Papa John's Fires Back at Domino's With a Double Bacon Six Cheese Pizza

Last month Domino's launched a "Wisconsin 6 Cheese Pizza" — it was a little fraudulent because only 33% of the total amount of cheese used was actually made in Wisconsin. And now it appears as though Papa John's is getting in on the game and raising the stakes with the new "Double Bacon Six Cheese pizza," a pizza made with a six-cheese blend of Mozzarella, Parmesan, Romano, Asiago, Provolone, and Fontina, and then "topped with both hickory-smoked bacon and Canadian bacon." Back of the envelope math suggests that this is like twice as much bacon as Domino's pizza.

Can we expect Michael Moss to pen a shocking expose that the USDA has partnered with the Pork Belly Lobby to add bacon to pizza?

Said a Papa John's exec, "We think this is the perfect time to introduce a new bacon pizza... Year after year, we see a huge spike in pizza sales the day before Thanksgiving." He continued to sing the praises of bacon, "Add to that the hundreds of bacon fan pages, dedicated blogs, its pervasiveness in pop culture and the fact that it is one of our top selling ingredients, it is clear that consumers have an enormous appetite and affinity for bacon." Also, it's only $11.00.

Anyway, call it extreme foods or gross foods or whatever you like, but this is the first shot in culinary war. A pizza-based mutually-assured self destruction sort of way. The inevitable direction is the pizza chains going even more extreme with the toppings. Forget stuffed crusts. We're thinking things like chicken nuggets, mini-pizzas, or cheeseburgers. Domino's, your move.

· Bring Home the Bacon with New Double Bacon Six Cheese Pizza [Papa John's]
· All Pizza Coverage on Eater [-E-]