“Oh God, no, not pizza. Ruin ANYTHING ELSE but spare the pizza!”

~Your Taste Buds

We talk a lot about pizza around these parts, but can you blame us? Pizza is just about the perfect, when done right. But, as you no doubt know, it’s…not always done right. Now we get a lot of flack from St. Louis and Ohio Valley residents because of our article that (correctly) points out what their regional pizzas are (garbage) but we can at least take solace in knowing that, as a nation, we generally have our shit together.

Other countries, though? Not so much. Sure, we’ve previously talked about Pizza Hut’s crazy international menu items, and England’s hot dog crust pizza, but we’ve not really taken the moment to sit down and let you know how badly other countries are screwing up pizza.

And boy howdy, are they screwing up pizzas.

Granted, this article only lists isolated instances—a bad pizza idea from a country other than America does not mean that the country in question does not know how to make at least passable pizza otherwise. But still, when we see pizzas being ruined across the world, it’s our duty, as Americans, to point it out. You know, so we can feel superior, and also so we can say, “Well, sure, we have St. Louis-style pizza, but we’re not monsters.”

Because these pizzas? Yar, there be monsters.

A Brief Foray into How Other Countries Are Ruining Pizza

Pizza’s blessing is also pizza’s curse. It exists as one of the most malleable foods on the planet. You can make any kind of pizza you want, it lends itself to literally infinite options. The dough for the crust, the toppings, the sauce, all can be altered to your liking, and that leads to great things like Chicago-Style deep dish and New Haven’s white clam pizza (no, seriously, it’s divine), while also allowing for the creation of…well, shit like this.

Canada Has Pizza Donuts, God Help Us

Pizza bagels are delicious. This we know. And you know what look a lot like bagels? Donuts. That apparently was all it took for Pizza Hut in Canada to run with the idea of making pizza donuts, which, just no. Like, stop it, Pizza Hut. That’s terrifying. We can’t believe we have to say this, but pizza is a savory thing. Sweet pizza is weird and gross and wrong. Bagels are savory. And donuts are sweet. ]

Do we have to go to the Pizza Hut test kitchens and like, just remind them how food works? We’re seriously concerned that they’re going to start making sour patch pizzas next, just for the hell of it. They’ve already gone sweet, sour can’t be too far behind, you know?

But continuing our world tour of bad pizzas, we head south of the border to lovely Brazil, which has some less than lovely pizza ideas.

This Brazilian Pizzeria Has Lost Its Damn Mind

Um.

Yes, that’s a, um, tire on a pizza. A pizza that seems to have M&Ms in the middle of it.

You guys see that too right? We’re not hallucinating from bad moonshine again?

So we do not know the name of this Brazilian restaurant, whose pizzas were featured on a reddit thread, but it’s proof that at least one restaurateur in Brazil is either certifiably insane, or is staging an elaborate cry for help. If you click that link, you’ll also find a pizza with a flan in the middle, one with a full case of beer plopped in the middle (okay that one is actually a beautiful idea), and the fever dreams of a pizza chef suffering from a brain parasite.

We already knew that Brazil was very bad at hot dogs, but we didn’t realize their weirdness would transcend to pizza in such a shocking and bizarre way. Yikes.

We Actually Might Need to Check in on Canada Because They Tried to Make a Cockroach Pizza

Gah! Okay so this requires a little explanation, because while it’s not as bad as it sounds, it’s still pretty bad, and it’s got us really concerned about Canada’s mental health. They were always the stable, polite neighbors up north, but something’s gotten in the water to make them try some really messed up stuff with pizza, and we don’t know how we feel about it.

So yeah, the cockroach pizza. Back in 2015, the Calgary Stampede (an annual rodeo held in, surprise, Calgary) added some fancy menu items including one pizzeria who was promising to serve frozen cockroach pizza. Like, pizza, with cockroaches on it. To eat! And people were excited for this, and our faith in Canada’s sanity has been forever shaken.

Ultimately, this pizza never made it to the menu, because the cockroaches were stopped at the border and not allowed through. And thank God for that. Come on, Canada, what’s wrong with you?

Every Pizza Made in Sweden is a Fucking Nightmare

You might be asking yourself, “What the shit is that monstrosity up there?” That is the Volcano Pizza, from Piteå, Sweden, and it is a hot mess. While you might label this “A Cronenbergian take on a calzone” or “What just God would allow this to be born into the world” it’s what passes for a pizza in Sweden.

The situation there is pretty dire. For example, every year they have a Swedish Pizza Championship, and their winners (winners) are terrifying. In 2013, the title went to a pizza with bone marrow, pickled cabbage, and sour cream. No, that is not a list of basket ingredients on an episode of Chopped, that is literally the toppings of a pizza that was deemed the best pizza in Sweden one year.

In 2016, the winner used cod, beets, kale, capers, dill, horseradish, and custard. And if all that isn’t bad enough, look at this shit. There’s a Swedish “Christmas” pizza that’s covered in ham, fried anchovies, three whole sausages, red cabbage, mustard ham, and potato salad. That buzzing noise in your ears is just a temporary side effect of your blood pressure spiking out of anger and fear.

So yeah, let’s just go ahead and say that Sweden should just stop trying with that whole pizza thing. They gave it a go, and it chewed them up and spit them out. We never thought we’d have to write this sentence but, we’re sorry Swedes, pizza just isn’t for you.

Sigh.  Yes.  Japan Has a Mayonnaise Pizza

We’re not surprised about this one. We’ve covered Japan’s…eccentricities plenty of times throughout the years, so when you tell us that Domino’s has multiple pizzas just drenched in mayonnaise, our response to that tends to land on, “Welp. Yeah. Sounds about right” before we break into deep, heaving sobs.  Look at that fucking thing. That pizza must have a good 1,000 calories just from the mayonnaise…grid alone.

We all knew Japan was going to be on this list for something weird. We didn’t expect it to be mayonnaise, but if someone went to us and said, “Actually, Japan has very normal pizza styles. They’re all very tasty, and use traditional ingredients,” we’d have scrapped this whole article and just written 3,000 words about how Japan defied the odds and isn’t weird at pizza. But, that didn’t happen. They are weird at pizza. So very weird. And eggy.

But We Can’t Talk.  We’re Putting Peeps on Pizza

(from Serious Eats)

Like, sure this was a stunt done by some madman for Serious Eats, but still. An American took some peeps and baked in some marshmallow peeps. And now we feel kind of empty and hollow. After all our talk about how America is better than everyone else at pizza, this is a pretty big statement to the contrary. Maybe the only thing ruining pizza is our own national hubris?

…Naw, forget that, peeps pizza aside, America still knows how to make a good pie, unlike the jokers listed above. We remain undefeated!  USA! USA!