Haggis! Tofu! Meet pizza! ​Free The Pizza fans talk about pizza toppings you'll hate to try--and how to try them!

Thank you all for rising to the challenge of “Pizza Toppings You’ll Hate Until You Try Them.” A couple of your suggestions made me laugh. Nobody elicited a gag reflex—which is both reassuring and appreciated.
 
And the bad-idea pizza toppings were thoughtful and delightful. For my favorite reply, we have a tie. And contrary to my “fried grasshoppers on pizza” suggestion, neither of these pizzas involve insects.
 
Fave #1 is from Paul, a technically-minded gent in Southern California. He lives within easy reach of a legendary pizzeria and brewpub in Solana Beach called Pizza Port. (The place is special. It has a natural-wood/chalkboard-menu/SoCal-hippie-surfer vibe that makes you say, “I don’t care what that pizza tastes like as long as I can eat it in here.”)
 
The pizza topping that Mr. Paul believes doesn’t belong on pizza is…

Haggis. Let the flinching begin!
 
If you don’t know what haggis is, get ready for a dish invented by a thrifty people.
 
It’s a pudding.
 
But not the kind of sweet pudding that was ever advertised by one of the only famous American comedians with a prison record.
 
Haggis is a pudding of the savory variety, and something that Americans are unlikely to embrace.
 
Although, the legendary and famous culinary pro's reference guide, Larousse Gastronomique promises that it has “an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour.”
 
Larousse also agrees that the description of haggis is not “immediately appealing.”
 
So, let’s describe it, shall we?
 
To make a haggis, one takes the heart, liver and lungs of a freshly slaughtered sheep. Putting them into a stock pot, you boil them.
 
(Be sure to drape the wind pipe over the edge of the pot so the fluid remaining in the lungs has someplace to drain.)
 
Once cooked, the offal is minced with oatmeal, suet, seasonings, salt and stock. Then, it is encased within the sheep’s stomach and cooked again.
 
The finished, engorged sausage-like product is eaten with gusto alongside neeps and tatties (that’s rutabaga and mashed potatoes for all you Yanks), and an ample dram of scotch whiskey.
 
The whisky probably helps.
 
I’m not sure what inspired Paul to go there, but he did it exactly as you’d hope a technically-minded professional would: he approached it is a technical problem.
 
Paul says, “One would have to remove the casing of course. It probably would be similar to a sausage pizza.”
 
He also suspects a “potential choking response” until the first bite. (Perhaps.)
 
He also notes, “I suspect some Scottish Pizza aficionado has already done this one…so, how about a Kishka Pizza! Same idea just a more cattle-forward ingredient list.”
 
Hello, Kishka bonus!
 
So, what is kishka, you ask? More likely made with beef organs and an intestine casing, kishka is an Eastern European dish of the cased-ground-meat-and-cereal-grains variety.
 
Presumably, Paul is thinking a tomato sauce and cheese pizza. And I admit, I’ve actually done something like this.
 
Since I live in the Southern US at the moment, we enjoy abundant boudin. (It’s a French word, pronounced like “boo-dæn.” If you want to be really Frenchy sounding about it, you pronounce it with a kind of clipped, nasal “n.”)
 
What is boudin, you ask?
 
It’s really good. A Cajun delicacy. Remember, the Cajuns are French outcasts, so you know things are gonna get interesting.
 
Boudin is yet another ground and spiced meat product (pork) with cereal grains (rice) traditionally encased in an intestine (though more likely an artificial casing these days).
 
I’ve used plenty of boudin on pizza. Once sliced, applied to the pizza and baked, it acquires a surprising, creamy flavor.
 
The first time I ever ate boudin, there was a definite sense of eating pâté with rice. The amount of liver in the boudin probably varies by location and maker.
 
My first boudin was in Lafayette, Louisiana and it came from the local gas station. So my guess is that this was a fresh boudin made in the proper Cajun manner by a man named Boudreaux or something like it. It was fantastic.
 
But if anyone ever told you they wanted a liver and rice pizza, you might wince.
 
Anyway, hats off to Mr. Paul.
 
Next up: Mr. Clinton’s Bean-Curd Pizza!
 
I fear I don’t know as much about Clinton as I do about Paul, and whether he lives within any easy proximity of a distinctive pizzeria and/or brewpub.

Nonetheless, he’s a thinking man.
 
“Tofu is a topping I would never use. I love tofu.” He continues, “Not on pizza, but when I think of my favorite Chinese food, Hunan, they have onion cake. Sliced scallions between two tortillas. Like onion pizza.
 
“So my solution would be a pizza topped with garlic, ginger, fermented black beans, onion, chili flakes, tofu and drizzled with hot oil.
 
“I see a problem in that there is nothing to hold the toppings on the pizza when you pick up a piece. Maybe have to eat with knife and fork.”
 
I think small pieces of a firm tofu, once baked on a pizza, would hold up—unless it’s a Neapolitan pizza. So he might be right.
 
And there’s some serious thought here about all the pizza toppings.
 
I don't believe we’re talking about tomatoes and cheese anymore. That's probably why he sees a topping avalanche. And that’s OK. This strikes me as in a league with the Asian-flavors explosion of poke pizza.
 
And based on what little I know about Hunan onion cake, you might even be able to fold this pizza in half and do it as a deep-fried pizza fritti.
 
Feel free to try. Let me know how it comes out.
 
Big thanks to Mr. Paul and Mr. Clinton for embracing the seriousness of this ridiculous exercise. It’s fun to know there are readers out there who totally Get It.
 
It’s also important to recall that Paul said that some “Scottish Pizza aficionado has already done this.”
 
Almost anything you can think of with regard to pizza topping has been done. (That includes things that truly should not have been done.)
 
Yes, you can Google “haggis pizza” and find plenty of versions, lavishly illustrated. When I joked about “fried grasshopper pizza,” I quickly thought, Uh-oh, this might be a thing.

And yes, a pizzeria in Las Vegas did it a few years ago in response to a local grasshopper plague.
 
You can also Google “tofu pizza” and find various versions.

None of this matters.
 
What matters is this simple fact: YOU thought of that as a pizza.

You considered it might be weird, and then carried it through the “But what if…” stage.
 
I mean, let’s face it: grasshoppers on pizza is not far from shrimp on pizza. 
 
And it’s not about grasshoppers for the sake of grasshoppers. It’s an academic exercise in cheffy thinking. It sounds ridiculous at first—but is it?
 
Look at The Pineapple Problem. Is that ridiculous?
 
As creative pizza guy Serhan Arhan said in our interview late last year, “I think the pineapple and pizza question bothers me not because of pineapple, but because it puts people in a mental prison of what pizza can be.” (See also: his pizzas with Chex mix, tangerine, mango, and other exciting eccentricities.)
 
Wipe the pizza slate clean. Start with a blank slate. Then, formulate your pizza from there. Have fun. Get weird. That’s where the best ideas come from.

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Need a place to put those unusual pizza toppings? Maybe you need a copy of Free The Pizza. Really, it’s A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have. It’s a manual that takes you from zero to pizza with a few laughs along the way. Also, if you buy a hard copy, I'll send you an autographed book plate. If you buy the Kindle edition, know that there are printable cheat sheets on this website so you can take them into the kitchen and spill red sauce all over them.