America
has had a long, sensuous, passionate, intimate, debauched, decadent, degenerate,
perverted, raucous and tender (today’s Eighty-Four Glyde is sponsored by
Thesaurus.com. Motto: Why use one word
people do understand when you can use three that people don’t?**) love
affair with pizza that goes way back in the annals of history. Let’s reminisce,
shall we? History can be quite interesting, and…historically accurate.
Star
date: December 8, 16.15, during the first Thanksgiving, Squanto, the famed
time-traveling Patuxet warrior from beyond the 8th Dimension,
arrived at the feast with what many believe to be the first pizza known to the
white man in America. He would not tell the Pilgrims from whence the pizza
originated, but did tell them to “Always avoid the Noid”. This proto-za was
different from the pizza we know and devour today. Firstly, it was in the shape
of a double helix, instead of the more modern “circular” shape, or its disgraceful
younger cousin the “rectangular” shape. Instead of tomato sauce, it used moose
blood, the cheese was camembert, the sausage was rabbit pellets and the basil
was poison ivy. It was not well-received.
Fast forward
to the 1980s, (okay, I’m sure some other pizza-related stuff happened in those
centuries I’m glossing over, but come on gang, we all took ‘Pizza History and
Appreciation’ in college, right? That shit has been covered to death!) the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles came along and rekindled this country’s love-affair with the flattest
of foods. This decade also saw the emergence of pizza “restaurants***” that
will deliver pizza to domestic dwellings! Imagine a world before pizza
delivery. You probably can’t, because you’re not old and most old people don’t
read the nonsense I spew anyway and even if they did, the Alzheimer’s will take
care of that pesky memory thing.
Besides
home-delivery, other forms of pizza businesses came into being. From companies
that sell pizza-making kits for customers to personalize at home, to companies
selling frozen pizzas for customers to cook at home. There is also the option
of having pizzas delivered to the homes of unsuspecting chumps. Truly, these
are the salad days we live in.
But for
me, the weirdest pizza-selling concept comes straight out of Colorado (if they
do this other places, please keep that info to yourself, this is not a thing to
be proud of). There are pizza places, in the vein of a Dominos, or Pizza Hutt,
or a Panuchi’s, or what-have-you, but instead of delivering hot, gooey
deliciousness, at these places you go in, (Or to the drive-up window? I have no
clue, the whole thing is so confounding to me that my brain shuts down.) and
you purchase a frozen pizza, to go
home and cook yourself.
“But
Josh,” says the straw man replier I’m crafting, “what’s wrong with that? They
sell frozen pizzas at grocery stores. What’s the difference? Maybe this is more
convenient for the customer. Ever thought of that smart guy?! Huh? Have you?!
God you make me sick!”
Good question.
It’s
true, grocery stores do sell frozen pizzas. But they don’t just sell frozen pizzas. They sell all types of crap, like Karo
syrup and dog food (that’s basically it though). The point is that they diversify
the products because just focusing on frozen pizzas is a bad business model. But
that’s not even my main beef with a frozen pizza drive thru. It’s that people
keep trying to explain that it is very convenient for people who are short on
time. This logic really makes me wonder what’s in they put in the water in that
state. You know what’s even more convenient then buying a frozen pizza? Buying one that’s already been cooked!
Witchcraft, I know, but we have the technology. Hell, we’re practically a step
away from putting ovens in the delivery cars so they can cook the pizza on the
way over to your crib, thereby making the process even faster.
Great,
now that we’ve covered the history and the many eclectic ways a person can go
about purchasing a pizza, let’s get into the real reason I wrote this thing:
toppings.
I
couldn’t even try to list all possible topping options and combinations. Nobody
can. Get me Stephen Hawking, Deep Blue and a couple of Super Crays, and it’d
still take longer than Betty White running a marathon to even cover a quarter
of the variations of things you can put on a pizza. (Speaking of which, hey
Canada! They’re called TOPPINGS for a reason. Stop hiding them under the
cheese!) My personal favs are pepperoni, green peppers, onions, sausage, and…that’s
it, I’m a simple man of humble desires, (also, I don’t need all those things on
a pizza at once, they’re my go-to for different combinations.) There are many
other things you can put on a pizza, but I’d judge you harshly if you did.
I
mention that to mention this. If there is one single, steadfast rule of ordering
toppings on pizzas, it’s that you must please the masses. I can’t tell you how
many parties, orgies, lacrosse games, cotillions, bar mitzvahs and funerals I’ve
been to where the selection of pizzas always include a few with weird shit on
them, like pineapple and prosciutto, or asparagus and durian, or peas and
potatoes. When I see layouts like that, I know that the person who ordered the
pizzas wasn’t trying to altruistically open up our minds with new flavor
combinations, they were just ordering the kind of pizzas they like so they get
a whole pizza to themselves. I see through your shit anonymous pizza orderer!
And it both disgusts and frustrates me. It’s a simple problem, with a simple
solution. Depending on the number of diners, the ratio remains the same, but
the amount of pizzas purchased changes. It’s a simple 1 x 1 x 1. 1 meat pizza,
1 cheese pizza and 1 veggie pizza. There’s no need to get any more complicated
or fancy than that. Pizza is a simple comfort food, it’s not a food where you
order weird ass toppings to show how cultured and hip you are.
Save that for hot dogs.
*Made In China.
** Fun Fact: there is
no synonym for pizza.
***No tables, no
chairs, is it even possible to “dine-in” at a Papa Johns? I’m going to walk
into one of them one day and place an order for here, then sit on the bench and
eat an entire damn pizza in front of their greasy teenage faces.
