Tribal People Try Pizza

Pizza is a flat bread from Naples topped with tomato and cheese and baked very hot. The delivery-chain version — Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's — is thicker, cheesier and heavier on toppings than the Italian original.

Hot stretched cheese is the moment. Most first-timers pull at it, ask what it is, and then decide within a bite whether they like the chew. The tomato base reads as sweet to a Punjabi palate, and a plain margherita can seem underseasoned.

Bread topped with something is old news here — roti with achar, naan with keema — so the base makes sense; it is the cheese that has no village equivalent. Chicken tikka pizza tends to win because it tastes like something they already cook.

If you cook it: The oven cannot be too hot. Preheat a tray or a tawa in it for twenty minutes before the dough goes on.