Pupperoni pizza

man's best friend meets one of man's favorite foods

Hello, my beautiful clowns!

It’s good to be here with you all today. Especially after eating Happy Meals that I ran through the smoker, and subsequently, Taco Bell (that one was for paid subscribers, hint hint). I highly warn against anyone eating Nachos Bell Grande smoked in a pellet smoker, by the way, because I think I’m still picking sandy meat grit out from between my teeth. Anyway, who wants to come over for some KFC that I’m going to put in the smoker for 43 days? Also, unrelated, if you’re coming to that dinner make sure you bring your health insurance card for later.

This week’s edition of the newsletter was conceived by my friend Brett, who sent me a message saying, “Have you ever made a pizza with dog treats like Pupperoni? Just thought that could be something to tackle.”

Then I said it out loud. “Pupperoni pizza.” That rolls off the tongue perfectly. Then I said, “Hey babe, how about Pupperoni pizza?”

She looked at me and said, “Oh, that’s good.”

Everyone, please thank Brett, and make sure to follow him on Instagram at @rockrollghost. Go ahead and do it now, the newsletter isn’t going anywhere.

I don’t have a dog, so picking up dog treats was a fun experience.

I got to pretend briefly, that I had a dog. I considered saying to the cashier, “Hi, look at these dog treats! These are for my dog!”

But then I realized, knowing me, I would more likely have blurted out, “Hi, look at these dog treats! I’m going to put them on a pizza later!” Then I couldn’t return to that pet store ever again. Trailblazing is a lonely profession.

I’d never actually seen Pupperoni in person, so it was a real joy opening up that bag.

Turns out, Pupperoni sticks look like Slim Jims, which are a modern marvel of science. I am pretty sure Slim Jims are just all the bits of meat that fell on the floor of a meat processing plant (doesn’t matter what kind), which are ground to a pulp, and mixed with an unholy amount of nitrites, which seem to be meant to preserve food for decades. To be completely frank, I don’t even know what a nitrite is. I just know that it sounds like some kind of explosive material that you should generally not be ingesting.

Also, it’s spelled “Pup-Peroni” on the bag. I refuse to write it that way.

I sliced them into tiny little rounds and popped one into my mouth.

I made the startling realization that Pupperoni actually tastes somewhat like pepperoni, and frankly, that was a surprise that caught me off guard. It even smells like pepperoni, which fucked me up emotionally for a little while.

One of Davida’s best friends, Collin, is staying over for a few days, and he tried a piece. “Why doesn’t this taste awful?” he asked.

Maybe Collin and I should do some serious self-reflection.

For the pizza dough, I purchased a can of premade Pillsbury pizza crust, mostly because it’s been years since I’ve eaten any.

Like the biscuit dough, the cardboard tube comes with the instruction that says, “Press Spoon at Seam Until Can Pops Open.” I’m telling you, man, doing this is always terrifying. I pushed the heel of my kitchen knife onto the tube and suddenly, the thing practically exploded. I heard shrieking and it turns out it was just me. Is crying normal when you open one of these things?

I unfurled the dough, which looked like a little puffy, greasy, rug.

I stretched it out to fill the tray using my master pizzaiolo skills, and it had the same texture as Pillsbury’s biscuit dough. I fuckin’ love those biscuits, by the way. I’m sure they have as much nutrition as a puffy, greasy, rug, but let me live my life.

Speaking of master pizzaiolo skills, I discovered the charcoal remnants of shit that fell off the last thing I baked, which was coincidentally, a frozen pizza.

Don’t worry, I’m leaving those chunks in there until they turn into diamonds. I consider those little charred bits my nest egg.

Once you’re done parbaking the dough, you can top it right away.

Instead, I sat down and played video games until I realized I had a ton of shit to do. Then I played some more video games.

As a food writer and former pizza guy, I often get asked for product recommendations when making pizza at home.

Here’s the jar of pizza sauce I had on hand from a long time ago. I don’t recall why I bought it. I think I picked it up because it has the word “pizza” on it. Anyway, that’s my professional recommendation of this product.

I topped the pizza crust with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and added shredded mozzarella.

I don’t know why I bothered to explain this part to you. But deep down, I’m glad I did.

I sprinkled a liberal amount of Pupperoni on one half of the pizza, absentmindedly.

This is how I choose to spend my spare time. I could be out making new friends or learning how to breakdance, but no, instead I spend weird amounts of money on dog food just to put it on a pizza. How I got to this point in my life, I don’t know. I thought that by the time I was 40 I’d have my shit together, but here I am, making dog food pizza.

Because I’m amazing.

I topped the other half of the pizza with the human version of Pupperoni, which is pepperoni.

Then I added Pupperoni on top of it. Have you ever had one of those Totino’s Party Pizzas with pepperoni on top? The pepperoni, in that case, comes in weird chunks like Pupperoni.

Hey, wait a second. What have you been feeding us, Totino’s?

Basically, on this half of the pizza I wanted to marry the flavors of humans and dogs, a sort of pizza fusion, if you will. This is like fusion cuisine but on an interspecies level.

The final result looked just like an ordinary cafeteria-style sheet tray pizza.

With dog food on it.

I grabbed a corner slice (which is the best slice), and took a giant bite.

Honestly, the Pupperoni pizza was perfectly edible, which the longer I think about it, is marvelous. Fuck it. Next time I’m going grocery shopping, I’m just getting everything from the pet store. While there wasn’t a ton of flavor from the dog treats, it still did vaguely taste like a cheap pepperoni pizza, which I found very entertaining. And it turns out that Pillsbury pizza dough tastes mostly like the biscuits that come from the very same tubes, which is not anywhere near a bad thing.

The pepperoni and Pupperoni combo just resulted in a slice that tasted like cured meat.

I couldn’t tell which slice I liked better, the human-dog fusion or the dog version. They were both fine.

“Hey guys,” I shouted to Davida and Collin, who were in the other room. “You should try some of the Pupperoni pizza!” This is a perfectly normal thing to offer your fiancée and a houseguest. They went into the kitchen, where I heard some rustling around and some muttering.

I could hear Davida say, “…I’m not going to eat more than that.” Then there was silence, and suddenly she said, “Collin ate the whole piece I gave him!”

Anyway, moral of the story is that if I ever invite you to stay over, you may want to bring your own food.

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Well, there you have it. I think I’m going to kick back and relax with a cocktail and my new favorite road trip snack, Pupperoni. Make sure you share this post on your social media of choice, as it grows the newsletter (seriously, it does wonders).

And then, of course, please sign up for a paid subscription. You’ll get extra shit nearly every week, and hey, it’s less than $1 per newsletter, when you crunch the numbers. You’ll get access to the full archives (including all the archives of past paid material) at foodisstupid.substack.com. I really do need the support to keep this thing going.

Here’s what’s on the menu for this coming paid subscriber newsletter:

As always, I love you guys. I’ll pop into some of your inboxes later this week, and don’t forget to follow Brett on Instagram.