KFC’s Chizza is a chicken-pizza mashup with one looming question: Why?

Some things in life hold no mysteries. Think of a Ryan Gosling character, perhaps, or a golden retriever. They offer no depths to plumb, no riddles to solve. With these articles of obviousness, we know precisely what we are getting. And so it is for the Chizza, the newest stunt menu item from KFC, which is clothed in not a single veil, let alone seven.

The chicken chain is clearly aiming for over-the-top novelty with this limited-time dish (after all, this is the same brand that cursed civilization with the infamous “Double Down,” a “sandwich” whose buns were formed from … chicken, as well as a doughnut-encased chicken sandwich). But for all its Frankenstein-gone-wild energy, this one is no enigma.

“I know what this is going to taste like,” declared two colleagues who encountered the Chizza at different times, each before taking a bite that confirmed their confidence in their ability to judge a book by its cover at a dozen paces. The Chizza, it turns out, is exactly the sum of its parts. That is, it’s a chicken cutlet - the brined, well-breaded, crisp-fried stuff that the chain is known for - topped with a small amount of pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni slices.

Pizza meet chicken, chicken meet pizza. It’s like somebody working in the kitchen of one of those KenTacoHuts (you know, the combination KFC/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut locations chronicled in legend and in song) got a little creative late one night when his shift was slow and the manager was out for a smoke break.

Sure, the name might throw you a bit (the company pronounces it “cheet-zah” not “chizza” or “cheez-ah). But so familiar are the visual cues it offers that it doesn’t take much imagination, no matter how much KFC plays up its gimmicky side, to get a sense of what it is and whether you will like it.

It’s fairly well executed, so if the thought of a plate of chicken parmesan that ran into a few slices of pepperoni appeals to you, this is your guy. (Also, as they say, bless your heart.)

A caveat: It is even saltier than you might think. Usually, I’m a fan of KFC’s well-brined meat and seasoned breading, but this new format illustrates how it fares far better between two slices of bread, which offset the intense salinity. In the Chizza, there’s nothing to absorb or distract from all that salt. The slightly sweet marinara offers a bit of a counterpoint, but when you add mozzarella and discs of cured meat, you’ve got a recipe for a weapons-grade salt bomb.

Another ding is the price, which seems high for what you’re getting - even in an era of the $16 Big Mac. A full-sized Chizza, which consists of two filets, was a whopping $10 at my local KFC. A “small” (a single filet) was $6.

I’m convinced that the Colonel bummed the ingredients - the sauce, cheese and pepperonis - from KFC’s sibling, Pizza Hut (both are owned by Yum! Brands). The sauce offered just a hint of Italian-herb flavor without being overwhelming, and the cheese and pepperoni were, if not the highest quality, at least deployed in manageable amounts.

Also unsurprising? The Chizza is still difficult to eat. After all, there is logic to the construction of pizza, which you can even fold for maximum plate-to-mouth ease of conveyance. There is a rationale for the mechanics of sandwiches (just ask the card-playing Earl of Sandwich, who perhaps apocryphally invented the format to keep his royal fingers clean while gambling).

But the Chizza requires one to grab a hunk of breaded chicken in one’s hand and try in vain to pretend that this is an appropriate way to consume food. Dear reader, it is not. And if this is part of KFC’s attempts to normalize such behavior (recall that Double Down), I think we need to take a stand and say for the record that it is just not okay to eat a bunless chicken cutlet without utensils of any kind. Nuggets? Fine to grab and dip. But a full chicken patty is not finger food. And so the Chizza requires a knife and fork, which is really contrary to its fast food/pizza DNA.

As a general principle, I’m all for eliminating boundaries, for removing the boxes and labels that constrain our foods (and us! we should all be free to live our one wild and precious life however we like!). In this house, we believe that granola can be savory and that pancakes are an acceptable dinner. I’m down with all kinds of freaky portmanteaus, from Cronuts to totchos. So forgive me for sounding like an uptight traditionalist, but at least when it comes to portable foods, what’s wrong with good old-fashioned buns? Or crusts?

Okay, I know I said the Chizza contained no mysteries, but it does raise another question: Who, exactly, is a Chizza for? Did anyone really ask for this? [looks around the void] No?

Certainly not pizza purists, the ones who will undoubtedly clutch their marinara-flecked pearls over it. And not the road warriors out there who rely on fast-food scarfing while they’re driving.

One of my colleagues might have hit upon the answer, which is as obvious as everything else about this El Camino of the drive-through: “If I came back to a friend’s house late, drunk or stoned, and he was like, ‘I have a Chizza,’ I would eat it.”