It doesn't matter if you vote red, blue or pink--politicizing pizza is a crime against decency.

​Oh, the char of it! Does humanity have any hope left? When they start taking our pizza and injecting it with politics, the situation is dire and requires activism.
 
I’m speaking, of course, about the Air Force One Detroit Pizza Debacle. If you slept through it (as it deserved), we’ll clarify that for you forthwith.
 
A lot of political differences in our world could be solved if pizza were involved. You can put people from all political positions around a table with good pizza, and it brings them together.
 
But leave it to that bastion of high-quality journalism in The City That Never Sleeps to do the opposite, dragging pizza into a fight it didn’t have coming.

Yes, we’re talking about the New York Post with unwitting assistance from a reporter for Bloomberg. Stirring the pot of simple-minded name-calling fisticuffs, the Post ran this headline yesterday:
 
“Biden scorched over ‘Detroit-style’ pizza served on Air Force One: ‘Trying to lose Michigan’”
 
Bloomberg reporter Josh Wingrove was in Michigan with the President’s entourage. Sometime during the events of the day, Mr. Wingrove went on X and pushed out a post regarding the reporters’ meal aboard Air Force One.
 
The comment was, “The Air Force One dinner tonight after the Michigan trip: Detroit-style pizza.” That’s all he said.
 
The accompanying photo was a to-go box containing a salad in a plastic container, and two corner chunks of what was supposedly Detroit-style pizza.
 
For the uninitiated, Detroit pizza is from the square side of the tracks. It’s made in a pan and has a thick, airy crust with crispy edges.
 
The pizza did not appear to have much cheese. It did have a lot of char, traces of some wet-looking sauce, and lots of sesame seeds, both white and black. (Yes, there is such a thing as black sesame seed. And sesame-seeded pizza crust is also a thing—though with Detroit-style, it’s more often on the bottom of the crust.)
 
The New York Post seized upon this X post, used it as the basis for the story, and loaded the story with Michigan political turmoil. (Basic message: UAW loves Biden. Muslims do not. Big surprise.)
 
Let’s forget politics for a moment. Let’s judge this pizza on its merits. You have to look closely to realize it’s two slices—and two corner slices to boot.
 
The corner is the most desirable part of a Detroit pizza. That’s because the corners are crispy crunchy with caramelized cheese and crust. On this pizza, there appears to be a minimal amount of cheese.
 
Mr. Wingrove’s bite out of the pizza shows a crumb (the inside part of the pizza crust) that looks excellent. It looks just open enough and appropriately airy with uniform bubbles.
 
The char on the pizza might be excessive. It’s hard to tell from just looking at it. But the level of char on pizza has become a controversy more polarizing than politics.
 
One of the most hated online pizza articles of recent memory was by veteran food writer and senior restaurant critic at Eater.com, Robert Sietsema. His article’s headline requested, “Pizza Chefs: Please Stop Burning My Pies!” (There was no mention of his party affiliation.)
 
It probably didn’t help that the featured image in that article was a fantastic-looking pizza with what could be deemed an appropriate level of char around the edge. It didn’t look like scorched, New Haven-style “apizza.” It was just a great looking artisanal pie.
 
But, hey—the New York Post jumped on that one, too. “Burnt, or charred? Sparks fly in fiery NYC pizza crust debate.”
 
Anything to polarize a readership. As they like to say in talk radio, a polarized audience is paying attention.
 
And that’s the problem: anything to polarize an audience.
 
Even the New York Post editors should be smarter than that. They should not be throwing this innocent Detroit pizza to the lions. (See what I did there?)
 
Appearances in food-social photos can be deceiving. We know nothing about how this pizza tasted. We know nothing of its legacy. Was it even made aboard Air Force One? (They have huge kitchens aboard that aircraft.) Was the maker of that pizza at all versed in Detroit pizza? And we don’t even known what Wingrove’s opinion of the pizza was. He never commented beyond saying it was his meal.
 
I admit it, I suspect that pizza was less than fantastic. But nobody makes pizza with criminal intent. (Usually.) And most of the time, pizza is like sex: even the bad ones are pretty good.
 
Pizza should be safe from politics. This strikes me as an ethical failure on the part of the New York Post. It’s dirty pool to be using a slice of pizza, competent or otherwise, as a wedge to be driven between voters.
 
Write your letters to the editor. Write them on pizza boxes, and on the blotting paper from under your takeout. Write them on dispenser napkins. Heck, write your congressman, too.

Free The Pizza—from politics as much as anything else.
 
I hope we never have to go down such a highly charged road again. 

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If you’re still thinking about starting your politics-free pizza journey, one good place to do so is inside 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. ​