It’s stating the obvious to say that we are a pizza-loving society, and facts gleamed from doing a Google search back this up. Pizza is a $32 billion per year industry. Americans eat billions of slices per year. In fact, the annual per capita pizza consumption is 23 pounds per year. Ninety-three percent of us eat at least one pizza per month.

We are lucky locally to have a great variety of pizzerias from which to order the weekly pizza night meal. A recent event at the Villa Park Library showcased five pizzerias competing in a Teen Pizza Taste-Off.

About 50 teens ranging from age 13 to 17 were on hand to lend their expertise in choosing the best pizza, rating the pizzas on different criteria. Many more teens were on a waiting list for this very popular event.

Jean Jensen, assistant head of youth services, coordinated the taste-off.

“We did this program before, five years ago, and it was a great success. This is just as popular. The kids are very excited to participate,” Jensen said.

The teens were given a small piece of cheese pizza, uniform in size, from the following pizzerias: Aurelios, Billy’s, Dominick’s, Michael Anthony’s and Villa Nova. They rated each sample on best crust, best sauce, best cheese and the best pizza overall.
Paul Koeller, 14, was there and ready to taste.

“I love pizza. I’m so happy to be here. I can’t wait to taste all the pizzas. We normally order from Billy’s, so I’m sure I’ll know which is his pizza. I’ll probably recognize it. But who knows?”

Christina Aupke, 13, was also anxious to taste all the samples and said, “Normally I like Aurelios best, and I wonder if I’ll be able to pick it out. I’m looking forward to tasting all the other ones also.”

The tasters were armed with their taste buds, pencils and lemonade to clear the palette.

They sampled the pizza’s blind and rated them from 1-10, with 10 being the best. It was amazing to hear their comments and predictions as the samples were passed out.
The kids were very confident that they could tell which pizza they were eating. In fact, as the pizza boxes were coming into the room, the kids were trying to predict based on how the boxes looked. After a while, they realized the library was one up on them and was mixing up the boxes. Foiled in their attempt to gain some insight, they had to rely on the criteria they were given.

The library wanted to make sure the event focused on local businesses, Jensen said.

“We had a great response from all who participated. We wanted to keep it local and to include small pizzerias. All were more than happy to help. This was a great night. The kids really had fun.”

Billy Peplowski of Billy’s Pizza Dugout said he was thrilled to be a participant.

“It’s great that the library kept it local. It’s so neat that the kids are so tuned in with their pizzas that they could guess what pizza they were sampling.”

Maria Lazzara is a manager at Dominick’s Pizza and said, “It was great for us to be a part of this. We love to support the community and to give back. I’m glad the kids enjoyed the night. They sampled our competition, which is something we always do to see what the others are doing.”

One teen taster, Danny Decicco, 17, summed up the sentiments of most of the kids when he said, “I can’t believe that I’ve guessed all 5 of these samples. I think I’m right on all of them. Some for sure, others maybe. I guess I eat a lot of pizza from a lot of places.”

Sorry I can’t give the results today. The library is compiling them, and I will let you know next week who gets bragging rights.