The Battle for Pizza Authenticity Alongside Unusual Music That Might Make You Mad

There is so much battle being waged around pizza authenticity and veracity.

Angry people are pumping so much wasted energy into arguments that are inflated beyond their importance.
 
If people would only put that energy into making pizza—or even understanding it—we would be Pizza Nation.  

How cool would that be? Or excessive, perhaps. Anyway.... 
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As you may know (if you followed last week’s pizza postcard), I was just in NYC for several days, shooting video and eating pizza.
 
During that time, we were paying a lot of attention to the debate about the authenticity and veracity of Pizza Margherita in its various forms.
 
In considering that debate, we ate Margherita in four different styles:
 
- Classic Neopolitan
- Classic New York
- Grandma pie
- New York 2.0
 
 
In waging this debate, there are people who will engage in a fight to the death, climbing on top and planting their battle flag in the argument that only the first version of the pizza is authentic and true.
 
But…what first version?
 
“Well, dude, the first version I’ve never actually tasted that I know is the literal representation of the first one I ever actually did eat that actually changed my life! THAT version!”
 
(That’s a lot of attitude and assumptions for pizzas past and unknown. But we do know that the iconic Samuel Morse, famous painter of portraits and the inventor of Morse Code once described the pizza of Naples in the 1800s as "a species of most nauseating cake...taken reeking from the sewer." THAT authentic first version? What kind of flour did they use to achieve such lofty cuisine?)
 
And then, swirling around this debate, there are a lot of other people who just don’t care.
 
Maybe that includes you.
 
 
And like them, you could also be pissed off.
 
That’s because what these other people care about is going and grabbing a classic greasy, cheesy New York slice. “And screw Neapolitan-style pizza anyway! What’s a grandma pie? Sounds weird.”
 
I get it. And why is there even a fight?
 
As I was pondering all this, one of the world’s nicest pizza people popped into my social media feed with an unusual foil for all this pizza-authenticity madness.
 
Albert Grande, he of world-famous Pizza Therapy, shared a video of a swamp rock/Southern soul band I had never heard of, and the music tickled me.
 
The band is out of Austin, and the name is Shinyribs. Like me, you’ve probably never heard of them.
 
 
They’re one of those genre-bending, classification-defying musical groups that does it their way, making them difficult to promote for achieving world-dominating commercial success.
 
But they have fun.

The song that Albert linked to was their cover of an upbeat, sinister and profane Rihanna song where the protagonist is singing threats about a woman who owes her money.
 
I’ve heard the song before. But I’d never heard it bouncy and fun as sung by an old white guy in a funky suit playing a ukelele accompanied by a piano, a horn section and female backup singers.
 
That crazy little treatment inspired me to dig further into Shinyribs.
 
It turns out, the name Shinyribs is an alias for Kevin Russell, the band’s lead singer. He came up with the name for side projects when he was in another band. (That other band, if you care, was a beloved, alt-country cult favorite from Austin known as The Gourds.)
 
 
In figuring out all this, I stumbled upon another Shinyribs cover song that, on its face, seems totally ridiculous.
 
But it’s not.

Or maybe it is, but in a delightful way. 
 
Singing by himself and playing a six-string ukelele, Shinyribs sings his version of Meghan Trainor’s megahit, “All About That Bass.”
 
In performing that song, he owns it. It’s authentic and very much his own in a way that defies logic.

Yes, it’s thematically incongruous for an old white guy to be singing that song, but it’s clear that he’s singing it with total affection for the material.
 
If you don’t know, it’s a song about body positivity originally released by Trainor when she was in her early 20s. It reached number one in 19 countries. Some critics dismissed it as a novelty song. Others celebrated it as an anthem of inclusivity.  
 
In the video, bald and bearded Shinyribs looks about 60, and he plays the song on a six-string ukulele and sings in something that sounds vaguely like a Cajun accent.
 
 
What in the name of all that is holy does any of this have to do with pizza?
 
Authenticity and veracity.

Just because an older white guy wants to sing his interpretation of a body positivity song doesn’t invalidate it as long as he treats it with respect and truth. 
 
Just because a pizzaiolo wants to make a New York-style Pizza Margherita doesn’t invalidate it if he treats it with respect and truth.
 
If that pizza has an appropriate balance of tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, salt and olive oil, it’s allowed to be a Margherita.
 
 
And great news: You don’t have to like either the song or the pizza!
 
Or you might classify either one as affectionate parody.
 
How does one make a parody pizza?
 
You start by saying, “I love pizza Margherita, and this is my affectionate homage!”

And then you end up with something like Franco Pepe’s "Margherita Spagliata," which translates to “Mistaken Margherita” or “Margherita Done Wrong.”
 
That pizza is a deconstructed Margherita, baked with only mozzarella and olive oil, then topped with graphic stripes and dots of red tomato puree and green basil oil.
 
Does that pizza work? I don't know. I haven’t eaten it. It’s certainly graphic and globally popular. It's all over the pizza interwebs.

And Franco Pepe is considered the world’s greatest pizzaiolo. So who am I to argue?
 
 
Maybe it’s just a novelty pizza.
 
And maybe Shinyribs is just some guy singing a novelty song.
 
Neither is worthy of a fight.
 
But both are worthy of enjoyment.
 
And if you don’t like it, move on to what you do like. There’s plenty of pizza and plenty of music.
 
More to come on the New York Margherita front very soon.
 
Complete with authenticity and veracity. 

​Free the pizza!

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Looking for an easy holiday gift of pizza? My weird little award-winning book is one way to make it so. It's less a cookbook than it is an entertaining guidebook about how to get from zero to pizza using the oven you already have. Besides learning to make great pizza, there’s not much else you can do with the book. In fact, you can’t even use it to level a table leg if you buy the Kindle edition (which is less expensive than the print editions and has links to instructional videos and printable kitchen worksheets). To learn more about Free The Pizza: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have, click here. And just by the way, there are also links at FreeThePizza.com to my personal favorite pizza tools and ingredients on Amazon. (For which Amazon pretends to appreciate me by casting pennies in my direction at no additional cost to you, the consumer. It's kinda embarrassing.)