Is that pizza for the camera, or is it a pizza for the people? (Bet you can guess which one tastes better...)

The pizza looks fantastic! People love it. Social media friends and fans are lining up to like it!

But what’s the real story behind that pretty pepperoni pie?

Well…

Meh.

It’s nothing special.

​I can do better and so can you—even if you’re a newbie. (In fact, if you’re an old hand, you already know this. Shape has no flavor, and neither does photography.)

​In fact, just as I was pondering the irony of that pretty pepperoni pizza, someone sent me a photo of a misshapen, amoeba-like pizza.
 
 
It was launched without a peel, and it was heavy with toppings, and it looked damn delicious.
 
It probably helps that the pizza was assembled by an artist and an architect.
 
So here’s the deal with the pepperoni pizza of my misgivings.
 
It never started life as a pepperoni pizza.
 
I had photographer in. I gave her a pizza tutorial while she photographed the session.
 
She shot action photos like this, which were not part of the tutorial. But when there’s a camera around, well, you perform…

The big pepperoni pizza was just a performance and not planned well.
 
I’d already made a small cheese pizza (which was excellent, if I do say so).
 
When it came time for the big pizza, there wasn’t enough low moisture mozzarella ready.
 
So I grabbed some fresh mozzarella pearls and tossed them on top, along with some Pecorino Romano.
 
(If you haven’t tried the fresh/low-moisture combo, you should. The dueling mozzarella dynamic offers the best of both worlds. I call that pizza Cheese On Cheese Action.)
 
Then, it went into the oven as a cheese pizza.
 
 
And as I was closing the oven door, the photographer said, “Hey, can we have pepperoni on that?”
 
I said, “Sure.”
 
I grabbed a bag of pepperoni (which I don’t usually have handy, as I prefer Spanish chorizo).
 
After three minutes of baking, when the pie was partly done and I was ready to rotate it, I pulled it out of the oven and tossed a bunch of pepperoni on top and sent it back to the oven.
 
The pizza baked about six minutes total and the crust was just right.
 
But the pepperoni had not enjoyed the full effect of high heat and the broiler treatment. It had cupped somewhat (which pepperoni freaks love), and the pepperoni slices were holding the little pools of grease so cherished by the cupping pepperoni crowd.
 
But there was no char to speak of.
 
 
Nonetheless, that pepperoni pizza makes a great photograph.
 
Ultimately, neither the cheese nor the pepperoni were really handled properly.
 
The crust was OK. Maybe stretched a bit thin in places.
 
It tasted good--
 
But for the camera, it looked perfect.
 
Later on, I was looking at the amoeba pizza sent to me in the text message.
 
 
That pizza looked wonky.
 
Roundish without being circular. Overcrowded with toppings.
 
But gloriously charred around the cornicione.
 
The pepperoni and other toppings on that pizza also have a modicum of char that speaks to the artistry of Maillard. (He was the mythical French artist of browned meats and breads.)
 
If you get way up close in that photo, right up on it, and you look in there, you want to run barefoot through it before diving face-first onto all that cheesy salty fatty porky goodness and then jam it in your pizza hole.
 
And as noted above, this cute little wonky pizza was the combined effort of an artist and an architect. It has structure and design and a graphic presence in its odd misshapenness that makes it look really good.
 
 
And I know for a fact they didn’t have a peel.
 
That’s because that afternoon before they baked, I asked, “Do you have a peel?”
 
They replied, “What’s a peel?”
 
I tried to loan them one, but they declined even though I offer pizza peel delivery within a 3-mile radius.
 
I’m guessing they used a cookie sheet or maybe a piece of corrugated cardboard or a linoleum flooring tile.
 
That notwithstanding, their wonky little pizza looks great. It has all the colors and textures that speak to yumminess.
 
 
Granted, my pizza is no slouch.
 
But it was made more for show.
 
It tastes OK, it looks desirable, and it looks great on camera, especially if you know what angles to use.
 
You can make a pizza that looks this good. It just takes a little bit of practice.

​But more important, long before that happens somewhere in your pizza-making journey, you can make a pizza that tastes fantastic almost immediately.
 
Even the ugliest pizzas can taste great. When you’re following best pizza practices (like fermenting your dough and using great tomatoes), better tasting pizza happens.
 
Most people start making amoeba-shaped pizzas because they’re uncomfortable handling dough. That’s all a head game. Push the dough around and bend it to your will.

​Or don’t. Either way, it’ll be fantastic. 

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