Ah, you are a gatekeeper! And that is not a good thing. Even the Italians have moved on from you. All those gatekeepers in that sub think they know everything about what is "real". They think that there's only one kind of true pizza. Nonsense. Those Italians are building and using modern equipment. The ones you deride. Those gatekeepers think that there's only one type of pizza made in Old Napoli. They are incorrect. I've been to Naples. I've been to Rome. I've had pizza in Livorno. I've had pizza and Sicily. It's different from region to region and from one pizzeria to another. There's good pizza and there's bad pizza everywhere.
As far as my mac and cheese pizza, I am not original. I was just new in my pizza making journey. If I was to redo it today I probably could have a modest hit. I've seen other mac and cheese pizzas that did well on that sub. I know what issues I encountered. My experience now would allow me to make changes and that pizza would be a lot better.
As far as this week's pizza, I'm at 910 as of this morning. I might not get to a thousand this week. That's kind of my bellwether. It still was a successful submission.
look, i think we're making it seem like it's worse than it is.
I believe that there is things that classify as "real pizza" and things that don't. I am not saying "if it's not real pizza, it's shit". There's plenty of bread-based foods that are great but are not pizza according to the Gatekeeper's Creed.
I often get into fights with people over what is considered carbonara, or amatriciana, which examplifies why i am a pro-gatekeeping. Let's take amatriciana.
This is a rather nasty dish that was made with an off-cut, pig cheek. It's very greasy, rancid. You then add a bit of acidity from the tomato, and you really just want to briefly cook the tomato sauce. Because of the acidity. You need that.
Now, if you add, let's say, charred peppers. It's not traditional, but the taste does work with the guanciale. And i have no problem with you calling it "amatriciana con i peperoni". But if you add idk, dill, or basil, or nduja, then i question what kind of taste you have. Because they don't work together.
The same way that "modern" chefs nowadays love making carbonara with guanciale. It just doesn't work, you don't want that rancid greasy taste with eggs and cream, nobody in their right mind would think hey, i got this omelette, you know what would be nice here, some pork fat that tastes of rancid and it's so astringent it makes your mouth hurt when you eat it.
We italianos are very attached to tradition; when you say "im making carbonara" we expect to get something very specific. We will not appreciate it if you've added clams or crabmeat or peas or soybeans or provolone. We're open to eating anything that tastes good, but we find it offensive when you say "this thing here is called THIS NAME" and it's not at all what we call that. And it's an italian dish.
Pizza is certainly different between naples and rome, or milan, or cremona. But it's all pizza. No italian goes to genova and says "oh THIS IS NOT PIZZA" because it's made according to the same sensibilities that govern neapolitan or any other.
The base will not be thick. It will not be soaked in sauce. The crust will taste of freshly baked bread, it will have a slight char, and the ingredients will be fresh, but the pizza overall will be a light meal, not something heavy or greasy.
The very "pineapple on pizza" works AGAINST those who accuse gatekeeping. Some guys from italy one day decided to make a good italian pizza with ham & pineapple and, well, they did, because they followed the rules of pizza. So the pizza was thin, the ingredients weren't full of water, the bread was well cooked, and it tasted nice - but that doesn't mean that you go to any US pizza joint and you ordern an hawaiian, and that an italian would say "wow this is really good pizza".