Before coming to China, pizza was part of my regular dietary intake. Like many New Yorkers, I grab a slice between work and a movie, or as a late-night antidote to the next morning's hangover, on a weekly basis.
Having met the Slice folks, I was really starting to get serious about my pizza before I left. Coming to China meant having to give up this component of my diet whole-hog. I wasn't happy about it.
Since I arrived in August, I have sampled two versions of pizza in China, both at restaurants claiming to specialize in Western food. The first came from Blue Sky Cafe in Wuhan and the second from Jack's Italian Restaurant in Nanjing. Both pizzas, however, I daresay came from the same frozen food warehouse.
Borrowing a Slice standard, I sampled only the "plain" pie at both places, to get an idea of their conceptual foundations. In both cases, this was a waste of time.
...close your eyes, and think back to high school. Think of
the frozen pizza that weary cafeteria workers would warily toss at you as
you meandered through the lunch line. Remember the thick, papery base of
that pizza? The sweet, mushy, watery, tasteless tomatoes smothered in
grey-green flecks, themselves masquerading as "spices and flavorings"?
Now take that cardboard specimen, and replace its covering slick of salty, oily cheese with a thick, smothering, rubbery blanket of "mozzarella cheese." Maybe make the crust a bit blander. In the case of the Wuhan pie, there was no crust with which to grasp the morsel -- I cut both pies with a knife and fork. And also keep in mind that there's no olive oil or garlic involved at all. So saw off a chunk, spear it with your fork, and chew. And chew. And chew.
"Not bad, eh?" said my Canadian friend, happily muching on his vegetarian version.
I wrinkled my nose and pushed the congealed disk around with my knife. "Well, I'm from New York," I sniffed. "This is not what we would consider pizza."
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EPILOGUE
Before boarding the bus home from Nanjing, we spotted a vendor selling round 8" poofy flatbreads that resembled pitas. My friend hit on the idea of making pizzas back home in Jiujiang. We bought two.
I insisted on supervising, and oversaw the toasting of the breads on both sides, the creation of tomato sauce using garlic and olive oil, the sauteeing and carmelizing of onions, green peppers and mushrooms, and the fine chopping (no cheese grater on hand) of the available cheeses (admittedly not mozzarella, but tasty nonetheless). Our version featured a mild cheddar and a tangy asiago mixed together -- a bastardization, I know -- but it tasted pretty good compared to what I sampled the previous week in Nanjing.
I can proudly assert that on that evening, we created the best pizza in China. At least, the best pizza I've seen.
Posted by Astrid at January 13, 2005 11:07 PM