Pizza Toppings, part II

There's no shortage of toppings you can put on a pizza. So I'm doing a second part to my pizza topping good/bad/ugly ratings. If you haven't read the first part already, I'm providing a link to it here. You might want to check it out after you've read this one. Or before, if you want.

Mushrooms: How often do you get to eat a fungus? Well, on purpose. I'm sure everyone has been eating a piece of bread that probably should have been tossed out a week ago, then noticed a bit of blue stuff on the side that shouldn't be there. And we're not counting penicillin. Thing is, mushrooms don't have a whole lot of flavour, especially after 15 minutes in the oven when sharing the stage with a bunch of livelier toppings. So on one hand, they're a bit of a throwaway topping. On the other, they add a certain texture to the pizza. And I like them just enough to put them in the Good column.

Bacon: Bacon is a big gamble. On the one hand, bacon is the tastiest part of a pig one can put on a pizza. But pizza bacon can be pretty sad. Sometimes you get hardly any. Some times you get something resembling big bacon bits. Sometimes you get hardly any of those, either. I like my bacon on a plate, preferably with pancakes or a cinnamon roll. Full strips, nice and crispy, please. That's just not going to happen when you put it on a pizza. So while the whole idea of bacon on pizza is good, the usual outcome is pretty Bad.

Black Olives: I'm no fan of olives in any colour. I make no bones about that. They are little black discs of nastiness on a pizza. I've heard that one has to eat a dozen olives before they like them. That's about twelve olives too many for me. And they just don't jive with most of the other stuff that goes on a pizza. That's more than enough for me to call black olives Ugly.

Sun-dried Tomatoes: Yes, I know. Pizza is already covered in a tomato sauce. Why would you want to put more tomato on tomato? We've already covered something much like this under extra cheese in the previous installment. But we're not just talking about ordinary tomatoes here. We're talking sun-dried. Sun dried tomatoes are quite unlike ordinary tomatoes that have probably only seen the sun through the dome of a greenhouse. The taste is different, the texture is different. I don't have anything against non-sun-dried tomatoes. I quite enjoy them. But a a few slices of sun-dried tomato can move a vegetarian pizza from the category of edible to tasty. Any topping that can accomplish that is Good.

Ham: I'm not a big fan of pork products. Bacon is good. Spare ribs are okay, although they are way too messy. Shaved black forest ham isn't bad. The other random parts of a pig should keep their distance from my plate. Don't get me started on the notion of eating pigs hind feet. Ham on a pizza isn't a great idea. First, it's ham. Second, it generally goes along with pineapple on the poorly named Hawaiian pizza. I suspect most Hawaiians are somewhat insulted that the rest of the pizza eating world has reduced the notion of being "Hawaiian" to being covered in pineapple and ham. But I digress. In case you hadn't guessed, ham is Bad.