Pizza Poll: Squares or Slices

Its full given name on its birth certificate is Pizza Pie. Pie is divided into wedge-shaped slices. Cake is divided into squares.

thread complete

why no option for strips

What is that British or something?

"soldiers"

I'm definitely not a competent adult human but I still prefer slices. No option for me, boo.

Sicilian style is getting left out of the discussion here.

there's one bar near me that does squares and it's good enough pizza that i can tolerate this once in a while, but if squares were the default in my region i'd move tbh

actually i was thinking of the style for dessert pizza, cheesy sticks/strips etc., but i didn't know about

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_strips

http://www.golocalprov.com/food/rhode-islands-best-pizza-strips/

http://www.golocalprov.com/images/made/images/remote/http_images.golocalprov.com/lifestyle/pizzastrip3_360_240.jpg

i'll bend a lil, in theory: squares are acceptable if the pizza is divided in such a way that none of the squares lack at least one crusted edge. this seems perfectly geometrically possible and yet i have never once seen it.

i guess it's only possible if the squares are huge. not a problem tho.

I'm definitely not a competent adult human but I still prefer slices. No option for me, boo.

― emil.y, Saturday, August 24, 2013 6:30 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Your preference defines you as competent.

Sicilian, stuffed, and deep dish are irrelevant. This is about whether you think thin crust or "regular" pizza should come in slices (correct) or squares (ridiculous).

this question thinks it's about cuts but it's not because the kind of pizza that comes in squares is just different than the kind that comes in wedges.

i am just now thinking of all the fine tavern pizza i have had.

also of the poor-ass college-student pizza.

Dessert pizza, cheese sticks, cheesy sticks are irrelevant as they are not thin crust pizza. Cut that shit in spirals for all I care. Rhode Island pizza strips look fascinating but I would say they are their own thing and not germane to this poll.

this isn't the law, it's the world, you can't define away your problems

damn pizza is some dopeass shit, just want to eat some pizza rn p much

this question thinks it's about cuts but it's not because the kind of pizza that comes in squares is just different than the kind that comes in wedges.

I disagree aside from the general regional variation you find in thin crust pizza, which is not enough to make it a different pizza (hence pizza strips being a separate entity and probably St. Louis pizza, too). There is even a pizza place in Chicago that asks "squares or slices" when you order bc it's about cuts. It's all about cuts.

I can't possibly fathom that there's anyone who prefers squares?!?

Not that I haven't thoroughly enjoyed pizza in square form, but c'mon.

Now I want a pizza party for my birthday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNcZHDopFb8&sns=em

Slices in pizza party game. There's your answer fishbulb.

Note that Pizza Party pizza is cut in slices. xp!!

There are some new haven pizzas that are cut into squares but each square has some crust, like this:

http://slice.seriouseats.com/20110130_bar_new_haven_mush_eggp.jpg

"Thin crust" and "regular" pizza are not the same thing

-- The medium-weight, risen, doughier crust on your standard-issue pizza = slices
-- Thin, crispy, more crackerlike crusts = squares

These are basic sensible adaptations to the consistency of the crust itself

-- If you cut a standard-issue pizza into squares, the center squares will be too soft and moist to pick up
-- If you cut a thin-crust pizza into slices and try to pick one up, it would split in the middle and everything would slide off

Occasionally people cut regular-type pizzas into squares for various reasons of convenience, like if a large number of people are sharing one pizza, or when busy lunch places want to fit a lot of small square pans in the oven instead of losing space on big round ones

If you don't think thin-crust pizzas are actually pizzas, then fine, you are not really arguing with anyone then

We have a perfectly good system for this stuff, stop messing with it

You used to be so OTM.

http://slice.seriouseats.com/20110130_bar_new_haven_mush_eggp.jpg

these are obviously strips and that is obviously pizza, ty askance johnson

I remain 100% OTM about this, you have merely decided that pizzas disproving your opinion must not actually be pizzas

isn't a strip just an elongated square a.k.a. a rectangle?

Noooo, no no no. I completely agree that thin and regular crust pizza are not the same, unless you are in Chicago, in which case "thin" and "regular" are used interchangeably to differentiate from Chicago-style pizza (unless you are at a place that specifically has thin, regular, and deep dish but that's not the norm) and I have employed that regionalism here.

I have had plenty of thin crust, as in really thin crust and not Chicago-defined thin crust, pizza cut into slices. If you can't handle a slice of thin crust pizza, you are doing something wrong.

Pizza - regular crust pizza as you put it - comes cut into squares from every pizza place in Chicago except for Gigio's in Uptown where they have the class to ask first.

Thus, I maintain that my question is entirely and solely about cuts.

xp re: nabsico

A careful parsing of the poll reveals that an answer of "sometimes one is better, sometimes the other" is not admissible. The poll is framed solely in terms of one's overall preference for one method or the other. iow, you may opine that it is a false binary, but you cannot alter the question to suit your perception of its fitness.

Does Piece do slices by default? I can't remember.

They do put mashed potatoes on their pizza which is awesome.

Piece is always slices and it is also super thin crust

Chicago's also does slices.

The first time I ever saw pizza cut into squares when I was not a kid at a roller rink pizza party where the pizza was the size of a full sheet baking pan anyway was in 2004 when Jeff, Jesse, and I stopped in Indiana on our way from NC to Chicago and ordered a pizza from a regular old pizza place and it came cut into freaky little squares.

A careful parsing of the poll reveals that an answer of "sometimes one is better, sometimes the other" is not admissible. The poll is framed solely in terms of one's overall preference for one method or the other. iow, you may opine that it is a false binary, but you cannot alter the question to suit your perception of its fitness.

POLL NULLIFICATION

Oh, thin crust pizza is absolutely pizza. But thin crust pizza is not automatically cut into squares any more than any other pizza is.

slices or gtfo, obv

The question is, when given a choice between having a pizza cut into squares or cut into slices, which do you prefer.

The answer is slices.

Question for askance johnson: is some New Haven pizza cut into strips and some cut into slices? Does New Haven pizza ever come cut into squares?

Askance, take me out for a pizza dinner and shower me with you pizza knowledge.

I have not lived in Chicago for a good decade, but I do not recall noticing the trend described on any recent visits. If the Gigio's in question is related to the one in Evanston, I've eaten there within the past month and did not observe anyone to be asking anyone anything about this. I'm sorry you've had problems with your pizza options in the Chicagloand area and wish you well in your further eatings

For clarification purposes, here is a picture of a round food-item from a delicious place in Wisconsin called Cranky Pat's, with a thin, crispy, almost cracker-like crust and toppings from edge to edge:

http://www.greenbaynightlife.com/images/cranky-pats-pizza.jpg

It now seems we are in agreement that this type of food-item is definitely a pizza, only you disagree that there are sound structural reasons for cutting it into squares. You are welcome to this opinion, but I maintain that trying to pie-slice this example pizza would be a fucking untenable ridiculous mess

So when given a choice between slicing methods, I would prefer to ask: what kind of pizza is it, and has the pizza's maker noticed any benefit in diverting from pie-slicing to another method, because if so I will happily trust them, they've known the pizza longer than me

Like my grandfather always said, different lies for different pies, friend

It's mostly strips and/or slices, but it's possible that it comes in squares on occasion. I actually grew up more in NYC pizza territory, so I'm not as familiar with new haven style pizza as I should be (to my eternal shame). xp

it's weird to me that people get all partisan about this. about the crust and the toppings and the water and the amount of pepper in the dough I can understand heady disagreements. about what shape you cut the pizza in...caring much beyond "if you're offering a choice, I guess _______" seems like a weird affectation

squares forever, as I said on the other thread you can eat them like chips. most crust sucks btw, this is the real reason why squares are best.

crazy talk, crust rules

Here is how to participate in this poll. When you think to yourself, "Wow, I could really go for a pizza?! just "a pizza" and not "I could really go for a cracker thin crust covered in ten pounds of undercooked mushrooms from Cranky Pat's" or "I could go for bread and tomato sauce and a little cheese from a place in Rhode Island" or "I could go for a Chicago style deep dish pizza" but just "I would really like pizza," what do you envision? And would you rather have that cut into squares or slices?

Given aj's clarification that to his knowledge, New Haven pizza comes in strips or slices, I would say that for the purposes of this pizza, strips are squares and acknowledge that is a flaw in the overall mechanics of the poll.

Euler is a fellow bread-baker iirc & he's right, most crust is ass. Great crust is a beautiful thing in this world but it's hard to come by

that is why god invented dips

i really want a pizza now, thanks Obama

underrate aerosmith bootlegs has clearly never gone to the pizza box hoping for a slice only to find a middle square with no crust that is therefore totally thrown off on the grease to crust ratio and messy to boot, or a little dinky edge piece that is just crust and a smear of dried sauce. You have been blessed.

i really want a nice thin Diavolo. no chance.

what about those of us who eat our pizza slices or squares between two slices of bread. why are we being vanished by this poll

check your pizza privilege

aero knows what's up

I like how in Europe they don't cut it for you, it's like "we made it through two world wars, we're gonna sit the pizza war out"

yeah I gotta say the weakness of the squares method is if you're imposing it on a round pie you're kind of disrespecting the pie. with a square or rectangular pie squares make sense and are righteous. chef boy-ar-dee cheese pizza mix instead of going out for pizza because our family could not afford to eat out more than once a month circa 1972, fucking represent, that there is a square slice that I will ride for. but the rational response to a round pizza is the slice; but this is hardly a tacos vs. burritos level beef, it's more "stirred vs. swizzled"

Just because your experience is different than slice/square partisans doesn't mean our opinions are invalid or we are not passionate about our beef.

(chef boy-ar-dee pizza was the heat though. Friday night - chef boy-ar-dee cheese pizza and the Dukes of Hazzard. Couldn't beat it.)

I like how in Europe they don't cut it for you, it's like "we made it through two world wars, we're gonna sit the pizza war out"

http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Walter-White-Throws-Pizza-on-Roof-Breaking-Bad.gif

I well understand the ecumenism of your opinion, nab. However, I think this line of reasoning may be seen to lead to an unnecessary inconclusiveness. To wit, if particular types of pizzas are best consumed in one structural form or another, it is merely a matter of pondering which type of pizza one prefers when these multifarious types are pitted one against the other and then determining which structural shape best suits that type of pizza.

This may be a difficult decision, but surely, if one is honest, it is possible to define one's taste in pizza types adequately to create a reasonable ranking of preferences among them, using any criteria of your choosing. If your hypothesis of pizza engineering constraints is correct, it is short step from that ranking of types to a ranking of shape, allowing one to answer the poll, as it is presently formed. (Unless one's preference leads one inexorably to strips.)

Just because your experience is different than slice/square partisans doesn't mean our opinions are invalid or we are not passionate about our beef.

I acknowledge your passion but I seek to liberate you from it. If I blindfold you and cut, with a knife and a fork, a bite of square pizza and feed it to you, you will not experience it differently from the bite of slice pizza I feed you in the subsequent bite. be free my friend. open your heart...to all the pizza

with a knife and a fork

stop right there

and that's what you call burying the troll, my friends

Circa 1987/8 the British would look askance at any foreigner who picked up pizza with their fingers and ate it, even Italians. That changed in the '90s.

Bar/tavern pizza is usually a round pie cut in squares so a group of drinkers can take small pieces. I think it's uniquely American and possibly uniquely Midwestern. I really only eat this stuff when my mom picks one up from Park Tavern/Beek's/Bunnys - places she's been going to since she was a kid. I don't mind the soggy middle pieces because you get ingredients cover at least, and a sausage and mushroom pizza of this type makes me feel like a sated 10-year-old on a rainy day.

Otherwise, slices every time. If they flop towards the centre, just fold the damn thing like a New Yorker would.

I made Carl step away from the keyboard on this one. She's now reorganizing the cat scratching pads.

http://www.coolgizmotoys.com/images/2012/04/SUCK-UK-Cat-Playhouse-Scratch-Mat-1-900x600px-560x373.jpg

Cutting a circle into squares is perverse.

Here is how to participate in this poll

i believe cr56m45dconxig00n has a thread 4 u

Well, in Denmark they do cut the pizza. Though to be fair, we had an easy time in the world wars. The best cheap pizza-slice-place in copenhagen does squares, and then they fold them. Then you put at lot of chilli-sauce on it, and eat it like a sandwich. It's great. Bear Slice, formerly Istanbul.

C.A., if your point is that most people's Platonic image of a good piece of pizza is a medium-weight pie-slice, I don't think you'll get much argument. That is the popular American standard and I see no reason it should not remain so

The addendum I am striving to offer here is that pizza is made in myriad different forms, and I believe some of those forms benefit from being divided in different ways. They have evolved their own sensible, fitting, and ingenious new methods of presentation. Personally I think this adds variety to the American pizza landscape and needs not be denigrated. (I also disagree with Aimless that one must inevitably play favorites with them.) But if you feel these other methods are being misused in your community to the point where the Platonic American Slice is somehow actively threatened, it is understandable that you might be irked

One final note is just to mildly and neutrally point out that when you square-cut a round pizza and offer it to a group, there is usually a nicely harmonious balance of people who really want to irregular crispy edges, people who really want the large moist center pieces, people who want the pieces that have both, and people who curate a whole well-timed journey around the chessboard. Crispy squares, well-deployed, are good for picky-sharey pizzas, and in my experiences disproportionately found at, e.g., office parties and such

Thank you for your time

descriptivism vs. prescriptivism: fite!

There is room in my worldview for all the pizza variations, all pizza styles, all pizza preferences, each with their own customs and cuts and methods. But to cut that Platonic ideal of a pizza into squares is to spit in the face of all that is right and just and holy in this world.

The only other acceptable poll option is a write in for "sit blindfolded while aero fork-feeds you pizza."

You want to cut your office party pizza into squares? I will roll my eyes and think less of you as a person, but maybe, on a good day, see your point. But there is no need to default cut all round pizza into squares, as though we are always forever eating at an eternal office pizza party.

actually one of the reasons i dislike squares is that it implies i won't be eating as much of the pizza as i want to

That's why it's good for office pizza parties. You can cheap out and short people out of their rightful pizza allotment.

this is not an easy question for me to answer. Some of my favorite pizzas of all time are square cut, most near chicago. my favorite pizza was served by barnaby's in schaumburg. a couple others rank high too, primarily bill's in mundelein (a roadhouse kinda spot my dad started going to in the '60s when he was in a nearby seminary. so idk, I might have to go with squares.

the only bad thing about squares are those absurdly tiny corner pieces that sometimes result from the slice pattern.

Those are actually bite-sized triangle slices! (Mind blown.)

I love the absurdly tiny corner pieces! had some the other night at a bowling alley, which makes the best pizza in town (here in downstate land of lincoln), and it's really really good pizza, like bring out of towners there.

would happily never have a platonic american slice again if I could have all of your square pizzas forever

let me say I like the tiny corners when they're a mini piece rather than a bit of hard crust, which has been often the case.

God I really do want pizza now. Though I don't think that's in the cards for tonight.

Though the bar I'm going to after work has pizza, but among the few types they offer are "chicken alfredo," "taco," and "rustic pizza" so maybe I'm better of sticking with a burger.

One of the best local pizza chains around here, Ledo, has always served rectangular pizza (for everything, not just specialty pizzas), and it's cut into squares. Pepperoni is carefully doled out one slice per square; everything else is random as usual. They've done it this way since when they opened in the 1950s, and point out that you get more pizza in the same-size box that way. It's the only acceptable square-cut pizza as far as i'm concerned....

http://www.ledopizzaum.com/0_0_0_0_251_197_csupload_25645845.png?u=688072868

yeah I like Ledo (it's part of family lore that the night before I was born, my mom had a Ledo pizza, and she thinks the spicy pepperoni kickstarted her into labor). that's pretty much the only time i eat square pizza, though. it's fine but it's certainly harder to hold and consume than slices from a circular pizza, i tend to eat Ledo with a knife and fork (when a lot of the appeal of pizza is often that it requires no silverware).

I voted squares. And now I really want pizza, but the places around here all serve slices (there is a BBQ place run by ex-Chicagoans that also serves pizza, but fuck ordering a pizza from a bbq place, y'know?). Thus, to avoid the moral dilemma of voting square but eating slices, I will get a calzone.

The best Ledo pieces are those along the edges but not the corners, so one of the four sides of the square has crust which I hold with my fingers as I eat the rest. Eating pizza crust often irks me - if I wanted bread I'd be eating bread, not pizza. But the thin crust border on the Ledo's pizza is so thin that most of the slice still has sauce, cheese, and toppings, making the small crust edge inoffensive compared to the thick, inch-wide crusts that many pizzarias serve up. And being square, there's a higher toppings-to-crust ratio than a normal pie slice from a round pizza. Ledo rocks - and there's one a two-minute walk from my home.

champagne : sparkling wine :: pizza cut in slices : pizza-like substance cut into squares

squares are great if you're at a party so you can eat them hor dourves style and not make a mess. any other time, slices. no exception.

plenty of sparkling wine better than strict appellation champagne, don't believe the hype on that front iirc

that's fine!

there is a staggering lack of l&b spumoni gardens itt

http://www.roadfood.com/Photos/6712.jpg

I didn't get enough to eat at dinner. fuck this thread rn tbh

you can totally have some of my fish chowder, aero. i used veggie bacon instead of salt pork.

We got a local joint whose terrible oversalted pies ($19 for a large) are cut in squares. They're famous for scotch taping a sample atop the box.

That's an appropriate thing to do with a pizza square.

i was gonna be like "obv the answer is slices" but then i remembered i totally ate some ellio's pizza today and i don't regret it

this poll does feel kinda indecently swayed by using a squared, circular pie to illustrate 'squares', like it just signals some kinda of natural contradiction to voters with this awkward combo, casts its candidate in an awkward light, doctors the evidence by suppressing all the google image search yields for square slices from rectangular pies. I was just at a really nice Italian deli buying olives & while I was waiting, at the counter, all there was to do was to just slackly gaze at the wrapped-up, cellophaned rectangular pieces of pizza, just tomato, some, or tomato & zucchini, just to look at them to trigger the sense memory of cool tomato puree, barely-changed from its native form, just tomato & bread almost, almost refreshing in its moist union, eaten too quickly on a lunchbreak, the ruin of the unpeeled cellophane testament to the freshness of the tomato. squares of pizza are contextually p different from slices, I think, like it's redolent of making pizza at home, to me. it probably can't compete with slices but also it isn't just an alternatively-sliced form of slices, imo.

I'm not sure if this is a plus or a minus, but with square cut you don't really register how much pizza you're eating. It's anything you cut into small pieces, no single piece seems like very much, so you can have 12 or 15 of them and not really think about it. Slices force you to confront the volume of your consumption.

(I have a lot of recent experience with square cuts, because my kids go to a lot of birthday parties. It turns pizza into food you nibble at rather than eat in a straightforward way.)

The first time I ever saw pizza cut into squares when I was not a kid at a roller rink pizza party where the pizza was the size of a full sheet baking pan anyway was in 2004 when Jeff, Jesse, and I stopped in Indiana on our way from NC to Chicago and ordered a pizza from a regular old pizza place and it came cut into freaky little squares.

I remember this and for me it was a sign that Chicago was close b/c when I was in high school, my brother worked at a Dominos. One night he brought home a mis-ordered pizza that was cut in squares and he told me that in the biz, this was called the Chicago style cut.

I think somebody upthread said they didn't encounter round pizza cut into squares while living in Chicago, which is a hard assertion to make sense of. IME in Chi, squares are the default. No questions - you order a standard pizza and it comes to you cut in squares.

And that's what this poll is about. If you order a standard, regular round pizza from any given pizza place, and it's for an unexceptional dinner - not a kid's bday or an office party - do you want and expect it to be cut into squares or slices? If you hadn't requested those squares, would you feel confused? annoyed? Or pleased that they anticipated a desire you didn't even know you had for ludicrous shaped pizza bits?

with square cut you don't really register how much pizza you're eating

nuh uh

man i would eat the fuck out of a pizza cube

a slice of pizza = you are a hero on your own journey from cheese to crust
pizza squares = one of the most disgusting modes of oppression in human history

pizza in a cup

http://www.chow.com/assets/2007/08/pizza10_inline_3.jpg

crütm

I can't hate pizza cut into squares they remind me of childhood pizza parties and such... I still do cut home-baked thin crust into squares, but not any other kind of pizza, except for seriously big square Chicago-style but I hold by the opinion that those are more of a casserole than a pie.

That's why it's good for office pizza parties. You can cheap out and short people out of their rightful pizza allotment.

― Lawyer... SUAVE... (carl agatha), Saturday, August 24, 2013 4:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is so true!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftlcg7qEiGQ

square pizza also reminds me of the bland, cafeteria "pizza" we had in elementary and middle school. rectangular, reddish orange, and tasting like felt.

Roger Ebert has settled the matter:

When sharing a pizza, I am amused to see people diving for the center pieces, which are soggy, drippy, and loaded with too much cheese. I go for the edge of the pizza, those delectable little corner slices that are about half pizza and half crust.

My taste, which I believe is shared by all true pizza aficionados, led some years ago to one of the unsung inventions of the modern age, the Double Crust Pizza Ring.

My colleague Gene Siskel and I were lunching at Father & Son Pizza on Milwaukee Avenue, where we are particularly fond of the thin-crust pizza. (Thick-crust "Chicago style" pizza, I should add, is a gooey mess consumed mostly by misguided tourists.) We found ourselves engaged in a subtle competition to eat as many of the outside crust pieces as possible.

When nothing was left but center pieces, we glared at one another. And at that moment, much as Isaac Newton discovered gravity or Edward Lear the limerick, we simultaneously conceived of the Double Crust Pizza Ring.

The chef was summoned from the kitchen. Instructions were given. The pizza dough was to be formed in the shape of a large doughnut, with a round hole in the center. Thus, as any expert in topography can confirm, the pizza would possess two crusts - an outer, and an inner. By experimentation, the dimensions could be refined until every single piece of the pizza had a crust!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I think we've already got this one fully off our chests.

This thread was my finest contribution to threads since this thread - Piercing babies' ears: C or D

hahaha lol I just saw my last post on that other thread.

Lol @ Jesse and that being his 1st post on that thread.

goddamnit, you fuckers are making me hungry. Squares, slices, bring it.

a round pizza? slices

pizza like this though?

http://assets1.qypecdn.net/uploads/photos/0467/7014/20130302_115817_gallery2.jpg

you also want to cut that into slices you fucking jackanapes?

S otm.

Here, also they do the lil squares thing where it makes sense:when you get a plain garlic or garlic/cheese pizza as side dish. Cos that one'll be shared, so you only want a few bits.

Americans, have your soggy, mess-sliding-off-the-triange slices, its ok. Me I'd rather a whole, smaller pizza to myself not cut up at all, and a knife/cutter to chop it how the damn hell I want (thank u Bimbos)

If the pizza is round, as pizza should be, then slices, obviously. If the pizza is square or rectangular, than squares or rectangles are acceptable.

Voted uncut, I eat pizzas whole without stopping or even bothering to wait for it to be removed from the oven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xoZZKAa2Mw

S- are those goddamn potato wedges on a pizza?

Potato on pizza can be incredible, and I normally hate potato. But with rosemary and goat cheese. Uhm. However, it does seem weird in wedge-form.

Slices don't work on real Italian pizza, but then neither do squares. Voting slices.

As I mention up thread, mashed potatoes on a pizza is fantastic.

on weeeeeeeeed

Squares gets the circle.

http://filmdope.com/Gallery/ActorsV/17662.gif

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Vindicated.

roger ebert otm

you are not otm, carl agatha

Poll results don't lie.

^^typical "chicago-style" response

I dunno, being of Italian extraction those fresh-looking peppers did it for me. I don't care what "style" it is, what distinguishes it from Chef Boyardee is the flavor - like, the proprietors should know what "garlic", "oregano" and especially PEPPER. You urbanites should not be fighting... the real problem is when they use seafood, or cream cheese, or flyover country abominations like super sugary and buttery crusts.

butter-soaked deep dish crusts are fantastic though. the best pizza is square-cut, deep-pan, burned-edge, sauce-on-top, crust heavy with butter, herbs and garlic.

Nope, slices clearly taste better.

I am a disgusting savage or child....or I make delicious, authentic HEROIN pizza!!

I'll bet their heroin is at least half as good as their pizza!

Sorry- forgot the most important thing. The link:

One look ought to settle this:

http://youtu.be/vKZTIqs2ykg