Is pizza topping itself?.

A couple of years ago I wrote about my sea trip on SS Homeric across the Atlantic from Southampton to Montreal. An Homeric Odyssey . It was wonderful trip for many reasons. One particular reason, as I pointed out in my story, was that while on board I met one of the great loves of my life. Each night, with my friends, Tony Jones  and Mike Maher I would visit the on-board night club, The Taverna. This place was packed with fun loving young North Americans returning home after a summer vacation in Europe or the UK. 

Each night at about 11-00pm a couple of stewards would come into the Taverna carrying large trays stacked with rectangular slices of pizza. I had never tasted pizza before, but it was love at first bite. Ah, yes. Of all the night clubs in all the world it walked into my life…Pizza!

When I was living in Toronto in the early 1960s, I fell into the habit of eating pizza almost every Friday night. I usually ordered tomato and pepperoni. The  pizza  shop I frequented on Eglington Avenue consisted of a counter behind which were a bank of four pizza ovens.  Between the counter and the oven were two young, muscular Italian men who delighted in flinging the pizza bases high overhead to get the right thickness before placing them on a bench to add the fillings. In those days there were just few choices. I usually ordered tomato and pepperoni. There was also an Hawaiian Pizza, which had pineapple and small slices of ham for a topping. There was also and a margherita pizza which had tomato, basil and parmesan cheese sprinkled over it.

I returned to Perth in November 1964. I love Perth, but in 1965 it was a completely pizza free zone.   I found myself craving for a pizza. My friend, Murray Paddick, who had shared an apartment and many a pizza with me in Toronto, also had that pizza craving. One evening we did a café crawl along William Street,  in what at that time in the 1960s was called “Little Italy”. It is now known as Northbridge.

Murray and I were convinced that somewhere in Perth’s Little Italy we would find a delicious pizza, just like the ones we used to know and love in Toronto. Not so! None of the cafes we entered served pizza. Of course in those days there were really no take-away food stores. You could take away a pie, pasty or sandwich, maybe even a hot dog, but if you wanted any other food you needed to sit at a table and eat it. There were a few hamburger vans dotted around the city but nothing resembling the happy pizza joints like Shakeys Bar that we had frequented in the USA and Canada. That night in Little Italy we finally tried a  little Italian grocery store that also sold pies, hot dogs, milkshakes and lollies. We asked for a pizza. The young chap behind the counter was busily shaking his head when a little old lady, presumably his Nonna, looked up from her seat behind the counter.

“Pizza, si. Pizza, si.”, she said as she hurried down a dark hallway leading from the rear of the store. About a minute later she returned with small half eaten homemade pizza on a plate. Obviously, she made pizzas for family meals but did not sell them over the counter. As suave and sophisticated travellers, Murray and I both said, “Grazie, grazie, Senora”, but declined the lady’s kind offer to eat a piece of her half-eaten pizza.

We left the shop and retired to a nearby bar where we cogitated on the problem of living in a pizza free Perth. After returning from Canada, a few months earlier, we were now  engaged in full time teaching, but we held dreams of becoming rich by means of some clever entrepreneurial scheme. Before long we agreed that Perth need a North American style Pizzerias, preferably with a couple of young, muscular Italians in tee shirts who tossed twirling pizza bases high in the air with the panache of a Spanish bullfighter dancing around 1000-kilogram bulls. Or a Shakeys, where the  jazz music is jivey, the young folks are jivey, the beer flows freely and the pizzas are delicious.

Well, over the next few  weeks we continued to think about our vast chain of pizzerias extending across our great continent. We particularly thought about how we could acquire the money to buy a shop in the right location, fit it out and equip it with very expensive pizza ovens, other food and accessories, including the two muscular Italians and a five piece jazz band in bright waist coats and straw hats.

By mid-1965, while Murray and I  were still thinking about our massive, if embryonic,  pizza empire, some smart aleck rich bloke opened Perth’s very first Pizza Hut right next to the Metro Drive in in Scarborough Beach Road.

Though dreams of pizza derived riches were dashed I still loved my pizza and became a very good customer of Pizza Hut. Before long, quite a few pizza places sprung up in Perth. Now, just about everybody sells pizza. However, the pizzas they are selling are a sorry reflection of the beautiful, tasty pizza I fell in love with on the SS Homeric. 

There is historic evidence that soldiers in the 10^th century often ate a meal of some vegetables on top of a piece of flat bread. However, it is generally agreed that the first pizza, Italian for pie, was developed in and around Naples in the late 19^th century. It became one of the most popular foods in the world. The original Neapolitan pizza consisted of tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, olives and meat, usually pepperoni. Mozzarella is cheese from the milk of water buffalo which are plentiful in southern Italy. 

The first pizza variation was named after the Italian Princess Margherita. The probably improbable apocryphal story is that she liked it above all other pizzas because it contained the colours of the Italian flag; red tomatoes, green chives and white mozzarella cheese. Neapolitan pizza quickly became popular all over the world…except in Australia. The strange thing is that pizza is filled with fat, salt and lots and lots of calories which are frowned on by some. The even stranger thing is that Italians, who love their pizza, have very low levels of heart disease.

Unfortunately, since our fateful meeting aboard the good ship, SS Homeric, in August 1962, my beloved pizza suffered at the hands of those who think you can never have too much of a good thing. Proving that too much of a good thing can be a very, very bad thing. Now there are hundreds of varieties of pizza…not all of them good.

First, they started putting anchovies on pizza, along with the mozzarella, olives, chives and sprinkled parmesan. Then they added mushrooms, pieces of chicken, pieces of sausage, pieces a beefsteak and pieces of almost ever food known to man.

Gourmet pizza appeared. My beloved Pizza started coming along to parties covered in eggplant, artichokes, caramelized onions, roasted pumpkin, zucchini, rocket, spinach and roasted capsicums.

It became so bad that in 1994 staunch guardians of traditional  Neapolitan pizza formed the Associazone Verace Pizza Neapolitan which presumably is Italian for the Real Neapolitan Pizza Association. Its aims are to promote traditional Neapolitan pizza without multitudinous and exotic toppings.

On July 28, Ron Graham, writing in The Australian newspaper said that  a Canberra restaurant fusing pizza and sushi had gone bankrupt. Thus proving that there is a God! It seems that three months after it opened, the fused Sushi Pizza restaurant ran out of money and closed its doors. Ron Graham reported that the owners did not blame their fused concoction for the closure. They blamed the cold weather, customers preferring to eat at home and Uber Eats.

The Reno Gazette of August 4 tells us The Las Vegas Pizzeria has Grasshopper Pizza. Really! Las Vegas is for gamblers, but would you want to gamble your intestinal integrity  on a pizza topping of baked goat cheese, caramelised onions, chorizo and a few healthy sprinkles of grasshoppers. Those who lived to tell the tale said the grasshoppers tasted like chewing on pork rind. Give me real pork rind any day.

John Gibson, writing online for NARCITY on August 8, said that a pizza place in Boston is selling Pizza Poutine. Poutine Rappe is a potato-based Acadian dish favoured by French Canadians, especially in in New Brunswick. Now Poutine Rappe, the traditional Acadian poutine involved thoroughly boiled potatoes, which are shredded and infused with pate or duck fat. French Canadians, especially the Acadians in the Canadian Maritime provinces just love it and eat is especially on important occasions and festivals. For everybody else I would suggest it is a dish best served to somebody else.

A variation of Poutine Rappe is  a fast food type poutine consisting of French fries, cheese curd and gravy. This French fries version of poutine apparently became a favourite take away meal in Quebec province in the 1950s and is now also found in the New England states of the USA. That Boston pizzeria serves that poutine topping with melted mozzarella, sliced pepperoni, and a side dish of pizza gravy. As of August 14 the shop is still trading.

I shudder at the thought of what future pizza fusion gastronomical monstrosities are head of us. Brocholi and porridge or maybe rhubarb and custard? Nothing would surprise me.  

I suppose multi topped pizza is here to stay but I am a loyal person. I met my truly loved, traditional Neapolitan pizza, on board the SS Homeric 57 years ago this month. I order her before all others.                    

 I proudly march with the boys and girls of the Real Neapolitan Pizza Association. And you can't top that.