If it's a pizza contest and someone submits an entry that is clearly not a pizza, what's the point then? If next year we make a pasta contest would you ever submit a risotto or a salad?
Based on everything seen, the contest could be renamed to "Pizza Parody"

Honestly, I had a lot of fun looking at all the creations that were submitted for this contest. I don't know what's more twisted, pizza that looks like a salad or cooking pizza in a pot. What seems universal to most of the participants, is whatever they make as a base, it's enough to sprinkle tomato over it and voila... it's pizza. The strange thing is, someone took a picture of a pizza bought in a restaurant, even the professionally made one looks very little like a pizza.
I'm not sure I saw one or two that I might want to try eating.
At the beginning of the contest, fillippone warned about the possible abuse of AI, MidJourney for example really gave very good images of food, that's correct. At least we can be sure here, AI is certainly not used, it just doesn't have this much creativity as shown by many in this contest.
This is something that also happened in recent contests (baking/cooking/plating something that is not what was asked), but in a much less obvious way. It seems that high participation brings these
.
I have to say that, to me, this way contests are much more fun; but I feel you Ale88: if I was Italian, this would be a sacrilege, and the same goes for the pumpkin carving contest or pie contest, for instance, if I was American. I'll have to prepare mentally if I ever plan to create a paella or a Spanish omelette contest myself