taking you out for pizza.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Heck yeah. Huge thanks to christ Frociotis needs, Jeff Coates
here and Spirit Max's Darling brother, friend of the show
and genius composer Alex Williams, soon in fact composed this
bang and bop.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Big big thanks of course to the rude dudes at
Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, you'll love them. Big
things to aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor Rachel Big, Spinach, Lance.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
And you know, Noel, I've never thought about it.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Does Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister Pizza?
Speaker 2 (48:16):
I think so, as long as it doesn't have shellfish
on it.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
He's such a Raphael.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
He has a bit of a Raf. Remember that scene
in the Ninja Turtles movie where Raf is really upset
and he goes on a rooftop and he just goes,
damn us. That was the first swear I ever heard.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(48:43):
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man,
the Myth, the Legend, Max, the teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtle,
Williams Cowa bunga Radical Tubula.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
That's Noel Brown. I've been bulling.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
We have a great, very weird episode for you today, folks.
But before we continue, now that I've brought up the
legendary turtles, I've got to ask you, guys, if we
haven't talked about it on air, which turtle would you be?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I think we were. I think most people were fans
of Michelangelo because he was the sort of you know,
party dude, party dude, but he only he didn't He
didn't like, you know, don't do drugs kids. He just
ate lots of pizza and had pizza parties and talked
like a surfer. Though I don't know that there's evidence
that Michael Angelo ever had access to surfing, although they
could have gone to Coney Island and done a surf,
(01:25):
but they were trying to keep it low key, so
I don't know if surfing Ninja Turtles would have would
have been though. I will also say that there's a
lot of weird stuff that got trickled into the toy
lines of the Ninja Turtles. And I want to say
somewhere along the line there had to have been a
surf and mic.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
A million percent there had to. Okay, so we've got you,
mister Brown. As I name my first cat, Michelangelo, he
was all right doubling down. So Noel Brown is the
Michelangelo of the crew. What about you, Max Williams.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I gotta admit this is a weird one right here.
I I never was really exposed to teenage median Nina Turtles.
It wasn't part of my zeitgeist as a child, Harry.
People talk to me about like that kind of stuff,
and I'm like, I cannot relate.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
You're a little younger than us, Max, and for us
for a gentleman or humans, yeah, humans of a certain age.
Ninja Turtles were kind of inescapable. They were on TV
all the time. The first movie came out, it was huge,
and of course the action figures were just, you know,
on every kid's wish list. How about you, Ben, you
(02:30):
see you strike me as a as a raff guy.
Oh no way, that's the worst one. That's the opposite.
It was angsty.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I don't like him. I I always aspired to be
a Donna Tello. Unfortunately, I believe in practice I'm probably
a Leonardo.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Donna Tello is the smart one. Leonardo was sort of
the leader.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
See I want to beat the Donna Tello. But one
thing these guys have in common, these turtles, is that
they love pizza. That Max, that's their formative mythology. Of
course they are. That's not the best one. But it's
like an ugly pass thrown by Joe Montana. No matter how,
(03:15):
it doesn't matter if.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It looks good, it makes it to the finish line,
still better than a pass that, you know, a civilian
might throw.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Oh boy, I appreciate that though. It's funny because remember
when you and I were just yesterday, when we were
up in New York and we were doing some episodes
with our pals Gandhi and Diamond from a sauce on
the side, I did attempt a couple pivots.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
And I believe I complimented you on them copiously. Oh geez, man,
do you like pizza? I do like pizza, and there's
nothing more in New Yorky than a good New York Slice.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
No, have you guys ever had pizza in Italy like
from Italians.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I've not been to Italy personally. I may have been
when I was a small child, too young to remember,
but certainly on my list. We do have a fabulous
Neapolitan pizza spot here in Atlanta called Antiico. The by
all accounts, is up there, you know, with some of
the best pieces of pizza you might get over there
in Italy. The New York Slice, however, really differs from
(04:34):
that kind of classic Italian style. It's the big old
floppy piece you got the Grandma p high which I'm
also a big fan of the square the rectangular pieces.
And I tried a new spot this trip called Scars
Pizza that I think used to be kind of a
hot spot where you couldn't get in, and the hype
seems to have died down a little bit, and I
was able to get in and it was worthy of
(04:55):
the hype, but without.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
The line, but without the lie, and we like that
part as well. Now, if you are traveling through these
great United States and you are familiar with the original
og Italian pizza. What you will find is that the
United States version of pizza becomes very regional and often
(05:21):
is not what Italian people themselves would consider pizza.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Max Here has pointed out something from his travels in
Saint Louis.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, I was in Saint Louis, and I'm saying it
with my buddy Nate, who is from Atland as well.
He moved out there a couple of years ago. But
his partner, she's like born and raised in Saint Louis,
and they have this. Uh, you know, every place now
has a style of pizza, and there's is Saint Louis
style with something called provel cheese.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Not We've talked about this and it's not related to provalone.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Right, you know what. That's what she told me, And
she's a liar, oh liar to the Google AI. It
is a lend of provolone, Swiss and Cheddar.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Don't quote the Google an.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You can do better, Okay, according to according to Wikipedia.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Fine, we accept the Wikipedia and cheese.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Provelled cheese is I'm doing this live a combination of cheddar, Swiss,
provolone and liquid smoke.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
There we go. That's well, you know you can get
a nice smoked provolone, and unless you get a really
fancy kind, it's probably gonna get that smoky flavor from
a liquid smoke as well. That sounds okay to me.
I think we've also talked in these regional pizza conversations
about Pittsburgh pizza, uh cold toppings including cheese, and our
(06:44):
buddy Theo you know as well, Ben swears by the stuff,
and it just doesn't do it for me. It's kind
of sounds like you just took fistfuls of cold toppings
out of the prep trays, you know, on the on
the little prep counter, and just just dumped them on
the pie and just kind of called it a day.
I don't know about that, but I'm willing to give
it a try. Sure, We're going to give every regional
(07:07):
pizza a try, and we'll get to the very weird
pizza toppings at the end of this episode, as well
as the world's most expensive pizza. Right now, we're asking
ourselves about really Americana, about how the United States has
always been a land of excess since the close.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Of World War Two. Remember, Nold, you and I were
talking earlier to our pal Gandhi about how this is
the only country that could have invented crack cocaine because
regular cocaine just wasn't enough of a zip.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
We just need, I mean, we need to do we
need to do better, y'all. We're an aspirational country. If anything,
there we go aspirational. We look at the pizza, we
say more cheese, more stuff. We are the supersized nation.
So it's no surprise that Erica collectively looked at regular
old pizza and one day decided to make something they
(08:06):
call supreme.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
But no'l riddle me this. What is a supreme pizza?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Well, that is a really important question, Ben, because it's
the crux of this entire discussion. Actually, to me, I
always thought, because you got your meat lovers, you got
your veggie lovers. You know, maybe that's a branding thing,
probably a pizza Hut invention. But when I think of supreme,
at least back in the day when maybe there were
fewer toppings available, I always thought of a supreme pizza
(08:35):
as being all the toppings.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, me too, man, I'm right there with you. We're
going to answer the question of what makes a supreme
pizza supreme? And just be aware of folks, there is
a conspiracy theory at the end. No, maybe we start
with pizza, just like the early years. Who came up
(09:00):
with this idea pizza?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
The early years? I love that sounds like a like
a Ken Burns documentary. Well, you know, as soon as
folks humans that is, figured out how to make bread,
it kind of became a medium for piling on all
kinds of other stuff. You know, how do we one
up bread? We're already asking ourselves the question of how
do we do a good thing and make it more extra.
(09:25):
The grandfather, not the grandma of all pizza we know
and love, is, of course, the flatbread, which isn't too
different from like a matza kind of situation or like
some you know, a let's see a pita or there
are there's of course that really interesting type of bread
you get at Ethiopian restaurants. These are all kind of red.
(09:47):
That's the one to the humble flat bread. It was
a super popular street food throughout Africa, Egypt, Greece and
of course the Roman Empire.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, and honestly you can still see versions of this
stuff around today because it is delicious. But to be clear,
as we're pointing out these flatbreads, these ancestors of pizza
don't look like the stuff you would find in your
local pizza spot today. The Greeks were known to gnauch
(10:19):
on flatbread with herbs and oil. It was more like
what we would call ficautia today. And that's because they
didn't have tomatoes.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Which is a discussion onto itself, which I think we've
had actually, if I'm not mistaken, at the very least
in passing in other food topics, the idea that tomatoes
were not native to Italy, right.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
It wasn't until the Spanish conquistadors explored the America's hard
air quotes around explored and Hernan Cortes his crew ravages
Mexico in fifteen nineteen. They returned to Spain and they
carry a bunch of treasures and spoils war with them.
They also are carrying tomatoes. Tomatoes are most likely from Peru.
(11:08):
It's interesting because does that make all pizza incan?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I guess it does. Ben But they don't really get
the props that they deserve. So we're going to give
them their flowers today. We're talking specifically from the Andes
Mountains of Peru, and sometime in the distant past we
began to see tomatoes spread to most of South and
Central America, eventually reaching Mexico. The Incas first cultivated tomatoes
(11:35):
about a thousand years ago and eventually traded the seeds
to the Aztecs and the Mayans to the north of them.
A lot of historical botany historians, I guess, consider the
tiny little scraggly bush known as the solanum is a
great name, by the way, pimpanilla phillium, pimp panilla phillium,
(11:55):
or pump and strong, as the ancestor of all of
the tomatoes that you know and love and or tolerate.
Some people don't like tomatoes today, itself becoming an endangered species.
The origin the prot tomato.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
The og pimp, so the proto tomato. The og pimp
is now an endangered species, but it gave birth to
so many of the tomatoes that you consume today, folks.
And it's weird. We have talked about this on air,
but it bears repeating. The tomato as consumable became popular
(12:33):
in Europe way before it was popular in North America.
Colonial Americans associated the tomato with nightshade, and it is
a close cousin of that toxic vine, and that's why
the leaves and vines of a tomato plant are fairly toxic.
There's this legend, right, we got to mention the legend
(12:55):
about the guy who made tomatoes edible in America.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
What do they say, print the legend. That's what we're
gonna do. We're gonna speak it though. Right, you're talking
about Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson. Yes, yes, no relation to
the primate, I think, no, no, no, that's true. I
do love a Gibbon.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
He proved to Americans through you know, trial and error,
through demonstration that tomatoes were in fact not poisonous on
June twenty eighth, eighteen twenty by like in a feat
of strengths demonstration, very etal to evil. Yeah, he ate
a whole basket of the things and Salem, New Jersey
on the courthouse steps. Yeah, white a flex public protest.
(13:36):
Gibbon Johnson.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Right, And according to the legend, again, as you said, nol,
a lot of people at this time believed tomatoes were deadly.
That was probably due to the lead poisoning from acidic
tomatoes on pewter plates. Anyway, a bunch of people gathered
around to watch Colonel Johnson consume tomatoes and die. They're
(14:01):
kind of like the people who go to a NASCAR
race hoping to see one of the cars crash because
they were convinced he would die. And because he did
not die. According again to the legend, the crowd went wild.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Where those train crash expos Yes, yeah, yeah, are fun. Sorry,
Just remind we never saw one live. No, we didn't.
We did. We did speak of them on an episode
I think on that very topic. Do check that one out.
It's an interesting one and it does end in tragedy.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
What no way stage collisions?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, not the best, not the best idea. What could
go wrong?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So because this guy didn't die, Colonel Johnson didn't die,
according to the legend, the rest of North America immediately
fell in love with tomatoes. That's the end of our
tomato sidebar. We just love the story. We've got to
get back to Europe and get back to the history
of pizza because it's going to lead us back to
the United States and the supreme Pizza.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
But for now, we're going to go to Italy's Campagna region.
Most famously home to the waterfront city of Naples or Napoli.
There we go.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, Napoli or Naples is founded in its modern version
round six hundred BCE, and it went through all the
triumphs and tribulations of any nation state at the time.
By the late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, it
got a bit of a reputation similar to Portland today
(15:36):
in the United States. They said, this is home to
hordes of working poor what they called lazzaroni.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, almost like in the style of a caste system,
at least in the way that they're referred to. These
folks were not the typical which you might imagine or
picture as the unhoused population of today. They were, however, hustlers.
They were out there, you know, wheeling and dealing, haggling, hugling,
you know that's a word, out in public spaces, hunting
(16:08):
for jobs. Often they didn't have the luxury of being
able to be welcome in say a public house, or
the ability to cook in a home because they were
just too busy for it. So pizza became a solution.
It was available ingredients again, a simple medium that you
could just pile stuff on top of and it's portable,
(16:31):
let's not forget and affordable.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Portable and affordable pizza. The solution a silver bullet.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
You can have that, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
A silver bullet for a hungry stomach and a skinny wallet.
The well to do of Italy this story the Jedi
won't tell you, folks, The upper pizza crust of Italy
initially hated this idea, kind of like lobster back in
the day, right, peasant food? Oh yeah, they called it
(17:01):
poor people food. But if we fast forward, we go
to the moment where Italy sort of unifies in eighteen
sixty one, and there are these two big deal royals
who visit Naples.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Man, this is a tail as old as time. You
got something that was seen as a little low brow,
and then when some royal or some well to do individual,
high society type gets a taste for the stuff and
judges it up a little bit and names it after themselves,
all of a sudden, you got yourself a regular culinary phenomenon.
And this came in the form of King Umberto the
(17:37):
First and Queen Margherita, who you might you know know
from the drink and the pizza. Don't take the drink
is named after her, but the pizza definitely is. They
were on tour like you do, I guess, doing like
a whistle stop tour kind of situation, visiting the people England,
hands babies, the allo, all the stuff exactly, and they
(18:01):
visited Naples in eighteen eighty nine. Now, another legend has
it that the traveling pair got bored of their steady
diet of French hate cuisine, which I think Ben you
and I might also agree, while considered some of the
finest food in the land. It's rich and it can
be a lot I wouldn't want to eat, you know,
(18:22):
Coco Vans for every meal, duck colm Thief for every meal.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It's not Christmas if it's every day, you know, cassulet is.
Cassule is a beautiful dish that is not an everyday dish.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
It's also not crispy. It's kind of it's like, you know,
really fancy mush, really fancy slop it is.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
It's a bean souper duck at it so okay, So
of course the King and the Queen get a bit satiated.
They want some variety, and they reportedly ask for a
bunch of pizzas from Naples Pizzeria Brandy. And this is
(19:03):
like when our pal Alex French takes us to a
restaurant and tells the server take us on a journey.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he got that from Queen Margharita
and King Emberto the first who told the locals to
take them on a culinary journey. The Queen in particular
enjoyed a familiar sounding version, a pie topped with soft
white mazzarel, red tomatoes, and of course green basil. We
(19:33):
told you the name already, you know it, you love it,
the humble Margharita pizza.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So just as you were saying, Noel, this peasant food
or this poor people food gets a co sign from
the royals, right from the biggest celebrities of the day.
Pizza then becomes much more widely accepted. But here in
the United States it takes a much longer time for
(19:58):
pizza to become popular. The nineteen forties when we see
tons of Italian immigrants arriving at the US en mass
and a lot of these folks in this particular wave
of immigration are from Naples, and food is culture, right,
So these folks bring their culture and their food along
and they adapt it to whatever ingredients are available.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
At the time. For sure. I mean it's very similar
to the story of Americanized Chinese food and even the
Thai cuisine. The exporting of Thai cuisine. You got to
kind of read the room and play to the audience,
and that is what's happening and part of the reason
we see so many regional variations of the stuff. So
there's a lot more to the story and the evolution
(20:44):
of pizza as a dish and as a culinary tradition.
The Supreme Pizza, however, we're going to get into the
story of now which took a little bit more time
to cook, right, Yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Takes some more time in the kitchen. Supreme Pizza. If
you live in the United States, you have seen it
on a menu. It is not always the same thing.
And I'll say it, it's a bit of a self
important name, is it not.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
For sure? I think you know, Ben, I am a
fan of the Supreme brand of things. We even joked
on sauce on the side with Gandhi. We were both
wearing some Supreme pieces and when we talked about this
Supreme as a company and as a brand to these
exclusive drops, whether it be hats or shirts so whatever.
But they sometimes do ridiculous items like a brick branded
(21:41):
with the Supreme red box logo. What they had when
I was there this past trip was a toaster and
it wouldn't surprise me for them, and I bet if
we looked into it, they've done it. If they had
their own like Supreme pizza boxes or like those, but
you know those cool pizza shaped carrying back delivery folks
use that'd be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Oh that's smart. If they haven't done it yet, you're welcome, Supreme.
That's a beautiful idea that the stuff that we're talking
about when we talk about a literal supreme pizza is
generally going to be acknowledged by the number of toppings,
the variety of toppings, but those toppings aren't always consistent.
(22:25):
I mean, Supreme pizza is a thoroughly American idea, right
where the land bigger and more better, Just get it.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
All in there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Three shots of espresso on my eyes. Yeah, So the
Supreme pizza, we could argue, is an escalation of that
cultural pattern. There's not a codified list of ingredients like
in the Margherita pizza. But also we will argue at
the end of this that the Supreme Pizza is not
the true end of the line. It's not the final
(22:59):
form for how far we can take pizza as a concept.
The real story of Supreme Pizza is a story of business.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
It's a story of commerce capitalism writ large.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah, yeah, nol. Can you introduce us to pizza chains?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
For sure? It's once again that example of taking a
beloved culinary tradition and commercializing the hell out of it,
sell it to the lowest common denominator US. Pizza Chaine
really started to take off after World War Two, evolving
from the aforementioned local eateries to nationwide delivery giants. I
(23:42):
didn't know this, Ben, but Shaky's Pizza was actually the
first franchised chain. I don't know that there's many of
those around. If there are, they're probably some of those
like beloved Sacred cows. We're going to keep a couple
of Shaky's around. But maybe that's not true. Let's see
if Shaky's is still kicking.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I like the idea though, as a of a restaurant
concept as an endangered species. Well, like there's a Blockbuster
video somewhere in the Yeah, I'm thinking Blockbuster is an
excellent example, and I love the joke like there are
only two Blockbusters left in Alaska.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
They won't reproduce exactly because it's just too cold. Shaky's
is absolutely still around, and it is not nearly as
as a you know, popular or ubiquitous as it once was.
Shaky's in nineteen fifty four, the first franchise chain was
followed by, not too far after, Pizza Hut with the
(24:40):
you know, famed hat shaped buildings that now you see
repurposed into other stuff, because what are you gonna do
with a hat shaped building other than like tear it down.
We have a couple of those here in Atlanta that
are still around that are repurposed pizza huts. They've rebranded
and gone through a whole thing, and they don't do
the hat shape anymore. But that's nineteen fifty eight. Then
(25:01):
in nineteen fifty nine, just a year later, we have
Little Caesars on I only recently found out Ben Pizza
Pizza is based in Detroit, which makes sense because the
classic Detroit style pizza is square, is that kind of
Grandma slice with the really good cheese crown, the crispy
bits along the side, and you know, Little Caesars doesn't
(25:22):
exactly do it the best, but it is sort of
what they're what they're going for. They didn't say they're good,
they said they're got and ready. You gotta eat, Ben,
you gotta gotta eat. I think the big the arena
there in Detroit, I've only visited once, and I went
for the first time a couple of years ago, is
called like Little Caesar's Arena.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Which you guys like the Detroit person to chime in, yeah,
of course, yeah, little arena. That's where the Pistons and
the Red Wings play. It replaced Joe Louis Arena.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah. I was taking it back because I'm like, I
don't really think of Little Caesars like that, But you.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Go, illas family, they that's that's Little Caesar's people. They own.
They owned the Tigers and the Pistons. No, the Tigers
and the Red Wings.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
I don't know the Pistons, Okay, I didn't know that.
So that's a big, a big family there in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
One other huge Little Caesar's fact we have to mention, well,
child was not aware of I didn't know Little Caesars
dated that far back, I didn't know was from Detroit.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
But the founder of Little Caesars, I remember this story,
a guy named Mike Illich. He is a huge philanthropist
and he privately, for more than ten years paid Rosa
parks rent.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, they donated more than thirty five million dollars to
various feed the hungry kind of initiatives, and he had
Rosa Parks back.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Could on you Little Caesars guy, you love to hear that.
Just a year later, Ben, we have I want to
do you think Domino's has sort of overtaken Piete's in
terms of like the ubiquitous, you know, pizza chain. Yeah,
I think so. I think people more think of Dominoes. Then,
of course you got your Papa John's and all of
that stuff problematic, But that's nineteen sixties. So just a
(27:11):
year apart, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, and Dominoes, with Shaky's
being first to market, all of these chains revolutionized fast, consistent,
uniform product delivery.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Dun dun, dun, dun, dun, dun dun.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
We have McDonald's, of course, setting the tone for this
kind of thing. Already, you know, in terms of like
what fast food would become.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, and the pizza market stumbles on a beautiful idea
delivery service. McDonald's will make uniform products, but you have
to go to a McDonald's to get them. However, these guys,
who may all be in the same town, they want
to send a driver to you. This is a hot
(27:53):
pizza arm race. It's so weird. Through the nineteen sixties
and nineteen seventies, the United States is in love with pizza.
It's a hot new craze and cities and towns across
the country, which means a lot of pizza chains are
popping up like gangbusters. There's there's something we have to
(28:14):
mention at this point. In addition to being incredibly popular
to the public, or as Max said, incredibly in the Zeitgeist,
pizza is also incredibly profitable as as a business.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
It's like how popcorn costs ten dollars at the theater
but cost a nickel to make.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
It's a good point ben cheap is the name of
the game. It's also easy to mass produce these things,
and of course we are talking about largely folks selling
entire pies and delivering whole pies. But then of course
you get into the pizza parlors of New York, like
we were talking about earlier, where you could just get
a single slice if you wanted to. The markup on
(28:54):
a slice, I mean, that's some good money right there.
Those the most sopranos you have ever sounded. Thank you
rewatching it. Remember when I mentioned the Esplanade yesterday podcast
with the way we were talking in reference to some
of the grifts that the government night right now is
pulling in terms of budget slashing and like having like
(29:16):
a line item that's like one hundred gazillion dollars for
a chair or a mouse pad. You know, very sopranos
of them.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
The slice shops are a huge part of New York culture.
The ingredients for pizza shops in general are dirt cheap
as long as you don't get too specialized, so you
can not only sell a slice or a whole pie
at a hefty markup, but you can still hit a
price point low enough for the average customer to feel
(29:46):
like they're getting a good deal. And from there you
sell your side stacks, right, you sell your two leaders
of soda, You branch out to other items, endless wings,
your garlic knots. Yeah, so it's no prize that the
market quickly becomes saturated. I mean, yeah, of course, if
we started the ridiculous pizza store we I'm gonna write
(30:10):
it though, we could make a lot of money as
long as those other new pizza joints across town don't
take all our customers. We got to do something different.
We have to differentiate ourselves in the market. This is
where pizza chains enter, this bold experimental phase. It reminds
(30:32):
me of do you guys remember a few years back
when the roast beef chain Arby's just sold Viticon for
a second.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
No, but Arby's came up yesterday with me and my
kid referring to it, both both of us as I
think the worst fast food in existence, and I do
also to that point, Ben, I didn't know about Venison,
but I do remember a time where Arby's was marketing
no pun intended to hear these market fresh sandwiches that
were like big old you know, Dagwood type, you know,
(31:04):
Scooby Doo sandwiches, And I remember liking those when I
was younger, but they seemed to have declined significantly in
quality since those days.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah, yeah, they were up so Arbi's briefly here in
the Atlanta area where we record had a Venison sandwich
or a Venison Burger. They just wanted to see what works,
and pizza chains back in the sixties and seventies were
doing the same thing. This probably irritated the heck out
(31:35):
of Italian pizzeono, the folks who make pizza right, the
more conservative old school guys who still probably think Margarita
pizza is a little bit out there. They hated what
American pizza companies were doing because these folks were adding
everything they could. It's very again American dream stuff. They
(31:56):
were putting vegetables, meats, all kinds of weird cheeses.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
See what works.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Not every idea is a hit, but that showbiz pizza baby.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Oh no, showbiz pizza. Chucky cheese, Charles Entertainment cheese who
was recently given a purp walk. Yeah, what's happened? What's
happening in this country?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Ben, We we can't even trust Charles Entertainment. So while
these pizza companies are trying to, you know, be the
most enticing shop around in a very saturated market, they
stumble on the idea of creating what we call a
loaded pie. Let's take some portion of all the toppings
(32:44):
we will put on separate pizzas, put them onto one.
We'll call it supreme.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
You know it's funny too, Ben, and I'd love to
look maybe we can do a quick cursor of Google
for this, but we of course know maybe not, of course,
but the word supreme it can be attack to lots
of different foods. A chicken supreme, and a nacho supreme,
and a cutlass supreme supreme. Yeah, that's a tenacious d
(33:13):
ref but it's true. The supreme Moniker isn't just for pizza.
It is, however, very much fast food type chain term.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent, because you can add the
word supreme here in the United States to any kind
of food that you sell, and the FDA can't do
anything about that because you are not promising health benefits.
You're not promising a specific set of ingredients.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Nine out of ten physicians recommend to pizza for your
health and a pack of pal Mall's right, right.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
How would you describe this, Senator, Well, I would describe
it as supreme and delicious. So what makes a pizza supreme.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
It's weird.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
It's kind of like a Bloody mary right because there's
a base, but there's no set qudified list of ingredients.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Right, there's Bloody Mary's with chicken nuggets in them. Man,
No they're not, Yes, there are. I'm not a Bloody Many, brother.
There are these places that specialize in these bonkers. Ask
Bloody Mary's. Max is chiming in is from his bartending
days that have like bacon and like I've seen one
with a whole roasted chicken hanging off the side. Max,
what are your thoughts on this phenomenon?
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Very popular? I mean I made kind of a weird
bloody mara of but nowhere as weird as other people did.
But yeah, you'll have like full on gerkins in them
and stuff like that. Yeah, you have everything. You'll have
stuff where they make the straw out of like a
chicken finger or something like that. Like you know, it
is as novelty as it comes. Personally, I think it's
the mustard. The mustard is the key.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
But what if we took a soup and made it
a drink and added lots of alcohol and you drink
it in the morning, sell it and.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Then someone said, let's name it after a creepy religious thing,
and I'm sold.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Oh yeah, creepy religious thing or even like, gosh, there's
a lot of Well, no, Bloody Mary was the queen
who who murdered everybody. She was the real Protestant one. No, no,
she was the Catholic one who fought back against the
Protestant thing when she came into power and like killed
all the Protestants because she secretly held this like Catholic
(35:31):
grudge toward all this Protestant nonsense.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Isn't all? Isn't she one of King Henry's daughters, and
like you know.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
The one that's all that stuff rubbed her the wrong way. Yes,
they had all all the children of like King Henry.
They're like, you know, they became monarch of England. We're
a different mothers said, different backstories.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
And of course Bloody Mary we spoke to her through
the magic of editing, and she could not be more flattered.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Well, I thought you meant when we did the ritual
and the mirror together the right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
I thought we were supposed to go in one at
a time, but we had some schedule conflicts, so we
had to double dragon it, but maybe Bloody Mary would
be immensely flattered that a ridiculous alcoholic day drink is
named after her. It is I would pause. It still
similar to supreme pizza.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
And I know we took a little bit of a
side quest there, Ben, but I think it was worth it.
And you're absolutely right, because there is no one way
to make a Bloody Mary, and there is.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
No one way, apparently to make a supreme pizza. You
were talking about the Grandma slice. There's a supreme pizza
version of that. There's a supreme pizza version of thin
crust or hand tossed crust. It's all about a sally
(37:00):
whatever ingredients are around at the time, whether you're a
home cook or whether you're working at a professional pizza shop.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Also, most pizza shops these days have other specialty pies
you mentioned Antiko, right, they have their own takes on things.
You mentioned the meat Lovers from Domino's and Pizza Hut
or the Veggie Supreme.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
A big one these days that I think we're both
fans of. Ben. Where was that great pizza place that
we all went, me, you and our brother Matt that
had an excellent spicy hot honey helice. Yeah, and that
place also did really good vegan pizza. Oh geez, hold on,
I got to give him a shout. My friend just
texted me about it the other day. Poly Gees Polyg's Pizza.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
That's right, Yeah, shout out to you poly GE's.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
So yeah, a very fashionable pizza topping these days has
become hot Honey. And that's one of those things that
kind of got it start at places like Polyg's, are
these more local or regional slice shops, and then it
gets so popular that you got like a MIC's Hot
Honey brand that is now collabing with you know, your
pizza huts and your Dominoes, etc.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
And the reason that most pizza places will have their
own spin on a supreme pizza is due to the
profit margins. They're going to select ingredients based on the
cost of those ingredients and how much they can sell
them for, and they're usually going to prioritize ingredients that
can be used in other pizzas or other dishes at
(38:36):
the restaurant. So this is all fun of games, right,
Who doesn't love to talk about pizza. You might be
wondering why we've dedicated an entire episode to what seems
like a small story, and that's because of this Max
give us a creepy music change.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
There we go.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
You see ridiculous historians, Noel, Max and I have a
man on the inside of the pizza shop.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Is Chef Ben.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
It is Chef Ben in exclusive source who revealed to
us one of the conspiracies afoot at your local pizzeria.
It turns out Supreme may not be exactly what you think.
Here's our big reveal.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Say the thing, say the thing from the other show. Ben.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Who thank you, good afternoon, fellas. This is Chef Ben
in Chicago. I'm not calling about stuff they don't want
you to know. I'm calling about ridiculous history. So this
is like, I'm your boss and you didn't show up
for work and I can't get a hold of you.
So I called your girlfriend right like, I'm aware it's
not a good way to get ahold of ridiculous history.
It's kind of a time machine. So in the episode
(39:45):
that I'm listening to now, which is about ping pong,
which I'm not terribly interested in, but I'm here to
learn stuff. Man. You guys lead with Tza a great
way to get me invested in the episode. So here's
my shameful, shameful admission. I have been in the restaurant
industry for thirty three years. Now, that's not a shameful part.
(40:05):
My first two jobs were in pizza. That was the
first three years of my career. And the very first
job was a mom and pop Italian place in my
hometound that made pizza, and I was the pizza guy
the way that I was trained to do this, and
I take the responsibility for it. Now, I was fourteen
and I didn't know any better. When we made our
supreme pizza, well, let me back up. When we made
(40:26):
any pizza, the pizza was topped on a table, right,
so you would have the pizza dough on the screen
that went into the oven. You would put the sauce
in the cheese, and then whatever toppings the customers wanted,
and you'd put it in the oven. Well, that tabletop
quickly became covered in the detritus of making those pizzas, right,
and cheese sort of off to the sides of where
(40:48):
the pizzas normally landed. We were instructed to scrape all
of that off to the side of the table and
whenever we got a Supreme pizza, those were the toppings
for the Supreme pizza. What.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Oh dude, it is a bit of a tut as
you would say, Ben, it is a bit of a boo,
But it's not inherently uh what's the word non hygienic?
You know, I mean, because technically it's coming from the
same stuff. It's already out in the open, you know,
on the prep station. I've worked in pizza. I worked
with Ala Mushroom for many years with friend of the
(41:21):
show Frank, and I do know about this accumulating stuff.
I guess there's something about it though, that makes it
feel like that dare of like drinking the drip tray
from the bar, you know, And it does feel like
a bit of a bait and switch. But I don't
think it's inherently as gross as it might seem, other
than maybe flavor wise, it's like making a you know
(41:42):
what they used to call a suicide out of all
the sodas.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Oh yeah, and it's also we've got to mention this part.
It also here's the gross thing to us, And thank you,
againing chef Ben, You're just the best.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah. The gross thing to.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Us is that this is being prior as a premium pizza. Right,
it's more expensive then you could sell it if you
called it what it is, the leftover pizza, garbage pizza.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
Yeah, and if I can jump in real quick, I
was just thinking about this. There was a pizza place
by I'm a Georgia State University grad. It was a
pizza place by campus and had a sticker on the
oven said pizza is like sex. When it's good, it's great,
and when it's bad, it's still pretty good. And it's
also kind of grows sometimes but still pretty good.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
I don't know if you keep that.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
I remember so many directions on that one.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
So we're not here to disparage the good folks of
the world's pizza shops. I think it's fair to say, Noel,
that we are thankful they have continued a centuries old,
ridiculous saga of one of the world's best foods. Ever,
but it's also fair to say, just like beauty, supreme
can mean different things to different people.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
M hmm, definitely in the yeah, the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
There we go, man, this episode went a little bit
longer than we thought. We hope you appreciated the grand reveal. Noel,
what's the weirdest pizza you have personally encountered?
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Gosh, Ben, trying to think. I typically I'm a little
bit of vanilla when it comes to pizza, though, I
really do love these hot honey varietals that are popular
these days, and like some Calabrian chili's on top. Perhaps
not a huge fan of anchovies, but that's because a
lot of the times they're not very good quality anchovies.
(43:35):
But if you have a really fine pizza spot and
they offer anchovies, they're gonna be the real deal, like
nice chopped white anchovies, not the kind that come in
the can that are just mega mega salt personified. And
I would recommend giving that a try. It's like having
a roasted fresh beat versus a canned, slimy slide out
(43:56):
of the can kind of beat. You know, how about you, Ben,
You're the kind of more adventurous eater, especially from your
snack stuff days. Oh geez, thank you for.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
The setup there at I've eaten unimaginable things on an
horror that you've seen, I know, right with that distant
seven leagues stare right, I think the I guess weird
is also in the eye of the beholder. Some of
the strangest, most unfamiliar pizzas I have had have been
(44:28):
in obviously in East Asia, right where there there is
a lot less of a normalization of cheese and dairy,
so Mayo replaces cheese in a lot of ways. Yeah,
and seafood is more frequently found on pizza. There's one
(44:50):
that I haven't tried yet. We're gonna have to try
it while we all get over there together on a
ridiculous road trip. There's apparently a pizza with dury in
on it.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, I've never had the dury in. I've never cracked it.
I've seen them in the shops, some of the h
Marts and Asian grocery stores that we have over here,
if anyone's not familiar. It is the fruit that is
banned in the subways over there because of how stinky
it is. Apparently it tastes kind of good, like has
a custard he taste, but it just is so darn
(45:22):
smelly that it can put you off from even getting
as far as sticking it in your mouth.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
It tastes pretty good. I had some recently, some fresh
dury and you're right about the smell. It's worse than
you're imagining, folks. It's not like Scandinavian rotted shark's head bad,
but it is. It smells like a diaper.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Can I just name drop a friend of the show,
and I think you and I both have worked with
Gabby Watts, who's a really great stand up. We've worked
with her on podcast stuff with School of Humans and
now she lives in New York and is doing really
gangbusters as a stand up. She had a really funny whurse.
She was talking about her button and said she has
a dumps dump dump truck butt, not because of the size,
(46:05):
because of the smell. I just thought that was very
bad fun.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Check out Gabby Watts everybody coming to a stage near you.
Check out her previous work with her on podcasts. There's
so much more to get to here, but we primarily
wanted to put our stuff they don't want your no
hats on and bust the myth of the supreme pizza
will We will be back with more pizza episodes if
(46:30):
you are interested. We did learn the world's most expensive
pizza is the Louis thirteen. It sells for twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
What's on it? Like gold gold leaf? I mean, of
course that's not even that outlandish. There's gold leaf on
all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
But why wouldn't you sell it for thirteen thousand dollars
if it's the Louie thirteenth.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah, at that point it's just kind of your nickel
and diamond, and just do it for the cloud, just
you know, make it match up more with the branding.
What is on the thirteen thousand dollars pizza though, Ben
hiring minds want you to know.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Oh well, we're happy to share it. Three types of
caveat Lobster from Norway, Buffalo, mazzarell as you would say, Noel,
And the big flex is they go to your house
to make it okay? All right, So still you know,
carrying on the grand tradition of pizza delivery. Just plussing
it up a little bit.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Just plussing it up a little bit.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
And thank you so much, fellow Ridiculous historians for plussing
it up with.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Us a bit on the show to date.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Big thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams. Max
pop beeck in on the chat here real quick because
we want to make this official Noel and I have
told you off air, but as soon as we can
get that condition repaired, we're taking you out for pizza.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Heck yeah. Huge thanks to christ Frociotis needs, Jeff Coates
here and Spirit Max's Darling brother, friend of the show
and genius composer Alex Williams, soon in fact composed this
bang and bop.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Big big thanks of course to the rude dudes at
Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, you'll love them. Big
things to aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor Rachel Big, Spinach, Lance.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
And you know, Noel, I've never thought about it.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Does Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister Pizza?
Speaker 2 (48:16):
I think so, as long as it doesn't have shellfish
on it.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
He's such a Raphael.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
He has a bit of a Raf. Remember that scene
in the Ninja Turtles movie where Raf is really upset
and he goes on a rooftop and he just goes,
damn us. That was the first swear I ever heard.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(48:43):
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe
When a group of women from all over the country realise they all dated the same prolific romance scammer they vow to bring him to justice. In this brand new season of global number 1 hit podcast, The Girlfriends, Anna Sinfield meets a group of funny, feisty, determined women who all had the misfortune of dating a mysterious man named Derek Alldred. Trust Me Babe is a story about the protective forces of gossip, gut instinct, and trusting your besties and the group of women who took matters into their own hands to take down a fraudster when no one else would listen. If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org. To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/ The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!