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Science

Why Cold Pizza Tastes So Good 44

Posted by Hemos from the mmmmmmm-mmmmmm dept.
JoN writes "The BBC is running an article about why cold pizza tastes '... so good the morning after.'" Dr Maureen Cooper, a researcher from Stirling University, has found the answer. Apparently the '... traditional pizza base has fibres which trap water, preventing it from seeping through to the cooked dough and making it soggy. Given that fat and water do not mix, the melted cheese topping then sits nicely above the puree.'"
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Why Cold Pizza Tastes So Good

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  • Well, I disagree with your disagreement. You're out of order, bub. :o)

    I happen to love pizza best when it's the next day's meals, straight from the fridge... see, the thing is, I get to be incredibly lazy AND save electricity for other, much more important uses... such as keeping my apartment cool.

    (second post! ... wait, I type too slow; I'll be #25 at this rate. nutbunnies.)

    --

  • If pizza and/or fried chicken taste good right out of the refrigerator the next day, that's how you know they were good hot the night before. If they don't, they weren't.

  • Cold pizza is like bad sex, ya its still good, but it just sits there, does nothing, does not tantilze you, does not tempt you, does not call your name in the form a smell. It just lays there waiting for you.

    Hey, maybe that's not your idea of a good time, but I like it like that. It's all my fantasies at once.

    I'll let you ponder whether I'm talking about the sex or the pizza.

    Cold pizza is a different meal than hot. That is definite in my mind. I have a hard time choosing between them, but I think I prefer the cold. You don't have to worry about it being too hot, you don't get burned by oil pooling in the pepperoni. You just eat and enjoy. Damn, slashdot, I'm hungry now.

  • The point of the "study" wasn't to tell you that cold pizza is good, it was to find out WHY cold pizza is good. Once you understand how a particular phenomenon works, then you can possibly apply it to other foods.

    The notion that fibers in the tomato sauce trap moisture is probably not an obvious thing that people know from their tender childhoods.

  • I'm just surprised that in the publish or perish world of universities that a professor was able to do a research project like this. It seems kind of like an excuse to get the college to expense out delivery food.

    It always has been a mystery to me why french fries taste so bad after being kept in the 'fridge overnight. I guess one more mystery of the universe that had long plauged mankind can now be considered solved. Thank God for the March of Progress.
  • I buy pizzas and then let them go cold before I eat them. I just love cold pizza. My flatmates think I'm weird. Come on, there must be someone else out there who does this? Maybe we should have our own support group...

  • cold pizza tastes crap. they don't know what they're talking about.

    Neutrino

    PS what's up with you guys. this post has been here quite long (it's fifth) and I have first post? ts ts ts

  • Personally, I think the oils may be denser than water, at least at cooking temperatures. They permeate the crust and prevent water from soaking in. But I digress... ;)

    In recent months, intrepid researchers have discovered the secrets of...

    ) Cold Pizza.
    ) Guiness (N2) cascade
    ) Cookies and milk (or tea)

    But we're not done yet. To fully understand the world around us, several mysteries must be uncovered, such as the secrets of...

    ) Why everything tastes better at 3 am.
    ) Flavor Fry(tm).
    ) Chocolate and Peanut Butter.
    ) Beer and Salt.

    I think the above topics alone are grant worthy. Let them eat cake! and milk! and let them figure out why!
  • Now it's easy to tell which readers live where. Most of you that don't like cold pizza probably aren't passionate about hot pizza. I'm fortunate enough to live in the NYC Metro area, where pizza has transcended sustenance, and is a form of art. In my insignificant little suburb, for instance, there are four different places that craft Pizza perfectly, as it was meant, in the knowledge handed down from St. Pepperoni (look it up!). Even cold, their creations are far superior to anything I've endured -- at any temperature -- from other parts of the US (especially Virginia. Yuck!) I can only imagine what British "pizza" is like. ::shudder:: (And remember, budding Pizza artisans -- it's all in the water!)
  • I warm my Sake
    on my processor heat sink
    wash down cold pizza

  • I think someone (Hemos?) made an error and accidentally attributed the date as "sunday" instead of the more correct "monday". Because I checked at 6:00 PST (9:00 EST) and it was not yet posted... at least not to the front page.
  • mmmmm, these brits really spent a lot of effort on this subject, something which I have known from my tender childhood. Why do they have to do these studies? Is it so that people who eat cold pizza can feel better about themselves? Are they gonna start to sell cold pizza in restaurants (you never know with those crazy brits)? I don't need a study to tell me cold pizza is good, what a waste of time and money. This is all a marketing ploy for all those pizza joints that sell cold, previous day pizza.
  • Studies like this need more attention. I Have a great plan for coating the surface of the moon with mirrors - just to study 24 Hour Sunlight effects on plantations where Pizza Ingredients are grown and raised. Sure, argue about New Moons, I wont let that stop me. So, do your part! Everybody vote for Me as the Head of the Department of Wastefull Spending and Misappropriated Funds. I'd not only be good at it, but I'd love that job too.
  • Because of this wonderful story I just reached into my fridge, pulled out a slice of cold pizza, and devoured it. And it was good. In fact, I'm still eating it. And it's still good.

    Thank you. My life is now complete.
  • IMHO: pizza the morning after...
    the cheese gets all cold, and dont get me started on the sauce...

    I _love_ the smell of fresh sauce.

    But the bread/crust tastes great 24 hours later...
    .sig:
  • You poor fellow.

    No worry though, we have plenty of our own.

    Like the study of how people with dogs spend less time doing other things. Yes.
  • Damn.

    I paid for this, didn't I?
  • Truth be known, it was probably just a little offshoot of some more serious research. She probably was asked to come up with a little bit of 'human interest' stuff for National Science Week, and decided to go with the cold pizza/cold curry theme. You'll notice that her results weren't published anywhere--probably not worth it.

    But it's Fun! Science can be fun! Food can be fun! Cold Pizza can taste good!

    OK, I'll be quiet now. I didn't have any cold pizza this morning. :-(

  • Talk of cold pizza appears on Slashdot today; my tummy rumbles.

    -- WhiskeyJack

  • What about warm beer?
    You can't recuperate from a party the next morning without cold pizza AND warm beer

    (i saw one post about flat beer - but warmth is more important, imho)

    see my sig for other pleasant thoughts...
  • U eat a cold pizza for several reasons: - never the pizza is than fast u need in the door of your home - You're playing Quake :P - U forget the pizza and found this a week later *sigh*
  • Odd that no-one has posted here.

    Anyhow, I must agree on that analysis of the pizza. My personal experience is that the deep dish type of pizzas taste best cold.. The thinner types offered by the cut-rate pizza joints tend to dry out too quickly.

    A good cold pizza must be moist and juicy in the middle, the thicker the better, along with the hard cheese and crusty anchovies on top. Dry pizza is just yech!

    As for the fibres keeping the moisture from seeping into the crust, I think that's not true. In my experience, what happens is that the crust immediately adjacent to the pizza sauce absorbs water, and turns into a dough-type gel, which subsequently prevents further saturation of water deeper into the crust, thus keeping it crusty.

    I believe this therory has more scientific relevance than some "fibre" or "lumineferous ether" theories. It also explains observations, because if you've ever had the cheese and sauce layer slide off of your pizza, you'll notice that the top layer of the crust is a soggy membranous material.

    My 2 kopecks...

    --
    Do you think Hemmingway would have written so many novels if his typewriter had been capable of Open GL hardware-accelerated 3-D graphics?
  • Maybe now we should try to discover another mistery oh the universe: do we human beings can make stupid researches sometimes?
  • Many a morning broke when the only nurishment avaliable was cold pizza. Usually, I was in the lab after a long night's worth of coding. It tasted just as good cold as it did hot, not to mention that it did not burn my tounge & gums (I hate that). It reminds me of tomato pie, a thick sicilian crust covered with a chilled, seasoned tomato sause. Very, very delicious.

    It's the cold tomato sause that does it in my book. Tomatos and tomato products taste very good while cold. Take a bite out of a chilled tomato right from the grocery store or better yet direct from the tomato plant in the morning. Or how about ketchup? I'm sure some of you put cold ketchup on burgers, fries, or scrambled eggs even.

  • I recently ate about half a piece of pizza which I found in the fridge. It was very, very dry, and the anchovies were nearly dust, and it was difficult to distinguish the olives from olive stones.. To be honest, it was disgusting. Later, I worked out it was roughly one week old. Perhaps someone would post a link to a site with a scientific study of why one week old pizza tastes like shite.
  • Well "here in the states" we have a place where you can get cold pizza delivered... so I guess there is a market for it. Its called PizzaDeLux... check it out

    djsw

  • Slashdotter Hemos today slipped up and revealed his previously unsuspected abilities when he went back in time and posted an article on Sunday 26 March 200 at 23:02 reporting on a BBC News article not published on their website until Monday 27 March 2000 at 09:59GMT.

    Hemos was unavailable for comment. A Slashdot spokesperson described as scurrilous the rumour that he was going back in time to patent one-click shopping on line.
  • Unless he had a chisel to carve it into a wall I think I meant that he posted it in March 2000 (At least I didn't claim he posted it in 20000).
  • i don't know how anyone could resist cold pizza. sure, it may be better when it's warm, but who really wants to take the time to heat it up!
  • Years/decades ago in college ...

    Cold Pizza in the morning was great, bout the only thing around to eat as you pull yourself off the floor to watch T&J, RR and Willie, and LT (Sam, Bugs, Taz, and ...) cartoons. Many a Saturday morning breakfast of "Cold Pizza and Warm-flat Beer". I hated the occasional cigarette butt in the can ... bottle beer is safer.

    PS - Oxygen really does help releave Saturday morning brain post-toasties.

    Feeks and Greaks always did the longest, best, endurance parties. The frat/brat parties were mellow-bellow ... BS.
  • Well I plan on having my own experiment. Not just pizza, I'm going to get some burgers, fries, pasta, chinese, and some donuts. Maybe I too can get my college to pay for the experimentation material.

  • GNP is Not Pizza. The open source pizza movement.

    After years of eating overpriced corporate pizza, it's time we take a stand and have our own pizza which everyone can have the recipe for. I've already started work on a dough recipe Which I will release under the GNP GPL. You make modifications to the dough recipe only if proper credit is given to the original baker.

    DOWN WITH PIZZA HUT! PIZZA HUT IS THE DEVIL!!!

  • Does it really take that much time to heat it? Maybe we can investigate.
    1) 10 seconds: Taking the cold pizza out of the box
    2) 5000 microseconds: Putting the pizza on a plate
    3) 2000000 nanoseconds: opening the microwave
    4) 5000000000 femtoseconds: putting the pizza into the microwave
    5) 60000000000000 attoseconds: heating the pizza
    6) 8000000000000000 zeptoseconds: taking the pizza out
    Well there you have it, time takes to heat a pizza... wait, thats only 80 sextillion yoktoseconds. Oh my, that IS a long time, geez!
    ---
  • I'll have you know that cold pizza is enjoyable any time of the day! It's quite the traditional breakfast at my place, and I highly reccomend it. You know, all those food groups and so forth. Honeylamb
  • This is a silly topic to study on, yet I am immensely gratified that someone, somewhere, is willing to just be curious and study it. That curiosity, not the expectation of profitable results, is what science is really about, and it lives. :)
  • Other foods taste good cold as well, such as certain kinds of cooked meats: beef steak, grilled or fried chicken, etc. Some kinds of cooked meats are purposely served cold: think roast beef or turkey breasts in your sandwich, or chicken salad.

    I think that one cause is that your sense of smell plays a big role in enhancing your sense of taste.
    Heating food causes it to have much more flavor, which can actually be objectionable.

    Cold food is more bland; objectionable taste elements are suppressed. So it tastes better simply by way of being free of bold smells.

    Another factor may be that the food has better texture because the fatty elements are solidified and a lot of the moisture has evaporated.
    The food is just more cohesive making for a good bite. In the case of pizza, your toppings are less likely to slide off.

    Finally, it could also be that certain chemical changes set in which improve the flavor. There is probably some oxidation that goes on, as well as the very beginning of decomposition. It's also possible, even likely, that certain reactions only complete when the food is chilled; e.g. primarily exothermic ones which are suppressed at high temperatures.

    There are many chemical processes in food preparations which require heating followed by chilling. For example, when you make certain kinds of pudding, you must first cook and then refrigerate to form the gelatin.

    This type of process is not restricted to the food industry; certain kinds of plastic resins are formed in a similar way: a cooking stage followed by necessary cooling which actually forms the product.
  • Well, I must admit that I actively like the taste of cold pizza. I have sometimes bought a pizza only to eat one piece, then leave it out or in the fridge to eat the next day. Very very tasty.

    I think that part of the allure is that it doesn't fall apart like hot pizza does. I cannot stand anything more than getting cheese in my beard or burning my tongue on too-hot pizza. Those always-hot bags that Domino's introduced are the work of the devil:-) I always ask that they leave them unplugged.

  • Wow this is truly a great day for mankind. Finally we've gotten the answer to this great riddle, one that has plagued me for several years.

    Finally, I'm free...

    Now I only need the answer to why I always get a craving for pizza when I'm drunk. Is that something other people experience too or is it just me?
  • No you didn't pay 'your tax dollars' for this. Not unless (like me) you're paying tax (in pounds) in the UK.

    HH

    Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.

  • slop? (Score:2)

    by MrPlab ( 79403 )
    Also, re: the lack of posts. Most people are probably so ashamed to admit that they like this slop that they won't post about it :)

    It's far from slop.. mmmmmmmm.. way to go, I wasn't hungry until I read SlashDot. Someone on a diet might read /. just to get their mind off of food, and now it's plaguing it's way into regular posts. Hehe, 1, 2, 3, success!

    With Jenny Craig Issues,
    Matthew
    _____________________________________
  • I think the main reason cold pizza tastes so good is because we're hungry in the morning, and everything we like tastes even better when we're hungry.

    A restaurant here in Santa Cruz used to have "cold pizza and beer" on their breakfast menu.

    There is the issue that pizza with extra cheese tastes great hot, but is annoying cold, because the cheese is TOO thick. I perfer a thinner layer of cheese in the morning.

    Why are there so few posts to this? Spooky.


    The Good Reverend
  • There's also the fact that cold pizza always reminds me of how broke I am; I can't even afford a decent breakfast.

    Well, broke and lazy. Can't even fry an egg. Which is why, I suppose, cold pizza has a few values: it's instant breakfast that doesn't suck as much as a pop tart.

    Now cold pizza and stale beer, that's where it's at.

    Also, re: the lack of posts. Most people are probably so ashamed to admit that they like this slop that they won't post about it :)

    RottenDeadite

    ***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
    ***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***

  • But... (Score:3)

    by Mullen ( 14656 ) on Monday March 27, 2000 @08:24AM (#1167570)
    But cold pizza does not taste good. Pizza was made to warm or hot. The melted cheese, the smell of the topings right under your nose, the soft warm crust as it hits your togue when you first bite into it. How easy the pizza folds in half as hold it in your hands.
    Cold pizza just sits there, no smell, no warmth, no folding. Cold pizza is like bad sex, ya its still good, but it just sits there, does nothing, does not tantilze you, does not tempt you, does not call your name in the form a smell. It just lays there waiting for you.

    PS. I think too much about pizza.

  • It's only a partial answer... (Score:3)

    by tesserae ( 156984 ) on Monday March 27, 2000 @09:32AM (#1167571)
    As a friend of mine says, "The way pizza tastes best is when you wake up, reach over the back of the front seat, and grab a slice of pizza and a warm beer."

    So, Dr. Cooper, where's the rest of the explanation?

    ---

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