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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 2, 1999)
Top Of the world 1-5 Exit 199 3 miles N of Eugene 685-9434 SATURDAY • DEC. 11 • 8PM Tickets At Face The Music, Emu Ticket Office and all Fastin • $12 Advance $15 Door 008074 Community Center tor the Perform! ly Arts 8th & Lincoln ■ Tonight ■ Babes With Axes: Six Year Anniversary fOlk $7 advance, $8 door, 7:30 pm ■ Friday ■ Floater, Mel Heavy Rock $8 advance, $10 door, 8:30 pm ■ Saturday ■ Chanukah Celebration wM Rabbi I. Hershy Worch, Rob Tobias, David Helfand £ Friends Original & Traditional Jeuish Music $3 door, 7:30 pm ■ Monday■ The Coup, or Dominion lli/) llo/) $12 advance, $14 door, 9:00 pm ■ Wednesday ■ FuManchu, Speedealer, Slow Rush Hard Rock $8 advance, $8 door, 8:00 pm ■ December 9 ■ An Evening with Martin Sexton S/nger-songuriter $12 advance, $14 door, 8:00 pm ■ December 10 ■ An Evening with Tanas Original Celtic $10 advance, $12 door, 9:00 pm All Ages Welcome • 687-2746 RECYCLE That's ■ With its origins rooted in the great boot of Italy, pizza of all shapes and styles can be found in the hearts and stomachs of Eugene eaters By Sara Jarrett Oregon Daily Emerald ■|Tr T*hat’s amore? When the moon hits your eye like ▼ ▼ a big pizza pie. Like the famous song suggests, pizza can and does act like a bea con in the night after a wild par ty, when nothing else is open, or when you’re just too lazy to leave your house in the middle of cramming for finals. It’s cheaper than Chinese food, nostalgic of childhood birthdays past and can be made to suit any taste. Oh, how those taste buds perk when the thought of pizza even enters the brain — this food has be the greatest invention of all time. Are you ever not in the mood? The way a pizza parlor smells of grease and laughter; the ab sence of utensils; the community effort in eating it; the hot, moist, bottom of a freshly delivered box; cold leftovers the morning after — it’s pure bliss. To boot, there’s half-and-half toppings, take-and-bake, the promise of delivery in thirty min utes or it’s free and the slogan, “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno.” Yes, pizza has its own culture. Major American cities claim fame and honor in how pizza is made within its limits — the competition, in fact, can be quite intense. True New Yorkers wouldn’t be caught dead with a Chicago-style slice, would they? What’s the difference you ask? Well, it’s like comparing a 99 cent Totino’s to a pie at Pegasus — OK, maybe not quite so dras tic. Though a Chicago-style is usu ally plump with more toppings placed under the cheese, and then doused with thicker sauce, the true difference between the two is how the crust is prepared. Unlike New York style crusts that are flat against the pan, Chicago (or pan) style crusts, de veloped in the 1940s by Chica go’s Pizzeria Uno, are crimped to give the pizza a more circular look and a more developed crust. Purists believe, however, that Naples, Italy — modern pizza’s birth place — is the only place to take a bite. In pre-Renaissance Naples, when poor housewives had only flour, olive oil, lard, cheese and herbs to feed their family, a lot of experimentation took place. Pizza was known as a peas: ant’s meal for decades, until Maria Carolina, the Queen of Naples in the 16th century, con vinced her husband, King Ferdi nand IV to allow the dish to be made in the royal oven. Thanks to the creativity of bak er Raffaele Esposito of Napoli (Naples) in the Italian region of Campania, pizza became accept ed throughout the land. In 1889, he designed a pizza especially for the visit of the Italian King Um berto and Queen Margheria, which resembled the Italian Flag’s red, white, and green de sign. The pizza Margheria is still made with the original recipe of tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil. To this day, it is said that an acknowledgement to Raffaele Es posito, of the 1889 pizzeria “Pietro e Basta Cosi,” for the qualities of pizza he prepared for Her Majesty the Queen Marghe ria. This set the standard from which today’s pizza evolved. Pizza then migrated to the United States with the Italians in the early 1900s, but the present day high demand for pizza didn’t occur until the late 1950s. Upon returning from World War II, sol diers began demanding the food they found and loved in Italy. Mass production went into full force. The Pizza Hut chain was founded in 1958 by two brothers while they were still students at Wichita State University. In the 1960s, two more brothers invent ed the Tombstone brand, named after the cemetery across the street from their bar in Medford, Wise. Domino’s opened in the early 1980s. Currently, there are over 61,000 pizza establishments in the United States and over 100 acres of pizza disappear every day. Annually, 23 pounds of piz za is consumed per capita. Locally, there are plenty of great places and opportunities to make your own personal dent and contribution to the contin ued ballooning of those statistics, with four-and-a-half yellow pages devoted to the subject in the Lane County phone book. Arguably the best pizza in town, Bellizzi’s Mafia Style, on the corner of 11th Avenue and High Street, demands respect. The crust is absolutely amazing, with ingredients stuffed inside like mini calzones surrounding a mountain of cheese, tomatoes, meats and mushrooms. Though rumors about real con nections with the mob surround the Italian family restaurant, its menu explains that the name came from grandpa Bellizzi’s first restaurant in Bronx, N.Y. in the 1930s. When members of the neighborhood Mafia repeatedly left behind the crust, grandpa got wise and started stuffing it. Not a morsel was left behind again. Likely story, but I still wouldn’t mess with Big Johnny Bellizzi. Mazzi’s in South Eugene claims to bake the closest to what you would actually find in Sici ly, said Mazzi, the owner’s son and chef of the restaurant. “It’s cooked in a pan with a two-inch wall,” he said. This deep-pan style allows for more room to pack ingredients. “What’s most important is that you have really great ingredi ents.” The deep-dish style is in con trast to slices found at Sy’s, which is located near campus on Alder Street. The New York-style thin crust seems popular among most people around campus but is drastically different from the classic pizzas of Italy. According to Mazzi, Ambrosia offers the closest thing to the first pizza ever made. The restaurant cooks its pizza on stone, which is the floor of the rock oven. This wood burning gives an aromatic ash flavor to the pizza. For an “American style gourmet pizza,” Pegasus Smoke house Pizza, a mushroom’s throw from campus, offers your best bet. It’s called smokehouse because all of the chicken used as topping is smoked on site, Pegasus employ ee Dana Dickinson explained. Ironically, though, the menu only offers one pizza with chicken on it. For convenience sake, you can buy by-the-slice all day. For something a little experi mental, The Pizza Research Insti tute, across the street from Soriah at 1328 Lawrence St., caters to the unusual. The name gives the owner leeway to come up with his own recipes every day. Bought by the slice, the Chefs Choice is reserved for whatever the chefs brain can cook up. On any given day, you can get pineapples and mangoes or squash and zucchini. The Greek Style is special because it’s cooked on a flaky, pastry style crust that is piled so high it must be eaten with a fork. And if you’re on campus, be tween classes, and just jonesing for a slice, there’s always the newly-opened Pizza Planet that sits next to Jamba Juice in the EMU. Unlike some delivered pie, you can count on their slices be ingnice and warm. Now, that’s amore. Azle Malinao-Alvarez Emerald Pegasus employee Ryan Richardson tosses the perfect pizza during a recent lunch hour shift.