OnTap Magazine

STYLE GUIDE you can dig into a thick crust pan pizza in dozens of countries across every continent (well, save for Antarctica). ey also take the credit (or blame, depending on your point of view) for pioneering the stu ed crust, although a Brooklyn cheesemaker championed that title in a 1990s court case (he lost). COOKIE DOUGH AND CROCODILE Domino’s opened two years after Pizza Hut and is probably the world’s most successful pizza chain, although their stint in South Africa was short-lived, closing just before lockdown began. anks in part to the marketing behind these brands, pizza is now consumed in pretty much every country on earth. And many countries have put their own spin on the dish. In Korea I was once erroneously served green tea crust, and frequently had to remind my local pizza joint not to surprise me with treats like cookie dough stuffed crust. In Japan, crusts can come filled with prawn and mayonnaise, while pizza lovers in the UK might well be haters of the divisive Marmite-filled crust. Many of the toppings found around the world today would churn the stomach of the average Italian – peas and mackerel pizza anyone? Curried crocodile perhaps? Nutella and gummy bears? In truth, there’s really nothing you can’t put on a pizza – although whether you should or not is another matter. When you think about it, pizza actually has a lot in common with beer – and not just that they are a perfect match for each other. I like to think of pizza as the IPA of the food world. ey were both born in Europe and migrated to the USA, morphing into something almost unrecognisable but undeniably delicious as they went. ey are both the darlings of their respective spheres and have both had more facelifts than the King of Pop. Many of those changes are in equal parts loved and loathed. Just as purists hate the idea of baking pizza in a pan or topping it with chicken tikka, so do some drinkers despise the evolution of the IPA into something dark or sour or Brut-like. ey even each boast their own pariah ingredient, for I think it’s fair to say that pineapple is to pizza what lactose is to an IPA. But one thing that pizza has over IPA is its incredible global appeal. Whether dipping stu ed crust into a tub of ranch dressing, piling sweet and sour chicken atop a thick and spongy base or paying homage to the simplicity of the original, you’d be hard pressed to nd many people in the world that don’t like pizza at all. Like many beer styles, there are certain pizzas that come with a side of legend – most notably the Margherita. Although these days it’s a pretty basic pizza that you tend to pile with your own toppings or else feed to picky children, when the first Margherita was made it used only the finest buffalo mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes and freshly picked basil. The legend says that it was designed in the colours of the Italian flag and served to Queen Margherita of Savoy in 1889. Some versions say that she was served three pizzas and picked the patriotic one as her favourite and so it was named for her. Historic cookbooks show that the Margherita’s toppings were already in use before her visit, but it seems solid that the pizza was named for the monarch. PIZZA FIT FOR A QUEEN