What Do You Call That Ring Around A Pizza? (Hint: It's Not The Crust)

What do you call that cheeseless (or occasionally cheese-filled) ring around pizza? The crust, right? How about the doughy underside that holds all the toppings? You most likely also call that the crust, but admit it: Those are two completely different things. What's a pizza connoisseur to do? Use the proper word for that outer ring, of course: Cornicione, pronounced cornee-CHO-nay.

Translating to "cornice," cornicione is a term that's generally only really used among the pizza cognoscenti when they're deep in conversation about the merits of a certain pizza. There's a big difference between a charred crust and a charred cornicione (one is bad, the other not so much), so it's good to have a different word for each.

If you want to start using cornicione in casual conversation among your friends, well, you probably shouldn't, in all honesty. While it makes for a good bit of trivia, few things make you sound like a pretentious "foodie" more than busting out the word "cornicione" in conversation ("I notice you aren't eating your cornicione!"). Only use it if you want to sound like Boyle in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.