Anchovy pizza: All mine
What differentiates the picky from the discerning? In the arts it is understood that the discerning are enlightened enough to see excellence in mediocrity whereas the picky are merely difficult to please.
But in matters of palate and appetite, the distinction is less clear. We respect the discriminating diner, the cultivated drinker of fine wines. Of the hypercritical though we’re not sure what to think. Nobody likes a fussy eater, to be sure. And yet who could fault someone for the foods they don’t enjoy? That taste is ultimately subjective seems to us nowhere truer than in the realm of food.
Consider the anchovy. To my mind, the anchovy pizza – tomato sauce, mozzarella and the fish, nothing more – is the finest topping combination of all, the pie’s platonic ideal. But the poor anchovy is unique among mainstream pizza toppings in one regrettable characteristic: it is widely loathed. Hardly anyone can stomach the briny little creatures, and yet almost every pizzeria offers anchovies as a topping. Why? Well, it has to do with tradition: the anchovy was a fixture of pizza in the earliest iteration of the dish, in Italy in the late 18th century, when it was established as a popular alternative to the classic margherita style. Anchovies emerged as a customary topping for much the same reason they remain inescapable today: they are inexpensive, plentiful and may be preserved almost indefinitely.
It would be unfair to describe the anchovy-averse as picky. Far too many diners fit that bill to impugn the palates of them all. However, there is a connection between the distaste many feel toward anchovies and the automatic revulsion fussy eaters feel toward anything unusual. It’s no coincidence that the fussy eater, who swears they simply can’t stomach mushrooms or shellfish or egg salad, never seems to have a problem with chicken fingers or macaroni and cheese. It’s because fussiness of this sort has more to do with familiarity than taste.
Of course, essential to the magic of the anchovy pizza is the distaste it seems to so widely inspire. Part of its appeal is how rarely one is permitted to order it. Finding another anchovy admirer and ordering a pizza together is one of life’s great dining surprises, an act of profound culinary communion. Anchovy admiration is a fandom so often based on desire deferred; further proof that all good things are worth waiting for.