March 31, 2023

Pizza is American (Midwestern), not Italian, not East Coast

Lone food post here as I'm investigating other topics in greater detail. But my comment about Pizza Hut providing a public space back in the good ol' days got me thinking -- what is the role of pizza in American ethnogenesis? I'm really trying to avoid the topic of food for now, but I couldn't help it.

Everyone knows the hamburger is an American invention, and so distinctive of us that foreigners call us "burgers". I already reviewed (perhaps in a comment) that burgers fit the usual pattern of American cultural creation -- belonging to the out-West region (from the Midwest to the West Coast), and taking shape after the Civil War & Reconstruction era.

If either sub-section of the back-East region were the definers of American standards, we would have nationally adopted either fish / seafood or chicken as our national meat, instead of beef (and hamburgers specifically).

But what about pizza, which ranks right up there with hamburgers in defining American tastes? Doesn't that have an Italian name, and wasn't it brought here by immigrants from Italy? Doesn't it stretch back into time immemorial, at least in the Olde Worlde, and we are just the most recent group of people to enjoy this ancient meal?

Not at all -- this is America we're talking about here. But it's really true of every empire, whose expansion accompanies (is driven by) a rise in collective cohesion (asabiya), which has been raised so high by the people finding themselves on a meta-ethnic frontier. In banding together and cohering so intensely, they produce a whole new culture, no longer the culture they used to be before they had been tested and transformed by their engagements with the meta-ethnic Other.

Claims about the invention of pizza go back no earlier than the 1800s, which is not even Early Modern. And because none of the claimants can agree, it means they're mostly making it up, to boost their regional hometown pride. Otherwise everyone would know where it came from, and perhaps even when -- like haggis being Scottish rather than from southern England.

The one specific claim of which individual or which establishment is Raffaele Esposito, who supposedly invented it in 1889 in Naples. If it had an older provenance, no one -- not even a southern Italian -- would have the gall to try and claim personal credit for its invention. So, something like pizza was being made at least by one guy in one city in Italy in the very late 1800s.

But the first pizzeria in America was opened in 1905 (Lombardi's in NYC), and several regional styles were already under way by the 1920s (such as New Haven style). Because pizza was not even widely established in Naples circa 1900 -- having been invented by one guy, or at least being a new trend, just 10 years earlier -- it makes no sense to treat it as an origin, and the American styles as derivatives or carry-overs.

They were contemporaries, or siblings, or peers -- not parents and children. It's just that some of those siblings were growing up in southern Italy, and other siblings were growing up in America (by people genetically related to the former, but becoming culturally assimilated into their new country, like dropping their Romance language).

And much like other forms of sibling rivalry, some siblings excel more than others, are more popular, and so on. Ultimately, by the mid-1900s, American pizza won over its southern Italian sibling. The whole world treats American pizza as the standard, for the unqualified term "pizza", and its former rival has to be qualified with "Neopolitan" or "Sicilian" or whatever. Americans are responsible for spreading pizza around the world by now, not anyone from any region of Italy.

We can go further than that, though, and trace the triumph among varying styles of pizza within America. Neither of the East Coast styles became the standard, and both are closer to the Neopolitan sibling style.

New Haven pizza does not require cheese -- and spiced tomato sauce on a baked flatbread is not pizza. It does not require meat or vegetable toppings of any kind. And the crust is thin, chewy, and easily foldable, similar to New York pizza.

New York pizza does require cheese, and it is spread over most / all of the surface -- unlike Neopolitan pizza, where spaced-apart hunks of mozzarella are treated as a topping rather than a base layer. But it also tends to avoid meat and vegetable toppings. The crust is very thin, chewy, and foldable -- and indeed, that is how it is actually eaten, folded over into what is actually a kind of two-faced sandwich. The mouthfeel is bread on the top of your mouth, bread on your tongue and lower mouth, with the tomato sauce and cheese oozing out of one side like a filling.

It's like a calzone, with some assembly required by the user. Literally nobody else eats pizza that way, and no one bakes the crust to accommodate that form of eating it. This is also why their slices are so huge -- they're meant to be folded in half, so they aren't so unwieldy in the hand, unless you mistakenly eat it like standard pizza (without folding, trying to hold up the entire lower crust with one hand).

Just like their low back rounded vowels that they refuse to give up after a national -- and by now, international -- standard has been settled upon, New York pizza eaters refuse to give up their "calzone with some assembly required" model of pizza. And they refuse to cover it with meat and/or vegetable toppings, preferring it with the base layer of cheese only.

Also in the first half of the 1900s, getting started sometime between the '20s and '40s, came the Chicago style. The timing makes it another sibling of the early period of innovation, not a derivative from another preceding style. Although not quite the national standard, this is much closer to what became the standard, and if any single style is the origin of the standard, it's Chicago style.

It's circular, cut into wedges, has a thick enough and solid enough crust that it doesn't bend or fold much in the hand, the perimeter has a noticeable height to it (helping to grip it), it's more of a deep-dish or pan thickness, and indeed it is baked in a pan (with walls to shape the outer crust upwards) rather than on a totally flat sheet. Most importantly, though, it added whole new categories of key ingredients -- meat and/or vegetable toppings, like pepperoni.

Pepperoni is so necessary for pizza, that it's hardly pizza without pepperoni -- or some other meat in its place, but ideally as close as possible, like Italian sausage, not ground beef (fine for burgers, but totally out of place on a pizza). And vice versa -- Americans almost only eat pepperoni on pizza, not as an all-purpose lunch meat (that would be salami).

The incredible thickness of Chicago pizza must be linked with the appearance of loads of meat & veg toppings, since it can withstand all that extra weight, and the perimeter is walled, so they're less likely to spill off over the side.

You simply can't pile toppings onto New York pizza, given how flimsy the crust is. You could hypothetically pile toppings onto one half of the slice, meant to be the lower side of the eventual calzone, and then leave the other half with no toppings, which would fold over the topping side like a blanket. If toppings were on both halves of the slice, they would spill off of the top half of the calzone when turned upside down to fold over the other half. Toppings on only half of each slice requires too much fussing around when spreading the toppings -- you'd have to slice it first, then spread toppings on half of each slice at a time, instead of spreading the toppings over the whole surface at once, then slicing it.

Similar to Chicago style is Detroit style, invented in the '40s, which is rectangular (and cut rectangularly), but also baked in a pan with high walls, making it deep-dish, the crust is not flimsy, and requiring meat / veg toppings. The only difference is the cheese is spread from edge-to-edge, forming a hard crispy edge of cheese around the perimeter where it's contacting the baking pan. Other than the lack of a familiar un-cheesed perimeter, it's close to the standard.

Quad Cities style, on the Iowa / Illinois border, and invented in the '50s, is another type close to the standard. It has a dense enough crust to support ample toppings, requiring meat (such as sausage), there's an un-cheesed and raised lip of bread around the perimeter, and the only notable difference is the cheese going on top of the sauce and meat, rather than between those layers. It's circular and cut into strips, not wedges.

St. Louis style is similar to the standard as well, only having a much harder and crispier crust, like a cracker, since the dough is unleavened. And so, despite being thin-crust, it's still sturdy enough to carry tons of meat & veg toppings without folding and spilling them. It's circular and cut into strips or squared-off pieces. I can't easily find when it first came out, but the main chain for this style -- Imo's -- was founded in '64, so no later than then.

There is still enough variation in pizza that it can be thin-crust or deep-dish, as long as the crust is strong enough to support lots of toppings. Even Chicago, famous for the deepest-dish style, also has a thin-crust style, but it too is sturdier and piled with toppings, unlike the East Coast and Neopolitan styles.

* * *


To recap -- it's all about the meat (and possibly vegetables). Neopolitan pizza does not require meat toppings, nor do New Haven and the usual New York styles (at most, New York style has some sparse pepperoni, not multiple / piled-high toppings). This transforms what would have otherwise been a mainly bread meal into something with animal protein and fat (some of which renders out into the cheese and sauce -- mmmm). It gives it a savoriness, crispiness, and well-roundedness that would not be there without the meat.

Sicilian style comes somewhat close to this concept, since it often (but not necessarily) includes anchovies -- yes, that's where this strangest of toppings came from. There's nothing more non-standard than putting fish on pizza, even though it is a meat. It's not the right kind, because it wasn't created in the right region of the world for pizza innovation -- the American Midwest. Perhaps related to the Midwest not having tons of seafood available, marking anchovies as suspiciously East Coast -- and by that mere fact, not feasible as an all-American standard.

Neopolitan pizza doesn't even cover most or all of the surface with a single vast expanse of cheese -- even New York pizza manages that!

Claiming that American pizza is merely Neopolitan pizza "with meat / veg toppings", as though it's a slight variation on an existing theme, is like saying a slice of bread with onions, lettuce, and tomato, and ketchup & mustard, is a "hamburger" -- the American hamburger merely adding the beef patty onto the existing, traditional "hamburger" that had no meat at all. Yeah sure. No meat, no burger. No meat -- especially pepperoni -- no pizza. And if there's no meat, it had better be loaded with olives, onions, and other vegetables to make up for it -- not a lack of toppings altogether!

* * *


Having established what makes pizza pizza, and roughly when and where it was invented, let's take a quick tour through the biggest pizza chains today, some of which are internationally dominant, and see where they're from.

Pizza Hut is by far *the* American pizza maker, and it's not from any of the 4 major Midwestern pizza regions -- but Kansas! Even further out West. But still resembling the other Midwestern styles, not the East Coast or southern Italian styles.

It was founded in 1958 by Dan and Frank Carney -- doesn't sound like their ancestors brought a recipe with them from Italy. Pizza is American, anybody can innovate on the basic concept, regardless of where their bloodline traces back to. And of course even with Italians, it isn't their genes that cook the pizzas, since their genes have been there forever, and Neopolitan pizza only showed up around 1890. But even broadening "family background" to mean culture, not genes, pizza is still open to anyone, even if your ancestors were culturally Irish.

Next is Domino's, hailing from Michigan, although not reflecting the Detroit style very much. It's similar to Pizza Hut, but with a less thick crust. Founded in 1960 by two brothers whose last name is Monaghan -- not very Italian, again. They did, however, acquire their first store from Dominick DeVarti, who is of Italian background.

Third by number of US locations is Little Caesars. Perhaps you thought of this chain when reading about the Detroit style, and in fact they were founded in Detroit in 1959, by Mike Ilitch -- a first-gen American whose parents were Macedonian (i.e. southwest Bulgarian). Although they do offer the standard style, they have usually included a Detroit style as well -- Big! Big! Cheese, Pizza by the Foot (some of the best pizza I have ever eaten), Pan! Pan!, etc. Their standard style was good, but their Detroit style rivaled Pizza Hut for deep dish goodness, without the "grease sponge" texture that Pizza Hut was known for. And that crispy caramelized ring of cheese around the perimeter really does add something crunchy and burned-y that standard styles don't have.

Next-biggest chain is Papa John's, founded in southern Indiana (on the border with Louisville, KY), much more recently than the others, in 1984, by John Schnatter -- not an Italian-American. It's in the standard style, with a pronounced lip of dough around the edge, mimicking the look and feel of a deep-dish style (which they do offer separately).

After them is Papa Murphy's -- another non-Italian name -- which hails from all the way out West on the Pacific Coast, originating in a 1995 merger of one store from the Portland area and another from the San Francisco area, now headquartered in Vancouver, WA. They offer a standard array of styles, and their distinction is the take-and-bake model instead of baking them in-store with ovens and equipment that only a specialized pizzeria could afford (you use your own oven and sheet).

The last chain with over 1,000 stores is Marco's, from the Toledo, OH area. It was founded by an Italian immigrant, Pasquale Giammarco, somewhat earlier than Papa John's (1978), but looks pretty similar to it or Domino's. Standard style.

Several rungs below in the ranking is Sbarro, with about 300 locations in America, which is the only East Coast style pizza that most Americans have ever had, due to its staple status in mall food courts. It was founded by immigrants from Naples to New York City, who opened their first pizzeria in 1970 in Brooklyn. It's more likely to have meat toppings, and less flimsy in its crust, than the typical New York slice, but it's still squarely within that style. Even when we were at the all-American food court, at an all-American mall, we could still tell that this was not all-American pizza -- it had to be qualified with "New York style" or whatever.

Americans treat New York pizza like a curious and amusing novelty, not as the ur-form to be revered as sacred -- much like how we treat New York accents (or Southeast accents, for that matter).

Ranking right up there with hamburgers, the most all-American of foods -- pizza -- is not an Italian creation, not something that originated on the East Coast and spread out from there, not something even created by people of Italian genetic or cultural ancestry. The inclusion of meat and/or vegetable toppings, especially the practice of piling on multiple toppings, and the requisite durable crust (thick / deep-dish, or cracker-like thin-crust), marks this as an entirely distinct meal from the flimsy flatbread + tomato sauce + scattered hunks of mozzarella.

It is fundamentally Midwestern American, particularly near the Great Lakes, but extending through the Plains all the way out to the West Coast. And it was invented in the early-to-mid 1900s.

This all lines up with the ethnogenesis of the Americans -- strongest where the frontier with the Indians had been most intense (including the Old Northwest, where Indian Wars were still being fought post-Independence), and taking place after our Civil War & Reconstruction, i.e. from the late 19th C. onward. That determined which Americans were the most American of all Americans, to set a national standard -- those out West, including the Midwest, not those back East.

36 comments:

  1. Can't neglect to mention Hawaiian pizza, easily the most hated and non-standard of pizzas. We'd rather eat a New Haven tomato pie, with no cheese, than pizza with pineapple -- or any fruit, really.

    Don't blame Hawaii -- they're out West, and would never invent such a heinously anti-American abomination.

    Rather, blame Canada! Yes, it was invented by a Greek immigrant to Chatham, Ontario, in the early '60s. That's close enough to Detroit, and is very much part of the Great Lakes region. But it's Canada -- they defected from New World ethnogenesis when they refused to join the Americans. Canadians were not tested by an intense meta-ethnic frontier with Indians -- and to the extent they interacted with them, they collaborated with the Indians at the expense of the Americans.

    Ever since then, America has defined Anglophone and Francophone culture in the New World, and increasingly more of Hispanophone culture. Canadians have always had a weak collective identity, openly joke about their country being fake, and just take part in whatever the Americans are inventing lately.

    The creator of Hawaiian pizza was inspired by sweet-and-sour Chinese food -- which is not allowed in pizza. Try again! But as a Canadian, he was entirely out of the loop of the converging styles of pizza toward a standard or consensus, which was only savory, not sweet at all, and not really sour either.

    If you're going to break the rules, I think savory and (bitter)sweet would work better. Like ham and Brie with apricots -- though without the tomato sauce if you're including apricots. Spread on some butter over a thin, even puff-pastry type of crust. It's hardly pizza by that point, but just by including a fruit, it's already not pizza -- might as well make it delicious!

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  2. Pizza is not Italian because even if the conventional wisdom is right and Pizza did originate in Naples or Sicily, it isn't Italian because Italian culture and Italian society isn't defined by the Neapolitans or the Sicilians. Italy's meta-ethnic frontier was in the north (i.e. in Florence, Milan, Turin, et cetera), against what was originally the French and Austrian empires, not in the south in Naples or Sicily. Anything originating from Southern Italy such as Naples is regarded as non-standard and not actually Italian.

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  3. Another example is chop suey, which were developed by Americans in the West but is said to come from China. If you go to China or Taiwan or Hong Kong, the restaurants don't sell chop suey and the native Chinese or Taiwanese don't make chop suey in their houses. It's a food only found in American restaurants and households.

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  4. Americans also typically think tacos as the hard-shell tacos. But those were developed in Texas and California in the early 20th century, not in Mexico. So tacos as Americans know it is specifically an American food, not Mexican.

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  5. Should also add that the Mission burrito was developed in San Francisco in the 1960s, and is now the most common burrito found throughout the United States and Canada. Not any of the kinds of burritos found in Mexico.

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  6. As a back east fella, my archetypal pizza is Papa Gino's. A little thicker than NY style, and only approaches the foldy floppiness if you buy by the slice and it's made just right, but definitely not Chicago/Detroit.

    Handles the toppings okay, but really best as cheese or pepperoni alone.

    I know it's not a national chain but it's huge in New England (though dying recently).

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  7. While Naples is southern and the meta-ethnic frontier in the Roman Empire was in the center / north (against the Gauls), and likewise with the Italian states vs. the French & Austrian empires later on, I'll cut Naples & the Campania region some slack.

    My main point is that pizza isn't even Neopolitan or Sicilian, whether those are considered Italian or not.

    But both Capua and Naples appealed to Rome for help when attacked by their fellow Oscan-speaking cousins, the Samnites, kicking off the Samnite Wars. Campania was mostly loyal, except for when the city of Capua defected to Hannibal's side during the 2nd Punic War (soon reconquered by Rome). That's more than you can say for most of the Oscan speakers, and Campania is contiguous with Latium / Lazio.

    Campania actually did play a role in Roman ethnogenesis, in the domain of spectator sports -- both the most Roman of sports, and the most Roman of architectural forms created to house it. Yep, gladiators and amphitheatres.

    Campania was under Roman control for a century by the time they show up (end of 2nd C. BC / early 1st C. BC, vs. Roman reconquest of Capua in late 3rd C. BC). And they transformed the practice of gladiator sports from a private funeral memorial to wealthy individuals, to a public spectator sport for all.

    This was not some deep ancient thing that the pre-Roman Oscan speakers did, it was decidedly Roman. But it did take root first outside of Latium, one region southward, before coming home in the form of the Colosseum about a century later (on a far more monumental scale).

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  8. An important distinction regarding St. Louis style pizza is that it is made with provel cheese (which is actually a registered trademark) or a near identically formulated cheese blend made by other suppliers that doesn't (and legally can't) call itself provel. Most St. Louis style pizza places will offer mozzarella as an option, if only begrudgingly. But then it isn't really St. Louis style.

    Little Caesars uses an unusual cheese blend that I believe includes muenster, of all things, based on reading something about them years ago.

    And as divisive and contentious as the pineapple as pizza topping thing has become, I've had it (generally with ham, or sometimes both ham and bacon) and like it once in a while for something different. I usually prefer the classic combo of pepperoni and sausage, or sausage and white onion.

    Story I'd always heard is that Hawaiian pizza originated with Shakey's Pizza, a chain that once had locations across much of the US, but I suspect that was urban legend. They began retreating in the late 70's, and have many fewer locations now. It was a favorite hangout of my dad and his frat buddies in the early 70's when he was in college. He took me there a few times as a young kid, though they were gone here before I turned 6 or 7.

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  9. Wow, nachos and tortilla chips are American too! Not too surprising -- if it's a long-time staple at Taco Bell, it's probably American, not Mexican.

    Tortilla chips first made in the late '40s in SoCal. These are different from Mexican corn discs like tostadas because they're cut into smaller pieces, made for dipping into sauces (which may include beans or meat), not to pile a bunch of stuff on top of at once.

    Nachos were invented by a Mexican individual in the '40s (whose nickname was Nacho), but never caught on there. His restaurant was on the Tex-Mex border, and the concept / recipe caught on in Texas and the Southwest, then the rest of America, and from America to the rest of the world.

    It's not a Mexican dish if it never became a standard in Mexico, or even one region within Mexico. He's lucky that he lived close enough to America for his creation to spread.

    And technically, he invented the version of tortilla chips + melted cheese on top + jalapeno peppers -- no dipping sauce. We did adopt that in America, but we also invented our own -- the cheese dipping sauce to go with tortilla chips, so-called "ballpark nachos". Same type you get in movie theaters or 7-11. That is not what the Mexican guy invented, since they're the "dipping chips" type, not "cheese melted on top" type.

    At any rate, this also goes to show the role of the Western frontier in American ethnogenesis. What is American food without tacos, burritos, and nachos? It's not simply that they are a core part of American cuisine, it's that we invented them, on that Western frontier, maybe taking some inspiration from the Mexican side, but inventing our own stuff.

    Can't say that about the South or Northeast, most of which carried over their Old World traditions.

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  10. And now, southern chicken vs. American chicken creations.

    Southerners popularized fried chicken, which was invented in Scotland hundreds of years ago (with no input from West Africans -- no source claiming W.A. influence can specify which tribe, region, or name of a dish is similar to fried chicken in the past, nor even in the present. There's no fried chicken in West Africa.)

    Very well, but that's not a contribution to a uniquely American culture, after we became a different people from the British. It's a carry-over from Britain (specifically Scotland).

    Apart from being a carry-over rather than an invention here, it has never become a national standard like hamburgers, pizza, tacos / nachos, etc. Everyone knows it, has probably eaten it at least once in their lives, but if they're outside the South (or maybe back East in general?), it's not a common dish.

    And when we non-Southerners do eat it, we're aware of the regional association, and it feels like we're going on an ethnic safari, eating what the strange natives eat. Not that it's bad -- it's just somewhat culturally alien (between hamburgers and falafel).

    Southerners LOVE chicken -- most or all of the chicken-oriented fast food restaurants are from the South. So they had a chance to create something new, and have it go national -- and there were no existing national American creations involving chicken, so the niche was wide open, with zero competition.

    And they still didn't manage to create a new dish, or have it go national.

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  11. What is the American chicken creation? Nuggets! They were invented around 1980 by McDonald's, which by then was headquartered in the Chicago area (originally from California). Not the South.

    How did they distinguish themselves from the already popular fried chicken? They did not have the bones or the skin, which is already a major change. They are still battered / breaded and then fried. But they're not given much seasoning before-hand (maybe simple salt & pepper), unlike the seasoned flour / etc. that goes onto fried chicken before frying.

    The whole new way of doing things was putting the seasoning etc. into a separate sauce, and dipping the pieces of chicken in just before eating. They're also cut into much smaller pieces, to make this dipping easier -- impossible to try dipping fried chicken into a sauce, one bite at a time.

    Nuggets then became elongated into chicken tenders / tendies / fingers / strips / etc., during the late '80s and '90s. In the mid-'90s, KFC debuted the opposite size change -- popcorn chicken (smaller nuggets). But McDonald's gets the credit, not KFC for just shrinking their size.

    Claims about "chicken fingers" being invented in the '70s are like the nachos claim -- maybe one restaurant served something resembling what we now call chicken fingers / tenders. But it didn't go anywhere, so they are not the origin or parent of the future children.

    Buffalo wings are also not nuggets -- they're fried chicken, with the seasoning going on after frying. They have the skin and bones, come from larger cuts that are dissected a little bit at a time, and did not originally come with separate dipping sauce for seasoning (the seasoning came from being tossed in a hot sauce after frying). The separate cheese dip and celery sticks are a separate component to the dish, meant to be a refreshing chaser to the spicy wings -- not the source of seasoning for unseasoned chicken, like nuggets and tendies.

    Nuggets, tendies, and popcorn chicken could not be more popular as an American chicken dish, and from there they've traveled around the world. Even the old-school fried chicken giants like KFC had to include nuggets of some kind, lest they remain out-of-touch and un-American. But the arrow doesn't go the other direction -- McDonald's never had to adopt fried chicken or perish.

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  12. That brings us to Chick-fil-A, from Atlanta. Their original specialty was a fried chicken sandwich, dating back to the '60s, which is a decent attempt at doing something new and American with chicken. It was meant to compete against the hamburger in the "American sandwich" category.

    Chicken breast sandwiches (whether breaded or not) are more popular nationwide than fried chicken, because it does resemble the hamburger, just with a different type of meat. Never as popular as the burger, of course, but still included at McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King at various points in the '80s and '90s, and by now a staple.

    But more to the point of them not being as popular as burgers, they're not as standard as nuggets just within the chicken category. Not even at Chick-fil-A! Their top-selling item was their nuggets for 2018-20 (maybe earlier?), and their sandwich only took over the #1 spot in '21 and '22. Imagine inventing / popularizing the chicken sandwich, and it's still your version of McDonald's nuggets that are neck-and-neck with it in demand.

    Chick-fil-A does offer their own spin on nuggets, grilled nuggets, which are not breaded or battered, no bones or skin, just grilled instead of fried -- but still cut into the same size pieces, lightly seasoned, meant for dipping in a flavorful sauce just before eating. Naked nuggets.

    I really wonder how much the fried or grilled chicken sandwich owes to the hamburger, which set everyone's expectations. Just slide out the beef patty, slide in a chicken patty or grilled breast, and it's seamless. Chick-fil-A developed their sandwich well after the burger, and consciously trying to compete against it with a different meat.

    Consider the fate of another back-East sandwich -- the Philly cheesesteak. These taste infinitely better than any variety of chicken sandwich, or nuggets for that matter. It's chopped steak! Plust sauteed onions, and melted provolone cheese all over -- it's so much better! But it doesn't have the familiar array of vegetables (sometimes none), the bread is a sub-style roll, held and eaten a bit differently, and there's a lot more bread (in both absolute and relative terms). Sadly, this one never caught on nationwide, even if we are aware of it and have eaten one here or there.

    But then there are all the Subway-type sandwiches that also have long sub rolls, and a shit-ton of bread (very high-carb even for bread). However, they are somewhat familiar from burgers and sandwiches by having meat and vegetables piled on, not just chopped steak and melted cheese. It's not the hot vs. cold thing either -- burgers have hot meat, melted cheese, crispy bacon. It's the lack of veggies, which is why a gyro or kafta or whatever other similar sandwich can get more popular in America than the cheesesteak.

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  13. I was about to cut the Northeast some slack, and say at least they invented the Reuben in New York -- but after a quick check, it was invented in Omaha, Nebraska! Sometime in the '20s or '30s, where it went on to win a national sandwich contest (this proves it had some kind of lineage after it, since winning a national contest naturally spawns imitators and adopters).

    I don't care much for deli style sandwiches, or delis in general. Neither do most Americans. But the Reuben always stood out for me, it's such an easy choice when you are in a deli or diner.

    Only time I ever really ate subs (hot or cold) was when I lived in Maryland, i.e. back East. Yes, made in a proper deli.

    If my tastes are representative of Americans (and as a non-Easterner, I'm sure they are), American sandwiches -- at least meant to be an entree -- are supposed to be hot, not cold. Cold sandwiches are just an after-school snack. Even your school lunch, you'd rather be a nice hot burger or sloppy joe from the cafeteria, not a cold bologna and unmelted cheese sandwich from home.

    Reuben is hot, with melted cheese. Burgers are hot, with semi-melted cheese. Fish sandwich, chicken sandwich, both hot. I always liked the meatball & melted cheese sub, or a cheesesteak at the grill on campus in college. Among the various sub sandwich chains, none of them insist on the superiority of cold -- in fact the #2 chain, Quiznos, is famous for specializing in toasted subs.

    And if we add anything else onto an established sandwich, we'd like it to be hot and cooked as well -- like the now-standard bacon cheeseburger (not a slice of room-temp ham), or other things like a fried egg (mmm).

    I couldn't find where the meatball sub or chicken parm came from -- they're both American, but as we saw with pizza, there are people of Italian background in the Midwest, too, not just the East Coast. And it's Midwestern pizza, not ACELA pizza, that became the standard. I wonder if that happened with these hot meat & melted cheese sandwiches, too -- usually the East Coast norm is cold cuts. They would be like the Reuben or the hamburger, hot sandwiches from out West, not cold cuts from back East. I dunno, though.

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  14. Nothing more revealing of back-East puritanism than cold sandwiches, especially ones meant to be the better part of a meal, not an after-school snack to tide you over between lunch and dinner.

    It's not just Italian or Jewish delis back East. It's Au Bon Pain (founded in the Boston area, mostly East Coast still), which skews way toward the cold / room-temp side. Nothing wrong with an occasional caprese sandwich, but when they put in the chicken, it's cold! Who wants a cold chicken sandwich? Well, throw in chicken salad or tuna salad or ham salad or egg salad sandwiches too. They're OK, but they're not that flavorful, and not as American for an entree.

    If you want the basil pesto becoming fragrant from its oils getting heated up, the chicken to be warm, the mozzarella melting, the tomatoes half-stewed, and the bread toasty and crunchy -- you'll have to go out West and have a "panini", either pressed in a George Foreman grill contraption, or heated up in a toaster oven.

    Both of these can claim descent, or at least inspiration, from "Italian cuisine" -- but one is way more American than the other, and is more common out West.

    Panera began in St. Louis, MO, and is much more into grilled sandwiches than Au Bon Pain. (They were sometimes under the same owner, and former ABP's were re-branded as Panera's, but might have kept their puritanical roots in the menu, not sure.)

    Starbucks became famous for offering heated sandwiches -- along with the cold ones like egg salad, if you insisted, but didn't you come to Starbucks for the all-American experience? Get it heated! Starbucks is from Seattle and is most popular out West, although the dominant coffee shop chain all around the country.

    Even for "just tiding you over" sandwiches, what American wouldn't prefer a grilled cheese, BLT, or egg mcmuffin? Or pizza bagels?

    Cold meat and cheese is for a light snack. Real meal needs heat, Grug want fire-meal when hungry.

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    1. I feel Subway and similar deli-style restaurants get an inordinate share of the office and business worker lunch trade which is their niche. Hot fragrant food is smelly in an office and cold sandwiches are also easy meals for a group; just order a party tray of different ones and everyone can usually find something they can eat. This is a benefit of pizza too for families or parties too, pizza portioning is a lot easier than hamburgers. Only fried chicken is close. The sub places also lean heavily on being a putatively “healthier” and lighter option too and at work eating 1000+ calories of burgers or pizza to sit down again in a meeting is just too much. Subway went insane with overexpansion and franchising in the 90s and 2000 to where in a lot of workplaces too there’s a subway more convenient for a quick lunch than other options.

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  15. Are french fries American as well?

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  16. Fauna! Some help on building the roots to your gigatree. Right now, the sloping of the roots is inverted, and you picked up on that last time, asking why it looks like a dome.

    To simplify, the shape of roots is like an L, just with the corner rounded off. The vertical part touches the trunk, and the horizontal part touches the ground. The dome-like shape you made has those reversed, with the horizontal part touching the trunk, and the vertical part standing away from the trunk, more like an arch (or dome).

    That also makes a hard angle where they touch the tree -- the top of the arch / dome juts right out from the trunk, rather than the roots gently forming a slide down away from the trunk.

    I think you were thinking of making the roots so gnarly that they would make arch-like shapes -- but that would have to be even further away from the trunk, after they've already made the gentle L-shaped "slide". It would be like a roller-coaster, adding a loop or twist after the initial sliding drop.

    If you want to do that, you have to make the L-shaped slide next to the trunk first, then make them bounce away from the ground further from the trunk.

    Another option to make the roots more of a playground or jungle gym, is to use the plain L-shaped slide, with no loops or twists or whatever afterward, but sculpt each root into a hill or mountainside. I.e., put a slope onto the side of each root. Then you have to scale a small hill to go over each of the roots. And the roots could have different heights, to make it more natural and rocky.

    However, the best / easiest way to achieve your overall impression is to make the roots a simple L-shape, with the corner rounded off -- and then excavate underneath them, at some distance from the trunk, so that you can still walk underneath them and have them feel like a canopy. Then you don't have to build them into loops above-ground.

    And add some lights in that underground area, to make it seem like a spooky hang-out space, and not just a quick tunnel through the area where you don't want to linger.

    Happy crafting, kirin! :))))

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  17. As usual, I don't want any explicit acknowledgement, as though I were some striver nerd whining to get his name included in the author list of a journal article when he just made a helpful suggestion.

    You're the one who's hostess of the party we want to hang out at, and whose giggly personality draws us in and makes us feel warm & fuzzy inside. Helpful suggestions when you're stuck is the least we can do to give something back.

    It's better for a fandom or community to have this cooperative or interactive way for fans to support the performer, instead of it only being donos, subs, superchats, etc. If that's all it is, then the fans are reduced to making it rain in a strip club. I'm sure the performers don't mind the extra money, but it's not as healthy as receiving fan-art, fan songs, emotional support, help during a frustrating gaming session, etc.

    Plus, it's not back-seating if they want it. ^_^

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  18. And Moom's coming back tonight! I've been replaying her Meilor Swift karaoke performances quite a bit during the downtime. Has anyone ever made the obvious fan song, "You Belong With Mei"? Hehe. If not, someone might have to... ^_^

    The cute wholesome content creator who's introverted but understands you and appreciates your connection, vs. the flashy attention-seeking content creator who is indifferent or loathing of her fandom, taking them for granted, etc.

    We all hope her asthma's improved, so we can be serenaded by the songbird sometime soon. :)

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  19. Mumei proved that insanity wins! Trying the same thing over and over, hoping for a different outcome? It totally did tonight! She was playing Q Remastered, some kind of physics / engineering intuition puzzle game. Pretty cool looking.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGgYVJ1ZOk

    At 2:22:45 she starts level 27, where she has to somehow get the guy trapped inside the cup to touch the right wall of the screen. She keeps trying to use a lever to flip the top / "right" side of the cup, to spin it around far enough to spill the guy out toward the right.

    While seemingly channeling some mysterious owl intuition, she makes a few minor tweaks, and in a series of "what the heck was that???" events, the guy winds up on the right wall, for the win!

    In all the other attempts, she was rotating the cup clockwise, hoping to throw him up-and-over the right side of the cup. In her winning attempt, though, the cup actually spun the other way -- counter-clockwise, which is all but impossible to do with the lever she'd been setting up.

    If you check it in slo-mo replay, the bottom / "left" side of the cup begins rotating as always, clockwise, but then gets snagged on the wedge to its left, like someone reaching out a hand to hold it still for a moment. Well, the momentum then throws the cup into the opposite rotation, as there's nothing acting on the upper / "right" side of the cup.

    But what, there's more -- the flipping side of the lever was lower than the striking side, like a spoon, allowing the cup some room to keep rotating all the way through, rather than get snagged on it.

    And that's not all! The wedge had also gotten knocked over to the right, so that it formed a solid ramp for the lever to fall on, rather than the lever and cup landing flat against the floor. Propped upside down on an incline, the cup released the guy down and out -- rather than up and over, as intended.

    And damned if he didn't have enough force to reach the right wall! It was jaw-dropping, everyone in chat was shocked as though she'd just performed a magic trick.

    It really was the mother of all triple bank shots -- without even planning it.

    Physics nerds with math equations -- or a feverish gamer determined to commit herself to the insane asylum?

    Tonight, insanity won! ^_^

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  20. Dang gurl, are you Q Remastered? Cuz you make me feel like rotating your shapes for hours until my brain melts down.

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  21. That really was a fun stream, Moom. :) Like Jump King or Getting Over It or the Shibon (?) rage game. Don't worry if there was a brain-melty moment at the end, it was 3 hours of puzzle gaming. Tetris fans know that feeling after a couple hours, hehe.

    Some sections in puzzle games are going to be a slog, but it's worth it for that one moment where everyone's gasping like, "Was that a MAGIC TRICK???!?!?!?!"

    Even on the non-magical levels, you showed good intuition and skill -- you invented the wrench pretty early on. If you don't come from a mechanical background, things like that might not even occur to some people.

    I like seeing streamers play these kinds of challenging games, since it allows them to be vulnerable -- maybe they'll do well, maybe they'll mess up, but they trust their audience to support them and enjoy the company while it's going on. Each time the streamer slips up, is an opportunity for the audience to point and laugh -- and when that doesn't happen, it shows we're here to support you, not tear you down, and you can trust us.

    It's not as though we're a big-brain expert instructor, and you're the student. Unless you screen the chat to be mechanical engineers, they're not going to be better at the game than you -- especially if they actually had to play it themselves, and not offer suggestions. Rather, the streamer and the audience (on average) are peers or equals, regarding skill.

    And as you play the game more, gradually you do become the expert, and your chat is not worth taking advice from, on average.

    We attend your parties because we like your company, not to be instructors in some class you're a student in. So don't worry if there's a section that's a bit slow or frustrating -- we're not going to dock points off of your test grade, we're your friends! Or brothers, or husbando, or whatever you think of us as collectively. ^_^

    If you get stuck, we can try to help you through it, and if not, well, who cares? Skip that part! Hehe. It's not a test, we don't expect you to answer all questions for full "credit" or appreciation. It's not the gamer Olympics, it's a party hosted by an idol. :)

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  22. The magic behind her trick was to set the base of the wedge close to the bottom / "left" side of the cup. That way, when the lever started to rotate the cup clockwise, the tip of the bottom / "left" side was so close to the wedge that it got snagged, forcing the momentum to rotate the cup counter-clockwise. If the base of the wedge is too far away from the cup's tip, there's nothing to stop it from rotating clockwise and going with the "over and out" strategy.

    You can see this is another attempt, which I didn't catch at first cuz she just restarted without fully failing that time. It's at 2:25:30. The wedge's base is really close to the tip of the cup's bottom / "left" side, and sure enough it gets snagged, and the cup starts to rotate counter-clockwise -- but that snag / error and unintended rotation direction upset Mumei, so she just restarted without seeing the cup get turned upside down and dropping the guy down through the bottom, which could have given her a hint about a whole 'nother approach -- down-and-out rather than up-and-over.

    But she managed to repeat the set-up later anyway. :)

    And who can blame her -- certainly no one, not even the mechanical engineers, were thinking of that strategy.

    It just goes to show that sometimes you're close to the answer, but there's some trial and error tinkering left to do before you unlock the secret. It's not always insanity to try the "same thing" over and over expecting a different result -- no two trials are exactly the same, especially when you're winging it and not in an experimentally controlled lab setting.

    She just needed to keep playing around with it until the base of the wedge was close to the tip of the cup.

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  23. ADHD feminine intuition to happen upon the solution, plus focused male autism to explicitly describe the solution so that it can be repeated in the future or taught to others.

    The yin and yang of a gurrrlll streamer and her chat. ^_^

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  24. >ywn be warmed by an IRL smile of appreciation when Mumei realizes you're the one other partner in the group project who isn't dead weight

    Looking back on all the fond memories of group or partner projects with girls in school, I don't think most of them were cynically looking for a big-brain to do the work for them and sponge. I rarely saw girls targeting the nerds.

    It doesn't take a genius in most ordinary cases, just someone who's motivated and actually puts in some effort.

    So it's more like they feel all warm & fuzzy inside because it makes them feel like they've got a reliable husband who is going to do his share of the work around the household, especially if it's the things that guys are better than girls at (like analyzing things, building things larger than a fine-motor scale, etc.).

    And when the girls put in their share as well, especially if it's the more feminine kind of activity, it makes the guys feel appreciated, not taken for granted, not being used or taken advantage of.

    Guys want that appreciation and validation more than they want to squeeze her body every now and then (even if her body *is* delightfully squeezable). And girls want to be appreciated and validated more than they want a random dick appointment.

    I always lol when I read about people who never watch streams talking about how streamers and vtubers are some kind of transactional Only Fans lite. Of course, there are some like that, but most are not. I feel sorry for them, for missing out on the wholesome and rewarding vibes that the typical vtuber community has, small or large.

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    1. "Delightfully squeezable". I have a saying, "Males are rough, hairy, and smelly creatures and females are soft, cuddly, and bouncy creatures".

      I find girly giggles particularly hypnotic and delightfully ticklish.

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  25. Also Moom, last night should remind you not to worry about "giving sub-par entertainment" when you're sick. If you're sick enough to not do your regular activities, sure, don't stream. But if you're running a high temp, or coughing, or something like that, we're not the judges of American Idol who are going to tell you to come back in a few weeks when you're better.

    We are partly there as an audience, and you as an entertainer or performer -- but the typical stream is not some huge concert that only comes around once a year. It's closer to the "casual comfy hang-out with friends" side of the spectrum -- it's just that the hostess of the hang-out sesh is playing guitar or piano or singing, providing *light* entertainment to her guests.

    LIGHT! It's just playing bideo gamebz with your fwens, NBD. ^_^

    We're there to hang out with our party hostess in sickness and in health, whether she's menstruating or ovulating, or whatever.

    The quality that we derive from your streams is not about how close they are to being the gamer Olympics, or the finals of American Idol, etc. It's from being socially and emotionally bonded with our cute, quirky, appreciative, talented, humorous, bubble-butted party hostess. ^_^

    It's just not a Moom stream without Moom. As long as you're moomin', we're moomin'!

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  26. Do you still think that monotheistic socialism is going to replace the polytheistic identity politics and American imperial cult as the current American empire collapses?

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  27. Some time ago I had a funny argument with someone on Reddit who was convinced that the global spread of pizza post-WW2 was Italian cultural influence. By that logic, apparently it was Levantine cultural influence when Euro colonialists tried to Christianize the natives!

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  28. I've been thinking about how the political realignment predicted for 2020 didn't happen and previous political realignments. But has there been a political realignment which happened in a cocooning rather than a outgoing atmosphere? Reagan revolution - happened during the outgoing atmosphere in 1980. New Deal realignment - happened during the outgoing atmosphere in 1932. 2020 election - everybody was still cocooning.

    You mentioned how identity politics was a barrier to political realignment because it got in the way of the Democrats winning crucial Trump voters. But 10 years ago you mentioned how identity politics was a result of the cocooning environment as it didn't get started until 1992 or so, and how it was completely absent from US society in the 1980s.
    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2013/10/identity-politics-balkanization-or.html

    It would probably have to take an outgoing atmosphere for liberals to finally let their guard down, abandon identity politics, and associate freely with Trump voters allowing for both to realize where they have in common.

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  29. Faunyaaa, have you built in Minecraft using a "skeleton and flesh" approach? IDK what the Minecraft pros call it.

    Part of the puzzlement you feel when building those huge roots or branches is that you're building them one cross section at a time, starting at the trunk, then moving one section away each time. So it can be hard to predict or plan what path the whole thing will take as you move away from the trunk.

    Buuut, if you built a single thin skeleton, and then went back to add on the cross-sectional flesh, you could plan its direction a lot better. It would also be WAY easier to make it twist and turn, pitch up or down, etc., by setting down a thin skeleton first -- not even the pros could make its main axis do all those twists, while building it one fleshed-out cross-section at a time!

    Think of it like sketching an arm -- you first draw a thin line for their upper arm, then another for their lower arm, then a little one for where the hand is pointing. After you set down this pose, you can go flesh out the outline of their bicep, tricep, forearm muscles, details of their fingers, etc.

    You're trying to fully flesh out the shoulder, then fully flesh out the upper arm, etc., and that makes it hard to control or visualize what the final pose will be.

    And that way, if you don't like the skeleton, you can "erase" or alter it without losing much effort. As opposed to not liking the fully fleshed out result -- then the whole thing has to be erased.

    "What would Ina do?" Hehe. Just think of it that way, like you're sketching or doodling, albeit in 3-D with blocks. For smaller projects, you can flesh out the whole sections at a time, but for a huge tree with bends and twists that take up large volumes, you need more of a skeleton-and-flesh approach.

    One final reminder about the slope of the line for branches -- close to the trunk, the slope is pretty steep -- maybe rising 5 blocks for every 1 block out. Then it gets less steep, maybe rising 3 for every 1 out, then maybe 1 for 1. Further from the trunk, it starts to level out to rising 1 block for every 3, 4, or 5 blocks out. That prevents the hard right angle where the branch meets the trunk.

    Oh, and if chat tries to get into a girl-hating mood by questioning your farms or other builds, just tell them they're just jealous that they don't get to inhabit the same magical Minecraft world with all the other Hololive cuties like you do, and to turn over a new leaf for spring by not being bitter jealous haters. xD

    Happy crafting again, kirin!

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  30. PS, I leave these comments on the day of your streams, rather than well in advance, cuz I know they'll go in one ear and out the other if I leave them too far ahead of time. I try not to make it last-minute either, but within an hour or two, so it'll still be fresh in your mind, but with enough time to get the gist.

    Just one of the many quirks of having a quirky audience. ^_^

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  31. Also, speaking of the cocooning/outgoing cycle, does the timing of the cycle coincide for the United States and other parts of the American empire like Turkey, Italy, or South Korea? Or are they offset by some number of years?

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  32. Mexico's political realignments

    The most recent political realignment is probably in 2018 when Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his left-wing anti-neoliberal populist National Regeneration Movement became the majority coalition in Mexico replacing the previously dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party which was the right-wing neoliberal capitalist party in Mexico.

    The previous political realignment could probably be traced to 1986, when the Institutional Revolutionary Party became a right-wing technocratic neoliberal capitalist party and the leftists which were originally in the Institutional Revolutionary Party defected and formed their own party the National Democratic Front. Eventually they became the Party of the Democratic Revolution in 1988 which was the main opposition party of that era. In 1988, the disintegrative leader Miguel de la Madrid rigged the Mexico elections so that the leftists in the Party of the Democratic Revolution could not outright win the election, leading to a victory by his successor Carlos Salinas in the election. The Institutional Revolutionary Party and a few other right wing parties dominated the era between 1988 and 2018.

    Now, before 1986 the Institutional Revolutionary Party was a catch all big tent party which basically included everybody in Mexico, and whose ideology was corporatist, similar to many other regimes around the world like in Italy, France, Spain. It was formed in 1929 by former leaders of the Mexican revolution (which took place between 1910 and 1920), concerned that not having any institutional structures would lead to chaos like the assassination of the president-elect Alvaro Obregón in the previous year.

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  33. Ron DeSantis is finally going after employers who use illegal immigrants in Florida, targeting the root of the illegal immigration problem in the United States:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/10/us/florida-desantis-immigration.html

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  34. I'm from the Quad-Cities, and we love our pizza. Stop in at Frank's sometime, in Silvis

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