(Image courtesty of Netfilx)
I had never heard of Chef David Chang until he appeared on The Daily Show a couple of weeks ago to talk about his new series on Netflix, Ugly Delicious. As a chef, I have less than zero interest in what the latest “trends” are, who the next “hot chef” is going to be, and all of that nonsense that seems to grip the culinary world. I’m interested in good food, prepared for people to enjoy. However, after seeing him on The Daily Show, I had a feeling that this series would be a good watch for me…and so far, I’m right.
The series opens up with Chef Chang and his friend, Peter Meehan, visiting a NYC pizzeria that Chef Chang mentions is his favorite in NYC. Peter asks the owner of the pizzeria (whose name I didn’t catch) a GREAT question that seems small, “So why pizza”? The owner of the pizzeria says that he wanted to make pizza his way, and the first person who tried it loved it. That’s love and food in one package, a theme that gets repeated.
Four minutes into the episode, and the core question of the episode is hinted at when Chef Chang asks the owner of a Pizzeria another excellent question “What is actually pizza? If we were in Naples, would they consider this pizza?” The owner responds with a fantastic answer “I could care less what they say.”(My hero).
Eventually, they get to the place in America that redefined pizza…we’re at Spago, Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant in Beverly Hills, talking to Chef Puck himself. The exchange between these two chefs might be one of my favorite conversations ever; so even though it’s long, I feel the need to quote it in its entirety here because this not only illuminates the theme of this episode, but of the philosophies that I share with these chefs:
Chef Puck, “If they want to make pizza the same way they did in Naples 300 years ago, it’s good, but it’s just not our style”.
Chef Chang asks, “Do you think authenticity is overrated?”
Chef Puck with a fantastic response, “I love authenticity. When I’m in Italy, I want to taste Italian food. But America is a melting pot of cultures, so I think there’s nothing wrong with a melting of cultures.”
Chef Chang, “Do you think we’re losing craftsmanship in the pursuit of creativity?”
Chef Puck points out, “Creativity is good for somebody who’s a good craftsman. If you know the basics, if you know your profession really well, you can innovate. People hate change, but if you can get enough people who like what you’re making, and they get something from it, it’s worth upsetting some people with the changes.”
That exchange above is pretty much my philosophy on food. If you can make something that is going to make people happy, traditions be damned, then do it. Cooking food that people enjoy is FAR more important than cooking food the way other people think it should be made…
We spend some time in Naples, arguably the birthplace of pizza, where we meet Franco Pepe, a pizza maker in Naples who wants nothing to do with the rigidity of the Napoli pizza commission, the group that makes all judgements on what is Neapolitan pizza. (Speaking of the commission, we get to meet their head; a man who honestly, I dislike from first sight. He is more concerned with keeping up traditions than he is in making good pizza.) From the first moment that we meet Pepe, the love he has for his pizza is obvious. He says that many pizza makers just add toppings to their pizza…for him, it’s in the simplicity that makes a difference. His pizza is first cooked, with only the mozzarella on it. Then, when it comes out of the oven, he puts a tomato and basil reduction on it. Pepe, on his inspiration for this, “This was an intuition, an idea of mine. So when you eat the pizza, you really feel the taste of tomato, mozzarella, basil and of olive oil. This is the Mistaken Margherita.” Both Peter and the Brooklyn pizzeria owner are quite impressed, especially about how it, surprisingly, tastes like a traditional Neapolitan pizza.
What does Pepe think of the Neapolitan pizza consortium? Another GREAT quote from Pepe here, “For me, only good pizza exists.” This guy is my newest food hero. He doesn’t care what the Neapolitan pizza authority says his pizza needs to be. He’s going to make the best pizza he can, that makes him happy, and obviously makes a lot of other people happy. Pepe enlightens us by saying, “So I tell the new pizza makers, look inside yourself to create an identity for your pizza, and try to offer it to people in the best possible way.”
Cut to Chef Chang summing up something I’ve realized in this episode, “I view authenticity like a totalitarian state. It’s something that I think has been overvalued, but the reality is, it hasn’t been scrutinized enough. If you really boil it down to why food in Italy is going to be so good, it’s because you’re there. The terroir makes a difference. There’s micro-organisms, there’s the people there, there’s the smells, that’s what makes it. It’s not that I hate authenticity. I hate that people want this singular thing that’s authentic. There are people that are making Italian food that are more Italian in its idea and thesis than anyone in Italy is making, because they’re not using anything that’s imported. They’re using everything that’s around them.” YES!!! THAT is exactly what authentic is to me as well! You do the best you can, with what you have, and create food that makes people happy. That’s what I grew up on, and that’s authentic to me, 150%
Chef Chang asks to Peter and the Brooklyn Pizzeria owner, “Is it cheesy to say that as long as you care, or if you put love into the food, it’s gonna be delicious?” Brooklyn Pizzeria owner ends the episode with maybe the most Italian American answer possible, “No no no. You still need to know what, you know, good pizza tastes like.”
And so ends my review of the first episode of Ugly delicious…an episode entitled Pizza, that while yes, it could be perceived as being about pizza, is actually not truly about pizza at all. This episode asks an important question in the world of food. “What is authenticity?” I think it answers that question extremely well…be authentic to yourself with the food you make. No need to be authentic to what somebody else says you food needs to be…that’s authenticity in its truest form.
