"Pizza culture is 1 of the nerdiest of nutrient cultures," says author Scott Wiener. (He would know. After all, Wiener possesses the world'southward largest collection of pizza boxes.)

The foodstuff'southward long-fourth dimension association with late-night fuel for programmers and engineers glued to their reckoner screens certainly supports that idea. But watching contemporary masters similar Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana elevate the arts and crafts into an almost solemn art class speaks to something fifty-fifty more relevant—that pizza breeds fanaticism, plain and simple. That blazon of singular, monomaniacal obsession is supported by insider's-just jargon, as a manner to distinguish the true pizzabois from the mere pretenders.

The fact that pizza arrived to America as an immigrant nutrient probably created the need for its own vernacular, says NYC-based pizza tour guide Alexis Guerreros. "The furious competition, dorsum-stabbing, family feuds added to it too."

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But equally much every bit we beloved feeling a office of this ritualized language, the reason for slang, some believe, is actually to sustain the folks grinding it out in front end of the oven, churning out pie later pie, seven days a calendar week.

"Having a handful of lawmaking words and cherished symbols you lot utilise amid your fellow comrades is something that's non for the customers, or even the owners," says Brian Dwyer, who heads marketing for the Pizza Brain pizza museum. "It'southward for the people in the shit, doing it every damn night."

To salute the tireless work of these pizza-makers (and endeavour to gain deeper access into their world), we called upon several pizzeria owners, historians, and writers to describe up a comprehensive vocabulary sheet. Our panel includes:

  • Marking Bello, Pizza A Casa Pizza School in NYC
  • Brian Dwyer, PR for Pizza Brain, the globe'southward outset pizza museum
  • Frank Pinello, owner of Best Pizza
  • Scott Wiener, author and founder of Scott's Pizza Tours
  • Adam Kuban, proprietor of Margot'south Pizza pop-up, founder of the now-defunct pizza blog Slice
  • Brian Hernandez, PMQ'southward test chef
  • Miriam Weiskind, tour guide at Scott'due south Pizza Tours
  • Alexis Guerreros, tour guide at Scott'southward Pizza Tours
  • Kenji López-Alt, managing Culinary Managing director at Serious Eats and creator of The Food Lab
  • Jamie Slater, GM at Large Daddy's Pizzeria

Avalanche

The event of somebody picking up a slice of pizza fresh out of the oven and all the toppings sliding correct off of the crust.

Basic

The leftover pieces of crust that are discarded on a plate.

Cheese pull

That stringy connectedness of cheese from a piece to the pizza, or mouth of pizza eater. Typically used in TV ads for extra-cheesy pizzas.

prince
Prince St. Pizza, Sicilian slice. Photograph courtesy Adam Kuban

Cheese drag

When cheese pulls of the elevation of a slice.

Cheese lock

The placement of cheese on summit of the toppings so they won't slide around.

Coastline

Exposed sauce between end of cheese and beginning of crust.

Corniccione

A raised lip on the circumference of a pizza's crust. Typically used in reference to the rim of a Neapolitan-style pizza. A style of differentiating the chaff around the perimeter from the chaff on the bottom of a pie.

DIFARA
Dom DeMarco of Di Fara. Photo by Chris Schonberger

Cut

What a slice is referred to in Sometime Forge, PA. Best exemplified by Salerno's Café.

Donut

A hole in the dough (typically panic moment, every bit you don't want the sauce and cheese to leak onto the oven).

Doughnating

Used when portioning balls of dough for service. It's the act of taking dough from 1'southward main mix and working it into a undersized ball to make information technology the right weight/size for a unmarried pie.

Wing pie

This phrase signals that you lot need a pizza fast because of some sort of fault with the outset attempt.

Front door

The principal opening of a coal-fired brick oven

colony
Colony Grill in Stamford, CT. Photograph past Liz Barclay

Frosty Governor

A customer who wants a potable.

Grandma

The kind of pizza fabricated at domicile in a sheet pan before the days of the pizza stone. The dough is pushed out to the edge, and so topped and baked. The major characteristic is that the crust has not had time to proof, unlike the Sicilian slice, which has more than air in the crust. Grandma slices are thinner and more dense, whereas Sicilian slices are thicker and puffier.

Hole structure, or nibble

The network of gluten fibers in a crust that create a lattice-similar cyberspace in the interior of the crust. This term is shared with the larger bread-baking world.

Isosceles

A slice from a perfectly cut pizza.

Leopard spotting

The phenomenon whereby small bubbling along the rim of a pizza puff upwardly and are burned black. More often than not happens in the intense rut of a wood-fired oven (but sometimes in coal-ovens or other blazing-hot ovens). If done right, the spots aren't acrid or bitter, and they are really a desirable trait among many pizza fans and pizza-makers.

queens
Photograph by Liz Barclay

Lo-mo

Term used to describe depression-moisture mozzarella cheese.

Mutz

Mozzarella

On deck

Pizzas ready to exist loaded into the oven.

Party cutting

A round pizza cutting into squares. Mostly establish in St. Louis.

Pie

Word commonly used to describe an entire pizza; the term tends to be used more on the e coast

Pie in the sky

Passing stretched dough to the other side of the line (applies to spaces with a bigger kitchens).

queens2
Dani's in Kew Gardens, NY. Photo by Liz Barclay

Pie walking

When an social club is up and ready to exist taken to a table.

Pizza palate

A.k.a., pizza burn down or roof burn—a burn on the roof of your mouth from pizza that'south too hot.

Pizzaiolo/pizzaioli (masculine) & pizzaiola/pizzaiole (feminine)

Italian for pizza maker. Note the masculine and feminine forms; a lot of people mess this upwards. Also, like cornicione, it'll make you sound like an ass if you're using information technology exterior the Neapolitan context.

Plain

If you lodge a "evidently" in New Oasis, it means no cheese. In NYC, y'all say slice for a regular cheese, not "tin can I take a cheese slice." Depending on where you are in the state, the word takes on dissimilar meanings.

Pot cheese

Some other proper noun for ricotta, ofttimes used in Newark. "Allow me become a slice with pot cheese on meridian."

Reggie alarm

A alert that lots of tourist types just walked in. Exist advised: bad tips, clueless ordering, messy tables, lots of questions about 'how the bill of fare works.'

orchard
Photo by Liz Barclay

Roadie

Slice taken for the road.

Rocker

A mezzaluna or curved blade for cutting Chicago deep-dish pizzas.

Roller

A pizza-slicing wheel.

Soggification

When the crust gets damp from too much liquid on superlative, or from enclosure in the pizza box.

Sauce 'em all, cheese 'em all

An example where a bunch of plain pies take just been ordered. Ways treat everything on the line the same way.

Sinatra

Newark parlance. When a pie comes out perfectly (i.e.. golden color on the edge of the crust, sauce peeking out from the edge of the cheese, cheese is evenly toasty, orangish oil glistening), it's called a Sinatra.

Slap out some skins

The act of stretching out dough balls.

twoboots
Photograph by Liz Barclay

Snag 'n' drag

The activeness of taking a slice of pizza from the tray—you must snag, then drag, horizontally to ensure null slips off the crust

Dominicus pie

Usually used in connection with an inexperienced dough thrower. Sometimes the skin is uneven, and the dough tends to have sparse spots in the center of the pie from carrying a heavy load of toppings. When information technology's loaded in the oven information technology may develop a small hole, which must exist cut so the the hole doesn't sit in the center of a slice. Sometimes chosen a holey (holy) pie, this type of apprentice-hour pizza is usually referred to as a Sunday pie.

Swingin' hot

When the guy running the oven is swinging a hot pie out of the heat and doesn't desire to hit someone. So if a person calls "swingin' hot," everyone freezes until the pie touches downwards on the "LZ" (landing zone).

Three Bears-style

Pie is cut in unequal size slices. (Momma Acquit, Papa Conduct, and Babe Carry slices—as well large, likewise minor, just right)

best-pizza-7

TJT

"Tip Jar Time," meaning, a bunch of customers merely walked in—figure out how to gratuitous up some of their loose cash.

Upskirt, or nether the hood

Checking out the lesser of the crust to audit char marks.

Wet mutz

Refers to fresh mozzarella.

White Firm (a.thou.a., The Obama)

Used to describe whether a pizza is to-go or for the house. The best selling pie at Best Pizza is the white pizza. So if they're cooking white pizza for the firm, they call it a white firm, which and then became the Obama. "I need an Obama!"

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