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Comment by ai_ja_nai | Hacker News Reader

It's also a matter of standards: you can't order a dish and make modifications that perturbate the nature of that (like, milk in black coffe or cheeseburger without cheese). Margherita with garlic is equally absurd as marinara with mozzarella.

The only way out from this catch22 would be to order a pizza with tomato, mozzarella and garlic, explicitly omitting any "base template" from which to start

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> Margherita with garlic is equally absurd as marinara with mozzarella.

Why? What are the specific definitions or margherita and marinara that don't allow these modifications? Without undisputed definitions, this is just irrational dogma. Black coffee by definition excludes milk, cheeseburgers by definition include cheese, but for margherita and marinara, this is not obvious at all.

There are 2 problems: First, Margherita is tomato and mozzarella, with optional basil garnishment. Period. It's the recipe as it is and as it has always been; if you add an ingredient that heavily belongs to another recipe, you are profoundly altering the original spirit of the first. Second, garlic is not considered good with mozzarella. As an Italian, I find it really unfit due to the cultural taste I'm accustomed to.

A foreigner ordering margherita with garlic is violating our sense of taste and altering a template that doesn't allow such distorsions.

As a counter example, you can add without problems an egg on a margherita; it becomes a "Bismark pizza", but it's fine since the egg plays well with tomato and mozzarella. Any modification that is an enhancement, rather than a distorsion, is alway welcomed.

Wow, thank you for posting this. Pizza alla Bismarck suddenly transported me back to a very happy place!

My favourite

Yeah, but to call it a violation? That's quite a bit overkill, and I think everyone in the story reacted as such. Except for the confused person that just wanted his needs fulfilled in exchange for money. If he wanted an authentic Italian recipe, exactly the way it was meant to be done, then fine. But he asked for a recipe, with a modification that catered to his "sense of taste" or personal preference.

What is fine for one person, doesn't make it fine for everyone else. Personally, I would have been incredibly offended, and told them so. After-which, I would have cancelled my order, promptly left and gone to another pizza place that would give me what is asked of them.

You would have had a long walk, then :) Apart from joking, you have to try to understand the deep respect Italians have for their roots.

Trust me, nobody would have complained for "a pizza with tomato, mozzarella and garlic". A "pizza margherita with garlic" is a very different thing.

I guess I don't understand the pedantry. To me, everyone has different tastes and is it really hurting you to make what they want? I mean I cook garlic with mozzarella (and usually 4 or so other Italian cheesed blended together) all the time. I'm an American, I think they go well together, the egg sounds repugnant to me, but if you like it, it's not like I am the one eating it. I can understand a cultural history aspect of preservation but leave that to some society dedicated to racial pizza purity not the every day.

TL;DR - Who cares?

To cook something you have to imagine eating it, you have to smell it. I can fully understand not wanting to cook a dish that is repellent.

As I suspected, irrational dogma.

Italy's best part is in its tradition. That's why it's maniacally kept alive.

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