The delivery versus DiGiorno challenge

At SN&R, we ask the big questions. Is our city hemorrhaging millions by replacing perfectly good water mains? Was Measure L a blatant power grab by our corporate lackey mayor? Can you really not tell the difference between delivery and DiGiorno pizza?

I figured I could handle that last one, so I set up a plan: Get three delivery pizzas and one DiGiorno, mix them up and see who can spot the frozen bastard.

I rang up Round Table Pizza, Domino's and Giant Pizza. They delivered their finest large whatever-they-send-if-I-ask-for-a-combination to my apartment.

The Domino's guy showed up first. I put the pizza on the table and as soon as my butt hit the couch, another knock. I open the door to a very confused delivery guy from Round Table.

“You order pizza?”

“Yeah.”

He twisted his face and gestured with his thumb at the Domino's guy getting into his car across the street.

I sent him on his way and got to work. I took the pizzas out of their boxes and mixed them up, then zoomed off to a bar, where a collective of fellow journalists from various local media outlets waited.

I asked these scribes to evaluate each pizza based on quality (flavor, execution, craftsmanship, ingredients, etc.), mouthfeel (how's it feel in your mouth), enjoyment of the slice (do you actually like eating the thing?), whether they would eat the slice sober and whether it was delivery or the DiGiorno. The survey also included a space for indicating the drunkenness of the evaluator at time of consumption, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “inhumanely sober” and 10 being “alcohol poisoning.”

After all that work, the guy who opened the first box immediately knew that he was looking at the imposter. In fact, all of the five not-me journalists who ate a slice from each pizza could correctly spot the frozen fraud.

But was the DiGiorno better than delivery?

The feedback on each slice provided useful insight into the realities of anti-artisanal pizza. For example, we now know that a mildly drunk person ranks the quality of a DiGiorno as “lamb balls” with a mouthfeel of “like butt.” Another journalist ranked enjoyment of the Giant Pizza slice at “would rather eat a bag of toenails.”

So what tipped everybody off to the presence of the frozen deceiver? General consensus said that it was the crust, with its overeager sponginess. I thought the cardboard look of Giant's crust would toss some off the scent, but clearly I was underestimating the familiarity that journalists have with cheap, frozen pseudo-food.

And, for the record, each journalist would eat the Round Table and the Domino's slices sober. But only two would eat the DiGiorno sober. And only one would eat the Giant slice sober.

For those last two, a journalist wrote simply, “why.”