India, May 24 -- One popular joke that made the rounds of the foodiely (Yes, I made up the word!) foolish when Pope Leo was elected was that it would now finally be possible to get good pizza in Rome. If you are moderately interested in pizza then you will know what this is a reference to. The new Pope is an American (of sorts, but we shall come to that later) and Americans like to believe that Italians don't know much about pizza, which is now an American dish. The joke relies on this belief for its punchline: Now that an American rules the Vatican (which is, effectively, in Rome) he will introduce Italians to good pizza. There are many problems with this view. First of all, Roman pizza, which is thin and lasts longer than the original Naples pizza, actually has much more in common with most American pizza than people realise. Secondly, it may be an oversimplification to treat the Pope as exclusively American. His father was of French and Italian descent. His mother was of Spanish origin. And the Pope himself is a citizen of Peru and lived there for two decades, rising through the ranks of the Catholic Church to become an Archbishop. Yes, he was educated in Chicago, but that might be an even bigger problem. The pizzas of Chicago are not the thin slices of New York pizza or the fancy California pizzas, with their gourmet toppings that Americans are justly proud of. The city's signature pizza is the deep-pan (or deep-dish), a revolting marshy mass of maida with cheese and sweet tomato sauce hiding inside. It has more in common with a pie than a pizza. If Pope Leo was to introduce the deep-pan pizza to the Vatican, it would not lead to any improvement in the quality of pizzas in Rome. It is more likely that it would lead to an outbreak of mass vomiting in the Curia. But the joke tells us something about the popularity of pizza around the world and something about the global variations. Just as Americans are eager to claim ownership, the Italians have also rediscovered it. It is much more popular in Italy than ever before, though whether you can get good pizza north of Rome remains in dispute. In my experience, most pizzerias in northern Italy serve pizzas that are on par with those made in Gurugram or Goregaon. But good pizza may well be on its way to becoming a true global food. Japan has emerged as a centre of great pizza (yes, really) and even Italians now admit that top American chefs have successfully reinvented the dish. The California pizza was probably created by the late Ed LaDou who took it to the iconic Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, where the chef Jeremiah Tower had already created a California variation of French-style cuisine. LaDou's pizzas were thin crust, low on sauce and topped with smoked salmon, artichokes, etc, and ingredients no Italian would dream of putting on pizza. Wolfgang Puck took LaDou's creation and made it popular all over the world (though perhaps not in Chicago). The gourmetisation of pizza was a 1980s phenomenon, but it went nowhere because chefs shifted to doing the same thing with hamburgers. Most American chefs have done some version of a gourmet burger though the trend was probably launched by Daniel Boulud at his DB Bistro Moderne in New York. You won't necessarily find burgers at the top fine-dining restaurants, but you will find them on the menu nearly everywhere else. For instance Boulud had no burger on the menu at Daniel, his three Michelin-star restaurant; only at the bistro. Thomas Keller did not have one at the French Laundry, but he did at Bouchon, his more informal restaurant. Burger mania reached such heights that California chain In-N-Out Burger became a cult favourite (with its secret menu), and Shake Shack, which produced high-quality fast-food burgers, became an international phenomenon. The Boulud burger relied on Frenchie refinement (ie: foie gras) but the new generation of gourmet burgers carved out their own space without truffles or other expensive add-ons. Then, about a decade ago, the pizza struck back. In Napoli, Italians had been hamstrung by the rules imposed by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. This did not allow them to innovate, but a new generation of chefs like Franco Pepe told them to go to hell and did their own thing. Now, pizza chefs have earned a new respect in Italy, and at the top places the pizza has never been better. So which is the greater dish: The pizza or the hamburger? I asked Rene Redzepi of Noma, one of the world's most influential chefs, which one he preferred. My assumption was that he would opt for the hamburger because during the pandemic, when Noma was shut, he opened a very successful burger place in Copenhagen called POPL, which had some typical Noma touches, including the use of garum (a sort of fermented fish sauce dating back to Ancient Rome). The burgers quickly became iconic and though Redzepi is not involved in the day-to-day running now, he is still associated with POPL. To my surprise, Redzepi said that pizza was the far greater dish because good pizza was a real challenge and it gave chefs more opportunities to test their skills. It's a view that many great chefs I have spoken to share. As a burger man myself, I am slightly disappointed by the preference for pizza but I can see the logic in the argument. A burger is, like its big brother, the steak, about the meat. A pizza is much more a chef's dish because there is so much nuance to its making. As Massimo Bottura, the greatest Italian chef, says, a good pizza should almost melt in your mouth. And that is entirely down to the skill of the chef. So let's see what Pope Leo likes: Good Italian pizza or Chicago deep-pan? He looks like a man of taste, so I think I know the answer to that one. Unless he ends up asking for a hamburger!...