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"Pizza" in China

liuzhou

By liuzhou
in Food Traditions & Culture

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted (edited)

I've mentioned often that China hasn't a clue what pizza is except that it's round. Slight exaggeration but only slight. 20 years ago it was unknown. Most  obviously they haven't a clue what to put on it. All sorts of atricities. So, it's time to present the evidence for the prosecution. All images are from my local delivery service listings. 

 

I'll start with the most egregious - the feared and loathed durian pizza. You didn't think I was going to buy one, did you?

 

durian pizza.jpg

 

 

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
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Posted (edited)

I'm convinced the Chinese are convinced pizza is a type of cake. In many places, the base is more like sponge cake than bread; sweet and well, spongy. Also, they love to stick fruit on top.

 

The is below is described on the menu as "Fruit colourful pizza (seasonal fruit*)" and is of course, lathered with Japanese Kewpie sweet 'mayonnaise'. Curses on squeezy bottles and whoever introduced them to China. All sorts of inappropriate foods get covered by irrelevant squiggles.

 

Fruitcolorfulpizza(seasonalfrruit).thumb.jpg.ac57bafb91a976cef1ca14cebe6a2f13.jpg

 

* Watermelon, dragon fruit and pineapple. And we thought "Hawaiian Pizza" was bad.

 

 

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

Smithy

Smithy

Posted
Posted

Oh boy, @liuzhou - I really don't know whether to laugh or cry over that last post.

  • Like 2

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
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Duvel

Duvel

Posted
Posted

Intermission

 

This „… in China“ installment unfortunately follows the trend of the last posts in various other threads, focusing on the odd and - in my view - unsuited examples that show very little of the overall picture; something I would expect from a general topic title.

 

Maybe to balance it out, some facts:

 

Of course „China“ understands pizza. You can buy a Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza in over 1000 locations and while purists may argue that’s not the best pizza there is, it is a representative of what pizza is supposed to be in the western world. That it adapts to local markets is not a surprise; but showcasing the (for Western audiences) oddest additions to the pizza world as representative for the pizza in an entire country is more counting on the „wow“ effect of the reader not able to travel to China (or Japan, or Korea, or Thailand …) and misrepresents the information promised in the title of the thread. An informative and fact-based assessment on the state of the pizza market in China including some market history can be found here …

 

Adapting a product to the local market, taking the customer preferences into account is not something spectacularly weird - it is common sense. Given that cheese is not a popular food item, many Asian countries add mayonnaise, which - contrary to the pictures in the advertisements - is baked with the pizza and will result in puffy browned strips of egg yolk / fat, that substitute the cheese role / mouthfeel decently. Maybe just  „China“ but not the OP  gets that …

 

Using fruit on pizza is not something to look down upon. We would celebrate fig, walnut and blue cheese varieties, no ? Or blood sausage & apple on a Flammkuchen. So singling this out as an odd feature of Chinese pizzas is more of a clickbait than a factual information. Almost all pizzas I had in 5 years living and working in China were salty and without fruit. 

 

Neither is the use of different bases - including more softer, sweeter versions. Cake is a bit far fetched, but one can peruse Modernist Pizza to understand the scope of what bases, shapes and preparations can encompass before again taking one or two examples as the „… in China“ representations. 

 

With that in mind I am looking forward to more informative & less „exaggerating odd things“ posts in this thread …

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted (edited)

I am not exaggerating odd things in the least. These are the first two pizzas on my local delivery app. 

 

Pizza Hut? Give me a break. They ship frozen pizzas from hundreds of miles away and reheat them in local stores. And they do durian pizza, too.

 

 

Edited by liuzhou (log)

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

Anchobrie

Anchobrie

Posted
Posted

I have seen things done to Pizza in Norway that you won't believe... Which is much worse as the cultural and metric distances between Norway and Italy are much smaller than between Italy and China. So, i can understand Chinese people have their own versions just like US people have their 'fake' mexican, or tex-mex, food.

 

Also, when entering the thread and watching the first image before reading, it looked quite similar to a classic, western-style 4 cheese pizza. Now I will never order a p[izza in china by its appearance.

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liamsaunt

liamsaunt

Posted
Posted
19 hours ago, liuzhou said:

I'm convinced the Chinese are convinced pizza is a type of cake. In many places, the base is more like sponge cake than bread; sweet and well, spongy. Also, they love to stick fruit on top.

 

The is below is described on the menu as "Fruit colourful pizza (seasonal fruit*)" and is of course, lathered with Japanese Kewpie sweet 'mayonnaise'. Curses on squeezy bottles and whoever introduced them to China. All sorts of inappropriate foods get covered by irrelevant squiggles.

 

Fruitcolorfulpizza(seasonalfrruit).thumb.jpg.ac57bafb91a976cef1ca14cebe6a2f13.jpg

 

* Watermelon, dragon fruit and pineapple. And we thought "Hawaiian Pizza" was bad.

 

 

 

Is this a sweet pizza meant to be a dessert?  It's hard to tell from the picture.  Does it have cheese on it?  Or tomato sauce?  It almost looks like the filling could be something like a sweet egg tart topped with fruit.  

 

I hate the type of pizza that is popular where I live.  It has an oily crust, and deliberately burnt edges, which is called "laced edges."  I believe cheddar cheese is used on it as well.  Overall, very unappetizing, at least to me.

 

 

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, liamsaunt said:

Is this a sweet pizza meant to be a dessert?  It's hard to tell from the picture.  Does it have cheese on it?  Or tomato sauce?  It almost looks like the filling could be something like a sweet egg tart topped with fruit.

 

It has some sort of industrial cheese on it. Maybe not tomato sauce. It isn't mentioned in the listing. (I've never eaten it, so can't be sure).

 

I don't think it's particularly meant to be a desert; it's just they think that's a pizza.

 

 

Edited by liuzhou (log)

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted (edited)

Moving on through the menu, at last we get some protein in addition to the cheese but still with the fruit. A delightful Wasabi Sauce Mango Shrimp Pizza. I am near speechless.

 

One thing I’m sure of, though; there is no wasabi on or near that. It’ll be the usual green-dyed horseradish. Obligatory squeezy bottle 'mayo' action!

 

WasabiSauceMangoShrimpPizza.thumb.jpg.28a1737bfa7087ee4ea86ba6b8738b57.jpg

 

 

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

Tropicalsenior

Tropicalsenior

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, liuzhou said:

A delightful Wasabi Sauce Mango Shrimp Pizza.

Sounds intriguing. I have a mango just going ripe, shrimp in the freezer and some wasabi, uh, green horseradish that somebody gave me. Sounds like just thing for dinner tomorrow night. I just need to know what kind of mayonnaise. Is it Chinese, Japanese, or maybe durian flavored?

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Yvonne Shannon

San Joaquin, Costa Rica

A member since 2017 and still loving it!

JeanneCake

JeanneCake

Posted
Posted

Is this delivery place specializing in "pizza"?  or  pizza is just one of their offerings in a  multi-page menu?  It looks (from the photo!) that they're just cutting/pasting the pizza image onto the wooden board....  wonder if they ever sell any of these?

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blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
Posted
39 minutes ago, JeanneCake said:

Is this delivery place specializing in "pizza"?  or  pizza is just one of their offerings in a  multi-page menu?  It looks (from the photo!) that they're just cutting/pasting the pizza image onto the wooden board....  wonder if they ever sell any of these?


Maybe the photos are AI generated!

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
52 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

I just need to know what kind of mayonnaise. Is it Chinese, Japanese, or maybe durian flavored?

 

Japanese Kewpie Sweet "Mayonnaise".

 

 

  • Thanks 1

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, JeanneCake said:

Is this delivery place specializing in "pizza"?  or  pizza is just one of their offerings in a  multi-page menu?  It looks (from the photo!) that they're just cutting/pasting the pizza image onto the wooden board....  wonder if they ever sell any of these?

 

It's a pizza only place about a quarter of a mile from my home. Fairly popular so far as I can see. I often pass it.

It's been there for a few years now and they have opened a second branch so someone must be biting.

 

 

 

Edited by liuzhou (log)

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
11 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Maybe the photos are AI generated!

 Could be. And they probably look worse in real life!

 

 

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

Anchobrie

Anchobrie

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, Tropicalsenior said:

Sounds intriguing. I have a mango just going ripe, shrimp in the freezer and some wasabi, uh, green horseradish that somebody gave me. Sounds like just thing for dinner tomorrow night. I just need to know what kind of mayonnaise. Is it Chinese, Japanese, or maybe durian flavored?

Don't do that to yourself!

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
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Posted (edited)

Fresh out of shrimp for the above? Don't worry! Grab yourself a bunch of rice paddy eels. They also offer this eel and mango version, but warn that if they run out of said mango, they'll use pineapple instead.

 

WeixinImage_20250822082308_229_9.thumb.jpg.b6450d130bf2caa4ef504e573a3bad20.jpg

 

They seem to have forgotten the "mayo" this time, but I'm sceptical whether they'll deliver it with or not.

 

 

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

Anchobrie

Anchobrie

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

Fresh out of shrimp for the above? Don't worry! Grab yourself a bunch of rice paddy eels. They also offer this eel and mango version, but warn that if they run out of said mango, they'll use pineapple instead.

 

WeixinImage_20250822082308_229_9.thumb.jpg.b6450d130bf2caa4ef504e573a3bad20.jpg

 

They seem to have forgotten the "mayo" this time, but I'm sceptical whether they'll deliver it with or not.

 

 

still no sight of sweet corn. I've seen that in Norway!.

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
23 minutes ago, Anchobrie said:

still no sight of sweet corn.

 

15 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:


I’m sure @liuzhou is saving the best for last!

 

I've been grappling with the moral dilemma of being totally open or subjecting the innocent to crimes against food, so have so far avoided any mention of  the yellow peril, although it seriously limits my posting options.

I will consult my psychiatrist and probation officer over the weekend and make my final decision. "To post or not to post. That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows or take arms against the yellow poison", as the 16th century pizza maker said.

 

 

 

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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