Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the podcast cooking with Bruce

and Mark and I'm Mark Scarbrough and together with Bruce My husband we have written three dozen cookbooks. Let's always tell you this. We are currently in editorial over the 37th cookbook. I can't wait to tell you about it. Just you wait. Oh my god Gosh, we're going to talk about jam and jelly and chili crisp and chili oil and barbecue sauce and mustard and chutney homemade triple sec and All just all kinds of things. I cannot wait or as my mother would say all kind of things So we're going to talk about all kind of things here on the podcast But uh, that's up ahead in the future when we talk about that book for the moment We're going to talk about a one minute cooking tip that has to do with our pushback against the tick tock friend. We're going to have the great pizza debate. Well, we're not really going to debate it because we're on the same side of that debate. So there is no debate, but okay, we'll talk about the great pizza debate and we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week. So let's get started.

Our one minute cooking tips. Ignore the TikTok trend of washing ground beef. Oh, it's so gross. Seriously, one person doing it in a colander, washed his ground beef, got 5 million views.

I, I, I, you know, you may know this if you watch TikTok. Surreals or tic tac, but there is a woman who does a feed in which she reacts to disgusting cooking videos. And she always starts by saying, everybody's so creative and it's supposed to be incredibly sarcastic because she's going to gross out at what they make. So anyway, she's always on them about they did, Oh, just stick the chicken in the pan without washing it. And I always think to myself. Yeah. Don't wash the chicken. She's

probably one of those people that like washes it with soap. No, no, no.

She reacts to somebody who washes chicken with soap at one point. But, um, the reason, okay, the USDA says do not wash meat in your sink. And here's why, because if you wash ground beef, gross, or

how do you even wash ground beef? I don't understand it.

or, uh, chuck roast, or chicken thighs, or turkey cutlets, or whatever it is, the chances are you are going to have tiny, even microscopic splatters of water around your sink, and some of these may contain bacteria that can become problematic as they sit at room temperature. So, you do not want to wash this. Bugs are not good. Cured by water. They are cured by heat. They are.

So,

they get taken care of by heat.

The only reason you wash your hands like after going to the bathroom to get rid of bugs is because you're using soap. And the soap helps get rid of bacteria. Do not put soap on your ground beef. Do not put soap on your steaks. Do not put soap on your chicken. Wait, is

somebody putting soap on stuff?

Yes, people do. Go back to TikTok. People are washing their hands. They're food with soap. Okay,

they're idiots. That's clickbait. They're doing that in order to get clicks. To get outrage. It was

many years ago, but I think I once saw my sister in law do it. Fruit. She'd wash fruit with soap. Oh, gosh. Um. And fruit that she's even gonna peel like a banana.

Oh. Ha ha ha. Okay, well, whatever. Um, so anyway, just in terms of meat, just remember, uh, the bad things are killed by heat, not by water. So, just don't worry about it. Now, if you open a package or something and it smells off, throw it out. Throw, and go back to the

store and complain. Remember, throw it out. Get your money back.

Throw it out, period. Get your money back. There's no, no hamburger in the world is worth, I don't know what, 48 hours in the bathroom. So listen, throw it out, but otherwise cook it and that will kill the bad things. Before we get to the next segment of this podcast, uh, I want to say that we do have a newsletter. It comes out twice a month. I don't know about that. Then, uh, it's got recipes that are sometimes disconnected, often disconnected from this podcast. They're in fact, recipes for our TikTok channel, cooking with Bruce and Mark. Oh, it's got other things about our lives, about our colleague, about our life in New England, that kind of thing. If you'd like to get that newsletter, you can get it in your mailbox that going to our website cooking with Bruce and mark.com or Bruce and mark.com. You can sign up there. I do not. See or capture your email, nor do I let the provider capture your email. So no worries. And you can unsubscribe at any time. All right. Up next, the great pizza. It's not really a debate because we're not going to debate it, but okay, the great pizza debate.

First, some history. Pizza is believed to have been born in Naples, Italy. I'm gonna stop. AFC, we're already debating.

Yeah, okay, now we're gonna debate, because that is a highly contentious claim, that pizza was somehow, uh, originated in Naples, Italy. There are lots of people who claim that pizza Pizza is a North American invention. So just so you know, that's automatically controversial.

I don't know. Have you been to Naples recently? I have. They have signs everywhere. Have you

been to New York and seen the sushi? What does that have to do with anything? Have you been to Japan and seen the cheeseburgers? What

does that

have to do with anything?

But pizza, even in the US, is referred to as Neapolitan style. It's like the New York style of pizza. So you're

going to, you. who worked in advertising for 20 years are going to believe monikers and labels on things. They're

very good at convincing me. Do, do go on. Okay, so, okay, let's go into the assumption that pizza did come from Italy.

Okay, fine.

Neapolitan pizza is actually very close in style to New York style pizza, and that is a thin crust with thick edges, and you toss up the pizza, and you get a thin in the middle, but you have a nice thick edge, but here's the thing. Pizza was not very popular until it reached America through Italian immigrants in the 1940s.

And this is where the big debate comes in. And this is, this is true of many food things. It's a question of where do things come from? And is it that Italian immigrants came here, saw something that was being made and made it better, or Is it because it was reminiscent of tomato and pasta sauce, or did they bring it with them? And it's hard to pin this down. In the last show, if you listen to it, we could pin the slow cooker right onto Irving Naxon and say, it came from a bakery in Lithuania and this is what happened. It was

the Naxon Beanery. Yeah.

And so we can pin that one right down. But If you do a deep dive into many really established food traditions, you know, that they're very hard to find. Where do these things start and who started them? Because of course, people traverse boundaries, oceans, they immigrate, they move, they bring their food culture with them. Right. Sushi, as practiced in the United States, bears no resemblance. to sushi as practiced in Japan, except that now in Japan, there are North American style sushi restaurants. So there you go. It's a global

world. Well, growing up, there was VI Pizza in Bayside, which was, of course, we all thought the best pizza in the world, although it was so greasy that I would have to blot the top of the slices to get the grease off. But they had both this New York style, thin with a thick edge. And they also have what they called Sicilian. So. Is that really true that in Sicily, they like thicker crust pizza? I

believe that that's true in the North American landscape, and I believe that the North American culinary traditions have influenced things back in Italy. That immigrants came here, started things, went back to Italy, or sent recipes back to Italy, or people here as tourists went to Italy and went to Sicily and said, Where's the Sicilian pizza? And so a demand was born. These things are very hard to pin down. Now. I know many Italians will hold very hard to this and it's probably right. Bruce is probably right. That pizza is. It's ultimately somewhere an Italian conceived thing. He's probably right about that, but it's just highly debated in the food historian world.

Okay, well, I want to start with what belongs on a pizza, okay? Of course, cheese, right? And of course, yeah, I know. And of course. tomato, but then there were white pizzas. But let's, let's start with the basic margarita pizza. You got cheese, you got tomatoes. What else? We both believe keep it light because you don't want to put enough on there to cover the taste of that dough. Pizza's all about that delicious dough. If you

go to a decent place, if you go to a run of the mill, pizza chain, the dough is not so great. But if you go to a local place making pizza, shout out in our world to Roberto's pizza in Sheffield, Massachusetts, and to Marzano's pizza in Torrington, Connecticut, if they're making their own dough as those places are, then you really do want that yeast raised dough. You

want that yeast raised dough. They even make a thick one at this at Marzano's. That they ferment it so it has a sourdough quality. They call it a grandmother pie. They, see, they're not calling it Sicilian, they're calling it a nonna pie. Right. So it's kind of crazy. So Mark and I are in agreement that you keep the toppings light. So it means either none or few, so you could taste the dough.

I have to say, because you probably know this, that I don't come from the East Coast, and I did, I moved to New York and I'm from Texas. And until I moved to New York, I did not know that you could buy pizza by the slice. I had no concept that that was the truth. Now I understand there are plenty of pizza joints across the U. S. where you can buy them by the slice. But when I moved to New York, I didn't know this was a thing. I moved

to New York in the mid 90s. In fact, when you said I had a slice for lunch, it meant pizza. You say, what do you want for dinner? I want a slice. It means you want pizza, because almost every pizza place you would go into would sell you a whole pizza, sure. But they had seven or eight pizzas out, and they'd give you a slice of one. And

I'll tell you another thing that I didn't know until I moved to New York, and that is, of course, that New Yorkers fold the slice in the middle. They fold it from the tip of the corner back to the crust, and this way they eat it clean. Kind of like a sandwich. And I grew up in a world in which A, you had to let it cool and B, you had to hold the slice way up over your head so that the end of it, when it dripped down, you can actually bite it. Yes. Folded. Yeah, I didn't know that until I moved to New York. We had some

this summer, we had some friends visiting from Spain with their kid, and he was saying that The best part of a pizza is that first bite at the tip of a slice and that's all he wanted.

I'm not sure. I don't agree. And

he said he would rather eat the first, the tip around each slice and then leave everybody else the rest of the pizza. And I said, so I said, well, why don't we just cut the circle out of the middle first? And he said, no, no. The point is eating the tip and you have to eat eight tips.

And you probably know that there is a grand finale. fork and knife debate about pizza. Of course, Americans eat pizza with their hands, eat everything with our hands, sometimes our feet with our feet. Exactly. Um, but, you know, other places they do eat, they fork and knife. Oh, the UK

fork and knife.

Uh, there's a lot of Italians who will insist on fork and knifing it. So, uh, yes, it's a fork and knife thing. There are a lot of French who will Exactly. Cyst on fork and knifing it. They're the same

people

that

fork a

knife, a hamburger. Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. Um, in the US eating things with your hands is not considered de classe, but it is considered de classe other places. And so there is this fork and knife debate.

Yeah. Okay. I don't believe it. I'm a hands guy.

Uh,

hands on.

Yeah. Do as those who are doing around you, do as they say. Uh, anyway, as you know, of course, there are different kinds of pizzas, thick and thin, and I think this is what Bruce meant as we were talking about it, about the great pizza debate, but I don't really have a debate. Bruce and I both like thin crust pizzas.

We like thin crust, but what's happened is, Over the last two decades, that New York style thin pizza with the thick crust has evolved, and artisanal pizza places have come up, and they have started Like Howie's

in Silicon

Valley. In Palo Alto. Mm, that's really good. And what they do is make a thin crust pizza that's thin all the way to the edges. Yes. So it doesn't have the thick. It's like Howie's. It's like Howie's. And so it's even thinner. And so basically now I'm referring to it as a thin pizza and a cracker crust pizza because they get it so thin that it's almost cracker crust. Which is what

I prefer. I want my pizza crust to be essentially matzo with yeast. Yeah. I mean, I want it really thin. And I ask for my pizza, I don't know if you know this, but I'm going to tell you, I ask for my pizza well done, which means I want it burned. And when they say, Oh, you want it well done? I always say, Oh, yeah. burn it. I want to see charred black and bits at the edges of my pizza. That's how I want to see it because I want it super

done. It's easy to do that also on a cracker cross. And here's where Mark and I don't agree. And it is a bit of a debate. I prefer it the old New York style thin in the middle and thick on the edges. And he likes it thin all the way to the edges. Yeah, that's a little too thin for me, partly because you can't put anything on it. Any toppings on that because the crust can barely even hold

it. I seem to do okay with my ricotta. So my favorite pizza, the one that I order everywhere, is with ricotta, sautéed onions, sautéed spinach, and jalapenos. And

you have tomato sauce.

And you have tomato sauce. And

mozzarella.

Yeah, and then I put add ricotta, add sautéed spinach, sautéed onions, and jalapenos. That's my go to pizza.

I'm not a mozzarella fan, so I actually love pizza only with some Parmigiano Reggiano and then lots of sausage and pepperoni. To me, that and when Yes, you want

the whole meat experience. And when it comes

out, I dump an entire bottle of chili flakes on it, because I want

Yes, he doesn't actually do that, but I will tell you that in any pizza restaurant, Bruce unscrews the top of the red pepper flakes. You can't shake them out, that's ridiculous. And he goes into it and pours them everything the top of. Okay. So, you know, there's all this kind of stuff about gas ovens and wood fire ovens. I'm going to tell you that there are many places that run coal fire ovens. In fact, Bruce and I were in Chicago once for, oh God, an overeating season. civeritic five days in which we just went from restaurant to restaurant. And when we landed at O'Hare, we made a beeline to a coal driven pizza restaurant. And even

though it was in Chicago, it was not deep dish. No, it was not. It was not thick, because I could tell you that even though we don't necessarily agree on thin to the edges or not, neither of us are big fans of that deep dish or the Sicilian or the nonna pies. It's too

much bread. The thing I love about coal fired oven pizza is that. You can really get the blackened bits. I mean, you can totally get blackened bits on

it.

I

mean,

I just love

that more than I could possibly say. And wood fire pizza gives you a little bit of smoke, and it's really nice. I mean, most New York pizzerias, it's gas ovens. But, hey, I grew up on that, and that's perfectly fine. At home, I do it two ways. Sometimes I take out the kettle grill, and I put wood fire, and I put a stone on there, and we get real flames. Sometimes I do it on the gas grill, but then I Pile up my pizza

stone and another big debate here about pizza is of course beer versus wine There's no debate. If you know anything, you know that Italians are horrified. Many Italians are horrified at wine with pizza It's a it's a horrifying. It's a beer Italians.

It's a beer and

right exactly It's beer fair and now I'm gonna say that I don't take part in this debate of beer versus wine because now I'm gonna tell you just how absolutely gross I am. I prefer Diet Coke. And that's what I have with my pizza. Do not at me or write in, I have Diet Coke with pizza and that's what I like.

Fine, it's better than orange juice. I can't imagine orange juice and pizza. Even milk is better than orange juice. No, citrus juice with

pizza. You know, great combinations, like orange juice and toothpaste. Um, yeah, no, I am definitely the Diet Coke guy. I can't help it, it's just too much. I like Diet Coke. You can take the boy out of Dallas, but you cannot take the Dallas out of the boy. Dallas is

Diet Dr. Pepper.

No, in my world it was Diet Coke. Dr. Pepper in my world was rural Texas and rural Oklahoma when I was a kid. That's what my grandparents drank who lived in the boonies. Not Mr. Pibbs? No, Mr. Pibb comes along much later than when I'm born. No, absolutely not.

Not Moxie?

I don't even, I don't know what you're saying. I keep saying things, and I don't know why you're saying them to me, actually. Um, no, it was Diet Coke. Do you not believe me? Do you want to go back and check? It was Diet Coke, and that's how I still like my pizza, is Diet Coke. And here's another thing that you should know, and I'm going to step into this debate. Here's another debate. I despise cold pizza. I despise

it. You also despise cold Chinese food. I despise it. They have the perfect breakfast. Both of them love cold pizza. In fact, my favorite beer is made locally here in Connecticut called Cold Pizza Pilsner.

God, I wouldn't even order it for the name. Much less whether I thought that beer was good or not. I'm not a fan of leftover Chinese food or leftover pizza. I don't like it. It's gross. You can have whatever you want. Eat all your congealed meats and congealed things. I just don't like it. But

here's a tip. Cold pizza reheats so beautifully in three minutes in the air fryer. Yeah, now

there I'll eat it. Now I'll eat the leftover

pizza. the slice in the air fryer, turn the air fryer on, and within three minutes, it's sizzling and hot and crunchy.

Yeah, that's a great way to eat leftover pizza, in my opinion, although I know I'm the vast minority. Most people just like it straight out of the fridge. Before we get to the final segment of this podcast, what's making us happy in food this week, let me say, it would be great if you could subscribe to this podcast and rate it. If you subscribe to it, you won't miss a single episode. And as you know, we are unsupported. We do not have sponsors. And so the way that you can help us along, we prefer not to have sponsors is to just write a review, like Great podcast, or you made me laugh. Anything like that would be terrific in the analytics. Thanks for doing that. Okay. As is traditional, our final segment, what's making us happy in food this week?

Sake. Normally I don't like sake. I mean, it's not that I don't like it. It just never does anything for me. It's not complex. It's usually too

sweet. A thousand Japanese people are right now. A thousand, a million, 10 million, a hundred million are about to come after you. I wish we had that many followers. Followers in Japan.

So we were invited to friends the other day and they were going to serve some fish and I said, Oh, I'm going to bring sake rather than the typical champagne we would bring. And we went to don't you want to

invite us over to get a bottle of champagne and

we went to total wine and I'm looking at the sake and I ended up picking a bottle of sake that costs twice what a normal bottle of champagne was going to cost us. Oh yeah. This was

way up in experience. Stratosphere levels of expense. But I also

know that good sake can be expensive, and we got it, we opened it, and even the people at this party who said, No, I don't like sake, I'm not gonna have it, tasted it, and we finished that bottle in about five minutes. Yeah, we did. So sake is making me happy. It tasted like

rice. It had a slightly woody taste to it, it had incredible complexity in the sweetness, it was really fine sake. You did a great job picking out that bottle of sake. Um, what was making me happy in Food This Week is where that sake was served. At that dinner, Bruce said they served some fish. Well, not just a fish. fish. Their friends had been out on a boat, oh, a hundred miles out in the Atlantic Ocean from the eastern seaboard, and they caught a giant bluefin and a giant bigeye tuna, both. And so our friends got the belly of the bluefin, right? And then they got a loin section from the bigeye. We ate it all. So we started with the bluefin as sushi and our friends, uh, said sliced it for sashimi and our friends had sliced it thin. It was raw and they served it either. You could have it with seaweed salad and, uh, uh, tamari or soy sauce, or they also made a really nice citrus vinaigrette. You could pour over it either one that you wanted. And then we had. giant plates of tuna steaks off the grill. Just, I mean, really, it was ridiculous how much tuna was on my plate. This steak, it was huge and it was spectacular.

That made me happy too. Yeah.

I mean, it was a spectacular meal and so generous that they shared it with us. Okay. That's the podcast for this week. Thanks for being on the journey with us. Thanks for letting us tell you what's making us happy and for this week, for giving you one minute cooking tips and for debating things like this. pizza, which ended up being a little bit of a debate, I guess, about beer and wine and cold pizza and all that stuff. Okay, so it did. Thanks for being a part of this journey and we appreciate your time with us.

Do you like your pizza cold and leftover? Do you like it thin? Do you like it thick? What toppings do you like? Go to our Facebook group, Cooking with Bruce and Mark, and tell us all about how you like your pizza. We want to know what is going on in your head and in your kitchen, here on Cooking with Bruce and Mark.