Cheese PizzaMost of us are pizza lovers, if not pizza connoisseurs in our own right. In the United States of America, at least, pizza is one of the top ten foods of choice. And I still crave the Chef Boyardee pizza in a box that my Gram used to make.Thinking about my favorite pizza, it will do you no good for me to recommend the best, doughiest, richest, cheesiest, or other superlative pizza made in family-owned independent pizzerias locally, available right here in the SF Bay Area. Since there are already zillions of pizza recipes and reviews online, I thought, if I can do this without bringing on even deeper cravings or making myself prematurely hungry, I thought I would give us a look at pizza trivia thus far (at the end of 2006). - 4 BILLION pizzas were purchased in one year - More than 350 million tons of frozen pizza are consumed each year.
- The first pizzas were made and eaten only by peasants (cheap and easy was the fare); but the first official cheese pizza was that created for royalty, in Italy, by a man who was a baker and who was called upon to cook for the visiting King Umberto and the Queen Margherita. Designing the cheese pizza around the Italian flag, Raffaele Esposito used, simply, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil, making a white, red, and green cuisine that got instant rave reviews and that has endured for over 111 years. - 4% of pizza-eaters never go out for pizza, or buy pizza out. - While you and I might favor the straight-up cheese pizza (extra cheese, please!), the number one American topping is pepperoni. And with that last tidbit, here is one superlative pizza tale, that I feel compelled to close with: Some of the best cheese pizza I have ever had is that my Gram used to make for us when we stayed over on Saturday nights. You might remember it: Chef Boyardee pizza in a box. It came in an unusually shaped box (unique at the time), had a cheese packet, a dough mix, and a cylinder of sauce. It came out thin and yeasty, with sweet sauce and salty parmesan crumbs of melted cheese. It was nothing like any pizza in the restaurants or by delivery, but it was also before we kids had ever had a cheese pizza pie of any kind, so to us it was gourmet. And today to me it is still the best pizza I have ever had…for obvious reasons. Now if you will excuse me, I am either going to Bravo’s on Geneva and Mission in San Francisco, or the Manor Room in Pacifica, or I am going to try to find the classic Chef Boyardee pizza in a box I was first introduced to in the sixties and still crave today. Related Topics |
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