Posted on 03/19/2021 4:02:07 PM PDT by simpson96
I was at a meeting once where someone mentioned that people will argue about the silliest things, even something as simple as where you can get the best pizza. My mind screamed, “Hey, wait a minute, that is a legitimate subject to debate!”
You could argue about thick crust, thin crust, toppings, sauce, dine-in, take out, bake-at-home, cut in squares, cut in triangles— the list goes on. We pizza-eaters are very opinionated. Since pizza wasn’t the reason for the meeting and since I already know where to buy the best pizza, I politely kept my thoughts to myself.
Young people might find it shocking to learn that, for some of us, pizza was not always a part of our lives and certainly not served in the school cafeteria. Even though my heritage is Italian, I never heard about pizza until I was a teenager. It has since become my very favorite food!
My first taste of pizza was when my mom bought a Chef Boyardee Pizza Mix. It came with a dry mixture for the crust, a small can of sauce, and a packet of powdered cheese. My mom didn’t add any toppings and it was only “okay.” (snip)
My husband Randy joined the conversation by saying his first run in with pizza was the Chef Boyardee model too. Randy recalled a time when he and a bunch of guys each pitched in a quarter to buy a pizza at a dine-in shop. When the pizza was served, there was a race to grab a piece, resulting in more than one burnt roof of the mouth. Have you experienced that?
(Excerpt) Read more at hometownfocus.us ...
Saturday-night pizza. Often with Chef Bogarde pizza kit and later more the pizza shells from the Italian deli and Don Peppino sauce.
My parents had this as a family tradition. Pizza as a snack with our late-night horror movies. Creature Feature and Ghost Host Theater! Great times.
Yes we used Appian Way also.
Don’t recall if I’ve seen that in stores recently?
Yeah, our’s too. But there was a wall of windows that looked into the kitchen. They put a walkway and a rail up there so kids could go watch the process. It made the wait bearable. Anyway, a friend of mine worked there in the ‘70s. Some kid was pressing his face on the glass and making faces, so Dave winged a little piece of dough at him. The kid fell back and flipped over the rail. Classic.
Another thing that was unique to our town here was a restaurant opened by a local man in our mall. He was Barry, the restaurant Barry’s, and he had Barry’s Pizza.
I rarely actually had it, but I’ll never forget it. When the restaurant closed by 1990, it was a memory, brought up only in his obituary.
It was unique.
A huge, thick mass that was a true pizza PIE. It was made in a deep lasagna dish, thin layer of bread on the bottom, layered up the sides to make a very thick side, and closed over the top in another thin layer. Before closing it a gigantic amount of cheese with a bit of sauce (“toppings” if ordered) mixed in.
Basically it was a very, very thick quiche!
I loved it!
My mother went to NYC a lot for fun as a teen. Her parents went up there a lot. Mid-‘50s she went to an Italian restaurant there (and, this girl’s best friend was a Baltimore Italian and we had Little Italy) and they offered “pizza pie”. When asked about it they described it as like a pie with tomatoes and cheese baked on. They didn’t like the sound of that so skipped it!
All you, pizza people, come on in, and see what’s shakin’, at Shakey’s!
We had a couple but now they only exist in ...Asia!
More local to us was Pappy’s! Pappy’s will make you happy!
ANd they’re full of it. To each his own.
Frankly, we have so many deliverable pizzas for our house that I’m tiring of the soft, thick crusts all the time and preferring the frozen.
But, I do love Coal-Fired Pizza. Love that crispy thin pizza! Tasty too!
That reminds me of the time our aunt, uncle, and cousins came up to the city and wanted to go to a country music show. They let us kids go the Fox theater in St. Louis, which was just across the street from the theater with the country music show.
We met up with the adults after the shows were over, and they were raving about one of the performers. We had never heard of him, but sometime later found out that it was Elvis Presley.
Anchovies have no middle ground....you love them or hate them ; )
School pizza came in 2 varieties: handmade in pans the size of Rhode Island. Tasted like dinner rolls with ketchup. The other was frozen prefab, seemingly baked some weeks earlier and allowed to congeal into something like cardboard with cheese.
But hey, it was 55 cents!
CC
“...pizza was not always a part of our lives and certainly not served in the school cafeteria”.
I don’t know where this person grew up but on Long Island in the 50s we had kind of a homemade pizza on our menu when I was in first grade even, my husband said they had the same in his school in the sixties in NJ.
English muffin, mozarella and sauce.
And for some reason that thing was delicious!!!
Best pizza I ever had was in Queens, NY on Woodhaven Blvd. Great little pizza place, brick oven, spun their own up in the air and all!
I looked for it about ten years ago on the net. Seems they were visited by the FBI, shipping drugs in pizza boxes.
Oh well, that’s the mob for ya’
But they DID make the BEST pizza!!! Yeah, baby!
Best pizza was probably because I was so hungry.
About 10 years ago I had a colonoscopy scheduled for January 2. Nothing to eat the whole of New Years Day and then that wonderful gallon of fake lemonade.
Had my appointment and after getting out stopped at a Harris Pizza and I swear it was the best pizza the world had ever known
(Harris is a local chain in the Quad Cities, Davenport, Bettendorf IA and Rock Island and Moline IL. Not sure how long it’s been around but at least since the 50’s.)
That’s what my mom made - always hamburger pizza. We thought it was a big deal - the nearest Pizza Hut was 30 miles away.
“Music To Eat Pizza By” featuring The Duluth Accordionaires
This is simply fantastic.
Wasn’t it “Mama Mia! Thatsa one spicy meatball”?
We had Bama Binos in Tuscaloosa...but they were shut down.
I got paid once a month. Toward the end of the month we would get very creative with the cans of soup and beans left in our cabinets. But Payday was Pizza It was like Christmas the first of every month. It was the Supreme Pizza. Back then it had everything and you had to scrape the kitchen sink off.
And subs,,,can’t beat a Jersey sub.
Yep.
I’ve heard it’s the water as well. Also is rumored to be why the bagels don’t taste as good elsewhere (which is also true IMHO!).
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