Native Rhode Islanders tend to engage in animated conversations about politically polarized topics. A state ballot referendum in 2014 over whether or not to drop “Providence Plantations” from our official “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” for its implication of slavery, was one of them.

A recent controversial 4.5-million dollar campaign aimed at marketing the state to tourists, “Rhode Island: Cooler and Warmer”—another.

You can count on the natives clashing in rallying either for the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees.

Broth brawls boil over preference for red, white, or clear chowder.

However, no discussions are quite as heated as those over what constitute good pizza--that’s amore!

Most Rhode Islanders agree with the premise that pizza is good. Pizza stretches into quite a polarized topic when the question posed is, “What is good pizza?”

Some salivate over Roman pizza, aka New York style— hand tossed, brick-oven, foldable pizza with thin, stretchy, and doughy crust lightly covered with tomatoes or a tomato-based sauce and cheese. One RI eatery purveying such pizza is FELLINI PIZZERIA, serving thin-crust pizza since 1989. Fellini's is famous for its "Thanksgiving Pizza"

http://www.fellinipizzeria.com/

As the pizza turns, there are thickheaded tomato pie politicos who crave Sicilian-style pizza—thick crusted pizza topped with tomato sauce, cheese, and optional toppings. For this category, I’ll nominate CASERTA PIZZA, established in 1953. (See Pizza Photo)

http://casertapizza.com/

A pizza for every palette, Rhode Island offers a betwixt and between version:

Lazio style pizza— a somewhat thin crust with the distinction of crispness not unlike that of an English muffin. No toss-up, my favorite pizzeria is TWIN’S PIZZA. For over half a century, this pizza palace has been owned and operated by the Del Ricci family with a progeny of at least two sets of twins.

http://www.twinspizzari.com/index.html

Roman, Sicilian, or Lazio style—the thick and thin of pizza politics is amore to Rhode Islanders. Tomato tales and crusty conclusions should encourage out-of-towners to try our cutting edge pizzerias.