Republican presidential candidate John Kasich horrified New Yorkers Wednesday when, stumping at a Howard Beach pizzeria, he started eating a slice with a fork and knife.
John Kasich just ate his pizza with a fork and knife pic.twitter.com/KQ0UXCoJjN
— GIF The News (@NowThisGIF) March 30, 2016
Making the press rounds Thursday, the governor attempted to defend his blasphemous behavior — and even garnered the support of fellow knife-and-fork proponent Bill de Blasio on Twitter. (We give him some credit for eventually picking up the slice with hands, as all serious New York pizza aficionados do.)
The pizza had arrived at Kasich's table at Gino's Pizzeria & Restaurant "scalding hot," he told the voting public on "Good Morning America."
Hours later, at a press conference at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel in Midtown — where he hammered Trump on his recent anti-abortion comments — Kasich said his campaign would "overcome" his pizza etiquette faux pas.
"We’re gonna do well in New York ... despite the fact that I got caught eating a piece of my pizza with a fork," he said.
"By the way I want you all to know that despite all the criticism I’m getting, my wife — who heard about this on the Twitter — called me last night and said she was proud that I had finally learned how to use utensils," the candidate added, begging the question, just how does he eat his food in the privacy of his own home?
Mayor Bill de Blasio lent his bipartisan support to Kasich Thursday afternoon, trolling the entire city with the following tweet:
Here's one thing I agree with @JohnKasich on… pic.twitter.com/ads2ilMcFC
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) March 31, 2016
In 2014, the mayor caused quite the stir when he whipped out a knife and fork to tuck into a slice at Goodfella's Pizzeria on Staten Island, an offense captured in the above photo.
De Blasio maintained that he was simply being true to his Italian roots: “In my ancestral homeland, it’s more typical to eat with a fork and knife,” the mayor, whose mother was Italian, told the New York Times.
De Blasio's deputy communications director Eric Phillips added insult to injury Thursday when he appraised Chicago pizza as superior to its New York counterpart:
indisputable fact that real pizza is made in Chicago, and that it's best to eat with a fork & knife. Facts matter.
— Eric Phillips (@EricFPhillips) March 31, 2016
Kasich and de Blasio aren't the only public figures to offend city residents with unbecoming pizza consumption.
In 2011, long before his days as the Republican presidential front-runner, Donald Trump caught heat for using a fork while dining at the Famous Famiglia pizzeria in Times Square with Sarah Palin, then campaigning for her own potential presidential bid.
Trump rationalized his decision in a YouTube video, claiming utensils make it easier to cut the crust off and cut down on calories.
