Through the years, I have put up with a lot from Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who I have always said has retained an admirable level of consistency and intellectual honesty in his views even though I often disagree with him. Nevertheless, I have criticized his conduct in public, including his enthusiastic embrace of being a conservative “celebrity justice” (here and here), shocking elitism in speaking with law students, and making public comments on issues before the Court (here and here). Yet, I have always tempered this criticism with a degree of respect for Scalia’s consistent adherence to a jurisprudential foundation that is missing with some of his other colleagues. However, he has finally gone too far. I am done. This week, Scalia did his usual ill-considered comments about issues before the Court but added in a speech in Chicago (my home town) at the Union club about Chicago-Style pizza. To the boos of the audience, Scalia declared that Chicago-Style pizza is not pizza but some form of “tomato pie.” It is not just injudicious but downright sacrilegious. In my view, Scalia has crossed the line into potentially impeachable conduct in his attack on this highest form of pizza and should be removed faster than one of those pathetic New York wafers that people fold and call pizza.
Making this all the more shocking is Scalia’s former work as a professor at the University of Chicago.
Scalia began with discussion of the role of God in government and by extension constitutional law — an issue that is before the Court this session. He insisted that “it is contrary to our founding principles to insist that government be hostile to religion. Or even to insist, as my court, alas, has done, that government cannot favor religion over non religion . . . It is a matter of believing, as our founders did, that belief in God is very conducive to a successful republic.”
After invoking God’s domain, however, Scalia then moved to the truly sacrilegious: seemingly embracing New York pizza while calling Chicago pizza “tomato pie.”
Now, I am Italian and a native Chicagoan and I am fully aware of the traditional thin crust pizza found in Italy. However, pizza is a category of food, not a single exclusive term for one style. Indeed, Scalia’s intolerance for different forms of pizza seems consistent with his views in other areas like privacy and marriage.
Consider the lunacy of this position. Gellato is a wonderful ice cream that truly surpasses all other forms but it is not the only ice cream. Ice cream is a category of frozen dessert usually made from dairy products. Likewise, pasta comes in a variety of forms. One would not call fried dough the only “true” pasta, even though it was referenced in this form in the First Century.
Pizza, my dear Scalia, is like marriage. It evolves and can take different shapes. Additionally, I would be the last to suggest anyone should “shut their pie hole” because I also believe that free speech takes on new and expanded meaning. Indeed, the disrespect shown pizza by Scalia reflects the same hostility shown to theories of evolution.
Chicago pizza is the highest form of evolution of pizza — a majestic combination of cheese, sauce, and dough that resulted from years of experimentation and consumer demand. Like the evolution of the horse from the tiny Eohippus in the early Eocene, pizza evolved with stronger crust and brilliant engineering advances. It is to New York pizza what the John Hancock is to a lean-to.
Scalia’s comments were not just injudicious but incomprehensible for anyone who has experiencing the exquisite experience of the Chicago-style pizza. As a food critic, Antonin Scalia is a wash out.
As many of us look at Scalia’s possible removal from the Court for demonstrated incapacity, Chicago needs to banish him from our shores. Call it our own high-fat Fatwa. Let him go watch his favorite football team (the Cowboys!) and eat his tomato wafers in that forsaken city known as the Big Apple. The city of Big Shoulders likes our pizza equally big and deep, thank you.
Source: Chicago Tribune
Sorry, but I just couldn’t take you seriously about the Pizza when I read the following: “Like the evolution of the horse from the tiny Eohippus in the early Eocene, pizza evolved with stronger crust and brilliant engineering advances.”
Every good scholar knows that this evolution of Eohippus seen in textbooks is highly speculative and questionable in light of the fossil record.
Evolutionist Niles Eldridge, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, commented as follows:
“‘I admit that an awful lot of that has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs (in the American Museum) is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable, particularly because the people who propose these kinds of stories themselves may be aware of the speculative nature of some of the stuff. But by the time it filters down to the textbooks, we’ve got science as truth and we’ve got a problem.”
To delve into Chicago pizza history, in the 60s it was the Home Run Inn. Yet, to each his own including Tony. What would call the dear heart to be impeached is catsup on a Chicago dog or even more so, to show disrespect to the Italian Beef Sandwich which is nature’s most perfect food.
Food fight…. Greek town pizza is the best in downtown Detroit……
While I detest Justice Scalia continued attempts to destroy this country, he really has gone too far by dipping his toes into the pizza world. While Iike thin crust too, deep dish is the caviar of pizza. And the best place to get it is at Pequod’s. I think they have a location in Lincoln Park and in Morton Grove.
I don’t like Chicago style pizza because you will die of starvation before it is cool enough to eat.
Chuck
That is why Abby’s Pizza is great. None of that skimpy arse toppings, none of that bare dough. You get a pizza the Virgin Mary herself would be proud to wolf down.
see for yourselves. The background picture shows what it’s like.
http://www.abbys.com/
I have eaten at Abby’s for nearly 40 years. Still my favorite.
If “Chicago-Style pizza” were truly “pizza” it would not require the extra predicate “Chicago-Style” to describe it.
“The word pizza originates from the Latin verb pìnsere (“to press”) and from the Greek pitta (derived from ancient Greek pēktos, πηκτός, meaning “solid” or “clotted”). The ancient Greeks covered their bread with oils, herbs and cheese. In Byzantine Greek, the word was spelled πίτα, pita, or πίττα, pitta, meaning pie. The word has also spread to Romanian as pită, Turkish as pide,[2] and Bulgarian, Bosnian, Croatian, Macedonian and Serbian as pita, Albanian as pite and Modern Hebrew pittāh.[3] The Romans developed placenta, a sheet of dough topped with cheese and honey and flavored with bay leaves.
Modern pizza originated in Italy as the Neapolitan flatbread.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza#History
Charlton, Not in my case….. While I can make a good pizza, it does not compare to the Chicago deep dish pizzas that I grew up with. …. starting with Gino’s East. Thin crust pizza is in now even in Chicago.
SWM,
IMHO, the best pizza is the one you make at home, customized to your taste. We used to get pizzas regularly from a major chain. Twenty years ago they were excellent, but in recent years the toppings are put on as if the cost is coming out of the cook’s own pocket. My preference has always been their thin crust Super Supreme, with Jalapeno peppers added.
A few weeks ago it was getting late and neither my daughter or I had eaten and we didn’t want to cook. She was out in town, and offered to stop by the pizza place and pick up pizza on her way home. I ordered a large size. When she got it home and I opened the box, I discovered it had exactly four Jalapenos on it that I could see with the naked eye. The veggies were extremely skimpy, and it didn’t have all that much sauce or cheese either. Super Supreme my a$$. It was too far to drive back and waste gas, so I just pitched it and made a sandwich. I haven’t been back since.
I vote for Abby’s Pizza in East Wenatchee.
“Pizza, my dead Scalia, …”
I’m assume this is a typo meant to read ” Pizza, my dear Scalia,…”.
Interesting error by our host blogger.
All the best, Frank
Indeed, Frank, it was a rather unfortunate but Freudian slip.
The best pizza is Lou Malnati’s thick crust at the original location.
I think we can all agree the rise of Corporate Pizza™ has proven to be a blight upon the great republic of America. They introduced delivery in “30 minutes or less or the next traffic collision is free” and worse yet the practice of 2 inches of bare crust along the edges. Pisses me off every time I see it. You don’t pay 18 bucks to eat a ring of baked dough. Now some of the mom and pops are getting into the dough ring rip-off. You tell them “I want the toppings to go out to the edge” they look at you with a blank stare and you have to explain it. Then they bring out the pizza and see 30% of the pizza is bare dough.
Makes you want to create one of those Hitler goes ballistic videos with subtitles about how the American people cannot get real pizza anymore.
As long as the tomato pie enjoys personhood and full free speech rights as measured in political contributions, I can find no fault in his argument. 🙂
If only the Reps & Dems noticed that their differences are no broader than this so why vote for either! (Prefer deep dish myself but my friend insisted on buying the pizza tonight, so the Shakeys thin crust pizza in Manila was not bad!)
I can’t decide whose gastronomic dogma is funnier, Scalia’s or Turley’s.
One of the greatest advantages of a free-market, capitalist economy is choice. The American people are not stuck with a Soviet-style one size fits all approach. And unlike a communist or heavily socialist economy, a free-market economy produces ample supply to meet the willing demand. America has plenty of deep-dish pizza, and thin-crust pizza to go around. So live and let live: Scalia can gorge himself on New York style pizza, while Turley can have all the Chicago style pizza he desires. Bon appétit, fellas.
American consumers have always puzzled me in their efforts to sub-optimize in our free-market economy. In this case, why do so many insist on confining their choices to only one option? In other words, Chicago style pizza and New York style pizza are _both_ delicious. So why not enjoy both?!
Chi-town is my hometown as well, but we always had the thin crust too. The thick stuff is ok, just not what I’d want to eat on a regular basis. Give me thin crust, cut into squares, not wedges!
Go to Saint Louis and find real pizza. Or go back to Italy and find real pizza. That thick crust tomatoe pie in ChiTown is for the eastern European immigrants who don’t know nuthin bout birthin babies. As for Scalia and religion, never the Twain shall meet. And don’t let him ride a raft down the Mississippi.
Am not a lawyer so I’m eager to understand what this phrase means in the sentence below: “consistent adherence to a jurisprudential foundation.” It was a lighthearted post so I may be missing something obvious.
“I have always tempered this criticism with a degree of respect for Scalia’s consistent adherence to a jurisprudential foundation that is missing with some of his other colleagues.”
I’m with Scalia on this one! Give me thin crust pizza any day–especially the way my husband makes it.