When I was in Dobrzyn this time, I noticed a small and unprepossessing shack labeled “Al Capone’s Pizza.” It’s the only takeout joint in Dobrzyn. (Apart from that the town has only one restaurant, and believe me, you wouldn’t want to go in, as it’s full of sullen, thuglike men drinking vodka. I did not see any food on the tables). Malgorzata and Andrzej told me they sometimes order a pizza from Al Capone’s, and I asked if I could order one for all of us. They told me “No way,” as the pizzas weren’t that good, and besides, I hail from the Pizza Capital of the World. After I left, they broke down and ordered one, sending me the photo. It was the ugliest pizza I’d ever seen, and I asked if it was good. The response was an emphatic “no!”, with Malgorzata adding,: “The white stuff on it pretended to be cheese but I have no idea what it was in reality. Definitely not anything edible.” The stuff in the white plastic cup at lower left is garlic sauce.
A: I haven’t eaten such an awful pizza in all my 76 years.
Hili: But you are 75.
A: Counting since conception.
Ja: Od 76 lat nie jadłem tak wstrętnej pizzy.
Hili: Przecież masz dopiero 75 lat.
Ja: Od poczęcia.
Wow, that is one ugly pizza!
Agreed! It’s bizarre looking.
Bleargh!
But … did Hili eat it. There’s an invisible “sniff” bubble over her head – like a cartoonist’s “speech” or “thinks” bubble – but whether it had been categorised under “food”, “mouse-catching tools” or “bathroom hygienic sealant” isn’t clear.
Which reminds me – just how did some bright spark come up with the idea of putting plastics monomers into milk powder to improve it’s apparent protein content? I’m referring to the Chinese food-poisoning case of a year or so ago. That speaks of a disturbing combination of chemical knowledge (how do they do the test? and so how can we game the test?) and complete lack of interest in the consequences. [Shudder]
By comparison, Zyklon-B had a perfectly good industrial design pedigree (fumicide against rodents, IIRC)
Nit: I know what you mean, but “plastics” is perhaps too vague.
Besides that crossbinding polymers such as starch and cellulose could technically be called plastics, I just stumbled on the fact that our cells makes them. Or at least it produces PHB, which is both used as an energy store and a non-protein ion channel together with similar dual use polyphosphates.
“Our laboratory is interested in the metabolism and functions of poly-(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) and its interactions with other cellular macromolecules. This dynamic and versatile polymer has remarkable solvent properties which enable it to “dissolve” salts of polyanions, such as polynucleotides and inorganic polyphosphates, and transfer them into and through membranes. One of our present studies is of complexes of PHB with inorganic polyphosphate. These complexes form voltage-gated calcium channels in the plasma membranes of E. coli and many other bacteria that display many of the characteristics of protein calcium channels.”
[ https://www.msu.edu/user/rnreusch/ ]
Seems the polymers for a DNA like coil with PHB on the outside and polyphosphates on the inside gating Ca ions. Looks like the channels, like polyphosphates, can derive from the LUCA lineage, since we have them too (unless I am mistaken from reading Reusch’s papers).
“Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is a polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), a polymer belonging to the polyesters class that are of interest as bio-derived and biodegradable plastics.[1]”
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyhydroxybutyrate ]
Not that I would want PHB on my pizza…
I was trying to remember the monomer blamed, but couldn’t remember. and simultaneously searching and writing on the phone seemed too much like hard work. So I fudged, and knew I was fudging.
What you are after is melamine, which also has a perfectly good industrial pedigree. Though maybe it shouldn’t, because its thermal decomposition products are very nasty. Nice cloud of hydrogen cyanide, anyone? Just the stuff you want as a sound absorber in your aircraft.
I’m not sure it takes a lot of chemical knowledge to spike milk powder with melamine. A simple superstition of correspondence would do it: ‘Oh they’re looking for something called amines, melamine is a white powder, and has “amine” in its name.’ Well, I was first introduced to melamine powder as a 13 year old being forced to do “Plastics” as an “Enrichment” subject. It came in cans reminiscent of powder milk, as did the acrylic powder. But it would never have occurred to me to mix them together.
Structure of melamine, lots of nice amine groups there. http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/melamine#section=Top
I thought it was melamine, but couldn’t be bothered to check it out (I was using my phone), so I fudged.
I have always assumed that the “protein content” test was really a quick-n-dirty test for amounts of amine residues after hydrolysing the proteins. So, any available amine would probably boost the readings. But I may be allowing for more sophistication than was actually the case.
Hili’s body language says it all!
Stuff of nightmares.
Everyone who eats pizza can relate. We all have our pizza horror stories.
But this one…. *shudder*
There really should be an Al Capone’s pizza place in Chicago. Cicero to be more specific.
NO! People here are sick of Capone references.
Yeah, that would probably be the one place NOT to have it.
The crust looks OK, too bad about the rest of it.
Topping looks like vomit…
“Try our chef’s latest creation, La Vomitissima! We’re sure you’ll rave about it and tell all your friends!”
Ewww that pizza looks bizarre!
Plaster of Paris Pizza puke….
Don’t waste it. Where’s Cyrus?
Even Cyrus didn’t want it.
Wow.
I mean, WOW!!!
It must be really bad if a dog won’t eat it😝
I had a pizza in Poland. Not good. Dominos is better. Surprised no one has opened a good (even average) pizza joint yet. I think the hardest ingredient to get is a nice meltable cheese.
How can one live without nice, meltable cheese?!
Indeed…I’ve got some smoked gouda and cheddar melting in the oven as I type….
b&
I bet there’s a Polish analogue to pizza — some sort of savory pie / topped flatbread. Or that somebody’s figured out a Polish / Italian fusion pizza, with traditional Polish fare topping a flat crust made with traditional Polish bread dough, that superficially resembles a pizza but is otherwise Polish.
And I bet it’s damned good eating.
This pizza, though…is just plain damned….
b&
Well, I got a little stir-fry kit in Poland once, and it had potatoes in it. Fusion can go too far.
I wouldn’t automatically rule potatoes out of a stir-fry. Potatoes fry well, of course, and they pair well with garlic and onions and carrots and cruciforms, as well as the meats you’d use in a stir-fry. But you’d have to cook the potatoes separately somehow and only momentarily toss them at the very end. For example…mashed potatoes formed into a complimentary bite-sized shape, deep-fried with a panko breading. Something like that should work well in a stir-fry.
…but just adding, say, boiled potatoes along with everything else? Yeah…that’s not likely to wok very well.
b&
Quite so. It could have been all right if it had been something else.
😀
Having just returned from Poland, among other places, I can confirm your bet. In Krakov we had “Zapiekanki”, a half, long-roll with grilled (I suppose) cheese and various other toppings. Mine was smoked salmon, tomato sauce and onion. Delicious, and enough for a meal!
Based on the Wikipedia description…the one you had sounds better than average. And well worth eating — unlike the frozen microwaveable variety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapiekanka
Pretty much every culture has a pizza analogue. Mexico has tostadas and sopes, and there’s the Navajo Taco this side of the border. Pitas on the Indian subcontinent — hell, even beans on toast in England.
But, then again, every culture has bread, and every culture has stuff to put on bread, and sauces to pour over it all….
b&
I think the toasted cheese and ham sandwich is the English/Western version of pizza. It’s a bit of a poor cousin though.
That pizza looks vile.
It’s like the topped the pizza in mayonnaise. Sort of like those 50’s mayo recipe books you can find scans of here and there as examples of terrible vintage food.
It has to be a very bad pizza if a dog won’t eat it. o.O
The only “pizza” I’ve heard of that might be worse is the one a Japanese colleague described making. He started out with a Boboli crust, added ketchup, mashed potatoes, ham, corn, mayonnaise, and some other things I can’t remember. For a time I thought he might have been trying to replicate okonomiyaki while living in the US, but then I learned to make okonomiyaki myself, and it’s nothing like the horrid “pizza.”
I adore pizza, so was thrilled when a pizza place opened in my tiny town. They didn’t even use mozzarella cheese – just an inordinate quantity of cheap tasty cheese which completely overpowered the taste of everything else. I mean, this is New Zealand! The dairy capital of the world! It’s not like dozens of quality cheeses aren’t available in every supermarket.
Anyway, I’ve never been back. But I think Malgorzata’s and Andrzej’s experience is worse than mine.
That looks nasty. But wait a minute, you’re not from Naples or New York – there must be some kind of typo in the original post. And speaking of Al Capone and pizza, is this website where I learned about the “No slices!” pizza places in NYC…because the mob controlled the cheese supply and only let places that didn’t sell individual slices get good quality cheese?
I had no idea pizza could get cataracts.
Erm…those aren’t cataracts…more like how a cat reacts…to indigestion….
b&
I think it looks like bechamel sauce. Might have some cheese in I guess. Blech.
The white stuff: Could it be, what we call “Analogkäse” in German, i.e. Cheese analogue?
It can be part of convenience products in the EU, but has to be identified as such. Naturally, the food industry will decribe the ingredient in very, very small letters on the packaging hidden between another dozen of suspicious ingredients. And how many customers will make a thorough investigation with a magnifying glass, before they are buying the product?