Generally, the best way to slice a pizza has been to divide it into equal parts. That way diners get roughly equal shares of the pepperoni, sausage or other toppings. Pizzas which are made half and half, of course, provide a natural dividing line between their different formats, which ensures that devotees of one style are not saddled with items preferred by others. This matters if some fool wants to put salty little fish pieces on your pizza.
But perhaps you've not ordered a half-and-half, but a supreme? There may be those at the table who like the cheese, sausage and peppers, but balk at the olives. Are you required to soldier on with the standard straight-line divisions and simply instruct the picky eaters to remove the olives as best they can? This method has its fans, known as "parents."
Well, according to Joel Haddley and Stephen Worsley of the University of Liverpool in England, no. You can slice using curves, for example, to maintain the matching sizes the regular method offers and thus insure equitable distribution, but going around olive-infested areas. Or with shorter straight lines, any number of different shapes can be made, as the diagrams show. Haddley and Worsley are not sure that any real-world application exists for their research, other than slicing pizza, but as mathematicians they find it interesting.
Of course, some of this research depends on the pizza involved. If one is dining on, say, a frozen pizza from the grocery store, there is no actual need to cut it into slices, as the best way to eat it is fold it in half like a taco once it is baked.
And then there's the question of "triangles" (for smaller sizes of pizza) vs "rectangles with some funky edge pieces" (for the very large pizzas).
ReplyDeleteThere was a pizza joint in my parents' town that warned people that half-and-half pizzas might lead to grief, as, for example, the longer cooking times necessitated by a sausage-heavy side could lead to the onions-only side featuring burnt onions. I dunno; we all agreed on Hawaiian (pineapple and ham, and yes I know some think we're awful people) so that was almost always what we got.
Actually a few pieces of pineapple on some kinds of pizza are pretty neat. Most places I've had it go overboard and you don't really get enough of the other toppings' flavor, but the right amount blends really well.
ReplyDeleteDominos used to have square-cut pieces on their thinnest crust. Made you think you were eating less ;-)