9.5 Theses on Pizza

These assertions are open to debate.

1. No one who makes a bad pizza crust can make a good pizza; no one who makes a good pizza sauce would make a bad pizza.
2. Much can be forgiven a pizza (e.g., mediocre sauce, skimpy cheese and/or toppings), provided that it has an exceptional crust.
3. While a good sauce can promote a pizza from mediocre to fairly good, or from fairly good to very good, no one can make a spectacular pizza without a spectacular crust.
4. Though St. Louis style pizza (thin crispy crust + provel cheese) allows you to stuff more square inches of meat, cheeze, and vegetables before you get full, it provides little scope for distinguishing between fair and excellent pizza.
5. Because Chicago style (deep-dish) pizza is dominated by its crust, it takes less acreage to fill you up; but its toppings have to be tremendous to push it into the "exceptional" bracket.
6. Most other pizza varieties are both rarities and novelties, requiring a great deal more time and competition to develop their potential for true excellence.
7. Therefore a pizzoisseur's greatest chance of experiencing a wide range of quality lies on regular, hand-tossed crust topped with red sauce, mozzarella cheese, and other toppings ad lib.
8. A more generous layer of melted mozzarella can break a tie between two pizzas of otherwise equal excellence.
9. One meat-based topping (pepperoni, ham, beef, bacon, sausage, etc.) is best enhanced by exactly one vegetable (olives, shrooms, peppers, pineapple, roma tomatoes)--but a touch of shredded onion can make a magical difference in any combination of pizza toppings.

9.5... Eat it while it's hot out of the oven. As it approaches room temperature, a pizza's deliciousness decreases irreversibly.