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It had been a long time since I've eaten a frozen pizza.
It's part snobbery (I built a wood-fired pizza oven in my back yard and have yet to taste a pizza better than those I make in it) and part being spoiled (my town is blessed with a Sal's, a breathtakingly good pizza joint).
But it hasn't always been this way. When I was growing up, our freezer always had a ready supply of Ellio's, an oddly rectangular frozen pizza I recall as having a spicy sauce, gooey cheese and a pleasantly doughy crust.
So I recently explored the frozen pizza section of my grocer, curious how things had changed.
For starters, quantity. I don't know how many brands and varieties were available when I was a kid, but I'm confident it wasn't the more than 30 I counted (and that doesn't include the dozen or so more in the natural foods section).
Realizing I couldn't do justice to the entire category, I selected 10 frozen cheese pizzas, representing nine producers and a variety of sizes and crust styles. And, of course, I included Ellio's.
And so with the oven cranked up and a good deal of pizza-friendly red wine to wash down all those carbs and fat, my wife, a coworker and I sat down to find out what the nation's food processors thought a good pizza tasted like.
The answer _ not much. Here are the results of our samplings:
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TONY'S ORIGINAL CRUST CHEESE PIZZA
Tony's really sets itself up for the fall, claiming on the box that the pizza "tastes like fun" (and they trademarked the line).
"It doesn't smell like fun," my wife remarked.
"It tastes like dough," my coworker responded.
The sauce wasn't a hit, either. We couldn't say why, but ultimately agreed "fruity" was the word that best described it. Not the experience we hope for in a pizza.
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RED BARON CLASSIC CRUST 4-CHEESE PIZZA
Thin, soggy and a strange texture. And those were the good parts. Somebody went way overboard on the green stuff sprinkled on top of the pizza (we assumed it was oregano).
"For something that's supposed to be just a cheese pizza, there's not much cheese on it," my wife said.
"It has an herb garden on it," my coworker remarked.
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CALIFORNIA PIZZA KITCHEN CRISPY THIN CRUST MARGHERITA
Not awful, but not good. We had trouble identifying some of the toppings.
"Is this supposed to be roasted garlic? No, it's just tomato that isn't red," my coworker remarked.
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MYSTIC PIZZA ALL-NATURAL CHEESE
Yes, as in the Connecticut pizza joint and movie starring Julia Roberts. And they are a bit full of themselves. They describe the pizza as a "slice of heaven." To which my coworker responded: "Communion wafers have more taste."
The back of the box goes on at length about the pizza shop that inspired the pretty forgettable movie. A movie they describe as "an American classic often featured on television and still available in video stores."
Um ... "Free Willy 3" is still in video stores, too. That's a weird bar they've set.
But my favorite part of this pizza is on the front of the box, which is a picture of an admittedly attractive pizza. It's labeled "Serving suggestion cook thoroughly." Thanks for that.
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RED BARON CLASSIC CRUST MICROWAVEABLE 4-CHEESE PIZZA
Since the box says you can bake it, we did. We should have just chucked it out. These folks really have got to lay off the oregano.
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FRESCHETTA ULTRA THIN 5-CHEESE PIZZA
If there was sauce on this pizza, we could not find it. And the base was more cracker than crust.
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CELESTE PIZZA FOR ONE ORIGINAL
Funny taste. Funny smell. We looked at the ingredients and found out why. The second ingredient is imitation mozzarella cheese. That's just wrong. And Celeste, whoever she is, should be ashamed.
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ELLIO'S CHEESE PIZZA
It didn't live up to my memories. But nothing ever does. It didn't help that I overcooked this one, so we'll give them a pass and assume it was tasty. Or at least not as atrocious as the others.
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DIGIORNO RISING CRUST PIZZA FOUR CHEESE PIZZA
Yes, of the "It's not delivery. It's DiGiorno" fame. Hands down the best pizza of the bunch. Obviously, it doesn't take much to hit that mark, but this was the most pizza-like of the pack. The cheese was stringy and the crust did rise as promised and was both doughy and crusty. The sauce was kind of bland (have none of these companies ever heard of garlic? basil?), but wasn't offensive.
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ESSENSIA SELF-RISING CRUST FIVE-CHEESE PIZZA
Basically a store-brand version of the DiGiorno (adding provolone to DiGiorno's four-cheese blend). Trouble is, like almost every other pizza, they also added too much oregano.
My advice? If you're hankering for a pie, stick with your local shop. Frozen pizza is clearly a case that competition has not produced better product.
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asap columnist J.M. Hirsch covers food, diet and nutrition for the AP.
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