Old Forge Pizza is NOT pizza. It just isn’t. It’s what lunchrooms across America try to pass off as pizza. Those rectangle tasteless crappy things are just open-faced grilled cheese sandwiches with some tomato paste inside.

If you want good pizza in Scranton, Get onto Boulevard Ave and find “A little Pizza Heaven.” Best pizza in the area. Get the rosemary & Onion white pizza!

Chicago Deep-dish is my first love, but I like a good cracker-thin crust here and there.

as for the “cheesy-bread per capita”, i think chicago or new york might better fit that description…

What is different about NEPA in general when it comes to pizza is that you’ll find styles of pizza there that you cannot find anywhere else. These are grandma & grandpa’s recipes brought over from the old country & made with love. Old Forge bills itself as the pizza capital of the world because not only do they have more pizza restaurants per capita than anywhere else in the US, but the Old Forge/ Scranton area has proportionally speaking the highest population of sicilians anywhere in the US. The variety of pizza available in the area is nothing short of phenomenal.

You should do your homework beyond trying pizza from one place and dissing the region because of it. Revello’s just isn’t very good. I bake all types of pizza and have even managed to virtually perfect the area’s famous Victory Pig Style pizza. I bake with various levels of hydration, sauces, and blends of cheese, both neapolitan & sicilian styles and I can tell you, you’ve sold the area short by judging the area based up Revello’s.

-but- i will give you this. anything other than mozzerella on a pizza is just wrong.

You gotta love it… not the pizza, but the passion it evokes, y’know? As long as people love to eat distinctive food, there is hope for the world. I don’t care who likes or doesn’t like OFP, really; just stay out of Olive Garden and Pizza Hut and I’m happy.

BTW, for OFP lovers; the quality of Arcaro & Genell’s pizza has declined precipitously over the last year or so. They seem to have decided that their signature twist is going to be stale, mealy, flavorless crust (I know, I left you haters a hanging curve ball there). The sit-down meals are still great, but the pizza is now a “must skip” for me.

Thanks Shannon… I meant “put off by”…. I type like I am missing fingers and besides typo-s I sometimes omit words all together.

It’s funny that you mention “triangular slice” in reference to NY pizza. I remember back in the day before I understood why the pizza I was eating in NEPA was not like anything I was use to being called pizza. My husband’s grandfather thought that since I was use to round pizzas that by cutting my slice into a triangle would magically make it taste like something resembling pizza to me. Sadly it did not. I wish I could remember when I had the epiphany that OFP ≠ normal pizza. Alas, my eyes have been forever opened. And I laugh to think how silly and confused I use to be.

I was in NEPA again this past weekend for Easter, and of course Friday night pizza. I got Basillico’s again, and that was good aside from it being almost cold and that it must have been sideways in the car because the cheese was all smushed to one side. Everyone else had pizza from Larussa’s, and I don’t know what they did differently because I’ve never seen the OFP be so soupy on top. When a slice was removed from the company of the other slices, all the cheese on top of the remaining “tray” started to ooze all over the place. Maybe they just put too much cheese on top. It was scary to watch. The cheese that took over the world!

Oh well, I have nothing new to say about OFP. I still don’t like it. I’m going to Portland, ME in 3 weeks and plan on having some Bill’s Pizza while I’m there. Too bad for my husband, he doesn’t like it. But I doubt we’ll find an OFP outpost there.

For Italians, I think food becomes part of your identity and understandably people can be defensive about their regional food. There is pride for this small town it their world renowned pizza. It was unfortunate that the author could not find a way to express their opinion without begin so condescending. It is also childish that they seem so put of the reaction they solicited.

Love it or hate it, it is a pizza from a town that itself has survived so much and still keeps its identity full of proud Sicilians, victory gardens, and family owned pizza cafés, bravo Old Forge!

I’ll be the last person to defend OFP as you may or may not know from my earlier posts. But calling pizza in NEPA crap, that “these people” do not know what good pizza is and “poor them”, well, if that’s not mean, then I don’t know what is. You should read my comment #58 again or for the first time. It’s all a difference of opinion.

Ron, glad to help, I think this has been chewed over pretty well.

And Roddy, if you’re having a Super Bowl Party, Buona’s is running some specials with pizza, wings, garlic knots and soda from $40 all the way up to the big old $150 package and they’re delivering to Scranton on Sunday…just an FYI.

(And that’s the Greenridge Buona’s, not the downtown one.)

May we all share your insightful perspective.

I guess we’ll have to just agree that the majority of NEPA residents and a minority of people who have passed through NEPA have the opinion that OFP is the best pizza in the world. And that’s all it is: an opinion. My opinion is: I don’t like OFP. People in NYC might think their pizza is better than Chicago and the reverse is also likely. I think the point that Ron was originally trying to make was that Old Forge was proclaiming itself the “pizza capital of the world”. Someone else said that really it should be “pizza per capita” (see comments 12 and 32). Either way you slice it no one is wrong. Food varies so much from culture to culture and from region to region in just this country. It would be pretty boring if we all ate the same thing. The situation here is that Ron used his blog to say that he didn’t like OFP and while a lot of people agreed, several people disagreed and both sides got a little nasty. In the grand scheme of things does any of this matter? The NEPA folks don’t need to get so hot an bothered that everyone doesn’t like their pizza, as long as they like it and the know where they can get it, then that’s all that matters.

I could use a hug, thanks Rick.

it’s not a question of people liking or not liking old forge cheesy bread, it’s the claim that it’s “the best cheesy bread in the world” that’s being challenged.

lots of people eat at mcdonalds. lots of people like mcdonalds hamburgers – doesn’t make them the best hamburgers in the world now, does it.

rick, your friend from rome may have loved old forge cheesy bread, she might have liked the ‘unique’ variation on pizza, but did she proclaim it ‘the best cheesy bread in the world”? probably not. and although brooklyn is hardly rome, there are a lot of italian immigrants there who cook like they do “in the old country”, and given the various personal permutations of sauce, cheese and toppings, i can tell you that their pizza in no way resembles the bland tastelessness of old forge cheesy bread.

as for hugging, no offense, but no thanks. i don’t know where you’ve been.

I’m not sure of the point you are trying to convey. I don’t consider myself to have a very good opinion on these things because my travel is limited and I’m not the first one to try the weird foods (unless you consider OF pizza weird, which some of you do….), but I have eaten almost everything you named with the exception of prairie oysters and blood pudding. I do, however, know plenty of people who have been to faraway lands and who have eaten mystical and exotic foods like Tarantula in Vietnam for instance or blowfish in China. These same people also love Old Forge pizza. Friends from China, California, Mexico, and New York City to name a few all love our pizza. I once saw a guy bite into a fish right after he caught it, but that was on TV and I couldn’t get his opinion on Old Forge pizza. If you want to put stock in anything I say, we had a friend stay at our place over a holiday who was from Roma, Italy and she loved Old Forge pizza. I trust her opinion more than someone from Brooklyn… my apologies.

Also, emanuel, if we’re going to bash something, lets call it by its proper name. ‘Old Forge style pizza’, not ‘NEPA style pizza’. Just like its not Northern Illinois deep dish pizza, its Chicago deep dish pizza. Unfortunately the analogy doesn’t work for New York pizza cause it would still be New York pizza. At least Roddy has the decency to call it Old Forge cheese bread.

Also, if I sound hostile in anything I say, I don’t mean it that way so please don’t take offense. Sarcastic, maybe… I just think everyone in this forum needs a hug.

-Rick

i know that people have differing taste, and that, quite often “mommy’s cooking is the bestest cooking ever”, but there’s a difference between people liking old forge cheesy bread, and people calling it the best pizza in the world.

my aunt used to put ketchup on spaghetti. she liked it that way, and that was fine. but i’d hesitate to call it” the best spaghetti in the world”.

I do agree with you about Buona’s. I work with one of the owners and it is very good. If you like Buffalo Chicken Pizza, give it a try there. (Unless putting buffalo chicken on your pizza is considered blasphemy, then I apologize and will report to confession immediately).

We live in a country where people are free to do whatever they want with their food. Just because I don’t put ketchup on my steak doesn’t mean someone else should feel bad for liking it or that it is wrong to do. I put jelly on jalapeno poppers and some people think that’s weird, but it doesn’t mean its a terrible thing to do.

But hey, if coming on an Internet message board and bashing something that other people like makes you feel happy, go for it. But instead, perhaps you can offer your thoughts on your favorite pizza or maybe other pizzas you’ve had that you find interesting or unique.

Remember, just because something (or someone) is different from what you are used to, it doesn’t make them wrong.

-Rick

the type of meat is irrelevant, though chicken/turkey franks are on the low end of the taste scale. non-fat franks are to be avoided at all costs, and veggie franks are, well, what’s the point!?!?

as for stuffed cabbage, i like it. it’s just that if one asks for pigs in a blanket, one does expect pigs in a blanket, not stuffed cabbage. it’s like asking for tuna on rye, and receiving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I’ve had English muffin pizzas in my younger years, and yes, those are better than OFP.

I also think calling it “pigs in a blanket” is dumb. But most that I’ve tried in the area (homemade) are pretty tasty. I prefer it when they are called holupki (Slovak) or golumpki (Polish). Although according to Wiki, it’s common for Slovak immigrants to America to call them “pigs in a blanket”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golumpki

i have a theory. once upon a time there were a few italians born without a “cooking gene”. as such, they were lousy cooks and are capable of burning water. in order to avoid shaming the family, they fled the greater new york area and settle up in nepa, specifically old forge. that way, they’re close enough to ny/nj to go visiting the relatives on the holidays, but far enough away that their horrible cooking would not bring the honor of their families. (this may also explain why people up here call stuffed cabbage “pigs in a blanket”)

Now, if your pizza judging expertise was so good you would be able to tell that it wasn’t Kraft singles and that it was Jack cheese as another person mentioned. Also, having NY and Chicago style pizza and traveling around Italy doesn’t give you credibility to judge pizza. I’ve had pizza in NY and Chicago, does that mean I’m an expert too?

The place in South Side is Alfredo’s Cafe (see the last episodes of The Office). They have both NY and Old Forge style pizza and the pizza that everyone in the area likes is the Old Forge style.

I work in Clarks Summit and like Armetta’s pizza, but Garlic Jim’s is nothing more than Domino’s with a higher price tag. It actually tastes exactly like Domino’s, no kidding.