Last month, The Times published a list of New York’s 25 best pizza places. Like any good New Yorker, I made sure my favorite pie was on the list, then vowed to find a new favorite. There’s pleasure in having one’s tastes affirmed by the tastemakers. Then there’s the even sweeter satisfaction of liking something no one else has discovered yet — a vanishingly rare experience in the TikTok era, when influencers trumpet their “secret” spots to eager followers and the next thing you know, there’s a line around the block at your neighborhood bakery.
What makes a food “the best” of its kind, anyway? I loved reading through The Times’s list, but it’s only of use insofar as it aligns with my own preferences — I’ll never love a pizza topped with honey, or chicken, or (controversially, I know) peppers and onions. Sam Sifton’s theory of pizza cognition resonates: It posits that a person’s primary pizza source, the pizza they grew up eating and loving, is “the pizza that will become that person’s inner optimum, the pizza against which all others are judged.”
Sam allows that tastes can change — he grew up on slices but developed an appreciation for pan pizza — but I’d argue that even if you refine your definition of the “best” pizza, your earliest taste imprint is still the one that provides the most comfort, the most familiar kind of pleasure. I may feel confident asserting that the best pizza has a thin crust, a slightly spicy sauce and a delicately balanced ratio of sauce to cheese, but the most comforting pizza I know is from a long-closed pizzeria in my hometown where the crust was pillowy and chewy, the sauce Chef Boyardee-sweet, the cheese oily and slipping off.
Comfort foods are nostalgia bombs. They’re taste biases that were inscribed early when there wasn’t a lot of other data to complicate things. They can be awakened with a smell or a bite or even the sight of a neon sign that reads “Angelina’s,” the feel of a cardboard box hot on your legs as you carry dinner — half pepperoni, half meatball — home in the passenger seat.
I have always maintained that the most comforting music is whatever you listened to in high school. It’s not necessarily the best music by any objective metric, but it’s what you listened to when you were formulating key parts of your personality, and that music will always make you feel most essentially yourself. I’d like to figure out other theories of familiarity, ways to reliably induce a sense of deep, cozy satisfaction. Maybe it’s all stuff that got to you when you were young and impressionable, the inputs around and on top of which you formulated your more sophisticated opinions. You have your grown-up tastes, built on years of living and experiencing and honing an aesthetic. And then you have the stuff — the chaotic foods you crave, the synth-heavy pop no one else can stand — that, independent of any rational appraisal, feels like home.
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Much of the joy we get from our favorite dishes stems from the memories we associate with them.
From Times Opinion, the tyranny of “the best.”
THE WEEK IN CULTURE
Beyoncé and Taylor Swift will face off in the top categories at the 67th annual Grammy Awards. Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan — two of this year’s fresh pop sensations — each received six nominations.
“Gladiator II” is coming this month, more than two decades after the original. Its director, Ridley Scott, spoke about continuing to work in his 80s: “I feel alive when I’m doing something at this level.”
The “Dune” novels were famously tough to adapt until Denis Villeneuve came along. An HBO prequel about the origins of the Bene Gesserit is trying to follow suit.
This holiday season, Netflix and Lifetime ask: What if Christmas movies were sexy?
The music producer Quincy Jones died at 91. For decades, he coaxed the sharpest performances from the biggest artists, writes Ben Sisario.
Flo, a British R&B trio, is about to release its debut album. It evokes the sounds of Destiny’s Child and TLC.
The internet has a new favorite baby pygmy hippo: Edinburgh Zoo’s Haggis.
THE LATEST NEWS
Donald Trump
Federal prosecutors said that Iranian agents had plotted to assassinate Trump before the election.
During a call with Ukraine’s president, Donald Trump handed the phone to Elon Musk — a sign of Musk’s potential influence in the incoming administration.
Trump’s proposed tariffs on foreign products have led U.S. businesses to stock their warehouses and say they expect to raise prices.
Trump made huge gains with Hispanic voters along the Rio Grande in Texas who expressed concerns about inflation, energy and border crossings. The chairman of the state’s Democratic Party will resign.
Some in Latin America said Trump’s election had already made them reconsider migrating to the U.S.
Trump won over a seemingly contradictory coalition: Arab Americans outraged by U.S. support for Israel and right-leaning Jews who consider him Israel’s champion.
Viktor Orban of Hungary and other right-wing European leaders see Trump’s win as a sign that the world is embracing their worldview.
Democrats
Senator Jacky Rosen, a first-term Democrat, narrowly defeated a Republican challenger in Nevada, even as Trump beat Kamala Harris there.
Nancy Pelosi said President Biden should have ended his campaign sooner and allowed the party to hold a primary to find a new nominee.
Senate Democrats hope to confirm as many Biden judicial nominees as possible before Republicans take control in January.
A federal judge this week struck down a Biden administration program that aimed to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens.
The Biden administration passed billions of dollars in investments for clean energy and semiconductor factories. Trump could reap the benefits.
Bruce Springsteen, Oprah, Beyoncé: Celebrity surrogates for Harris may have backfired by driving perceptions of elitism.
California moved to the right: Voters approved harsher penalties for shoplifting and drug possession and rejected a higher minimum wage, expanded rent control and two progressive district attorneys.
San Francisco’s new mayor, a Democrat, said he would declare a state of emergency to tackle the city’s fentanyl crisis.
Democrats kept their one-seat majority in Pennsylvania’s House, The A.P. projected, despite Harris’s and other Democrats’ losses there.
Other Big Stories
Attackers in Amsterdam beat Jewish soccer fans in assaults over the past two days. “Hateful, antisemitic rioters and criminals harassed and beat up Israeli visitors who were guests in our city,” Amsterdam’s mayor said.
Stocks rose again on Friday, making this the market’s best week in over a year.
A fast-spreading fire in Ventura County, Calif., has reduced some neighborhoods to rubble.
An early-season snowstorm hit much of Colorado and parts of New Mexico. The National Weather Service said Denver could get more than a foot of snow.
“Every night is a struggle for us”: The power has been out for more than a year in the Gaza Strip, turning basic amenities, like kitchen stoves and children’s night lights, into luxuries.