Last week, food editor Andrea Rice, who moved to the Triangle from New York eighteen months ago, dug into our local pizza scene, looking for a slice that felt like home.
Mick Voiland responds: “As an NYC-born and Long Island-bred sixty-nine-year-old Italian of Neapolitan heritage who has lived in Garner since 2006 and who is a foodie and has cooked all his life, your article was the most comprehensive and well-researched thing I’ve ever read about my favorite food, pizza! My compliments! Just FYI, Brothers of New York Pizza (3450 Kildaire Farm Road, Cary) is one of my go-to places for a really good NYC-style pie.”
Michael E. Tigar believes our history of pizza, which we dated to the early eighteenth century in Napoli, didn’t go back far enough. “Your article on pizza was a gem,” Tigar writes. “However, the history of pizza goes back farther than your sources suggest. Since the first century of the common era, France has had pissaladière, a yeast dough with anchovies and onions and sometimes cheese, plus since the 1500s also with tomatoes.”
Emily, meanwhile, wonders why the Triangle’s best pizza has to be its priciest: “You are right—it’s important to look not just at what we might consider objectively ‘good’ pizza, but rather the way pizza exists in the ecosystem of the Triangle at large, how the heavy Northeast influence has shaped the pizza culture into the unique identity that I believe the Triangle is growing into.
“Though I’m sure this was not intentional, I would like to point out a correlation in your pizza ratings. The two highest-rated pizza joint—Pizzeria Mercato and Pizzeria Toro—each have an average cost of around $15 per pizza. I’m sure you and I can both agree that this narrows the scope of potential people who can experience the best pizza. On the other end of this spectrum, the worst-rated places, Pizza Times and Benny Capitale’s, have an average cost of around $3, depending on topping amounts.
“The only thing I can conclude from this is that good pizza in the Triangle isn’t accessible to the masses. And isn’t that part of what makes pizza delicious? The local pizza joints I look back on fondly in my memories democratized the community, bringing people together and giving everyone a chance to experience something good.”
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Better pizza usually uses better ingredients, and is more expensive to produce. It also tastes better and therefore is more popular. The more popular the pizza the more demand for the pizza. The price which these better places charge is at an equilibrium (optimally) that will maximize their revenue while covering the costs of the better ingredients. This is basic economics.