A World without Pizza

Can you remember a time in which you did not know pizza? Can you imagine losing your taste for pizza?

I know the former and am encountering the latter.

I think it was in the second half of 1966, when I was nine, that I first smelled pizza. The odor was so vile I doubt I even tried it. This would have been the bouquet of parmesan from a Jen0’s or Chef Boyardee pizza kit. You’d get a box with a packet of dry ingredients for dough, a can of sauce and whatever flavoring (that is, meat or, maybe, mushrooms), and a packet of parmesan cheese. I did not know that there were restaurants that specialized in pizza. In fact, up until that evening I’d never heard of pizza.

The next time they made the novelty I tried it, overcoming the gag reflex caused by the malodorous cheese. I’m sure I was shamed into it. But I was hooked.

Perhaps this was one of my first gustatory adventures. My mouth remained conservative for many years to come, avoiding almost everything new and “strange”, until I tried vegetarian and ethnic foods when I was in my twenties. (Considering this was a boom time of new recipes for Jell-O salads and desserts, maybe not a bad thing.)

In Duluth we eventually had a Shakey’s and, then, Pizza Hut. I thought I was in heaven. (Long before the chains came we had Sammy’s. I would walk past the one in West Duluth almost every week for four years on my way to a band rehearsal (not that kind of band: when you took accordion lessons from Johnny’s Music you would be in a band, learning to play in an orchestral setting of kids with accordions, until you reached the supreme limit, the Duluth Accordionaires). Every week my mother would promise that we’d eat there, maybe next week. I finally tried their pizza about fifteen years later, on my own—not worth the wait.)

Over the years I’ve tried many pizzas in many cities. What I like most about them is that there are so many variations on the theme. You don’t really have to worry about how any particular pizza compares to your favorite: you just assume each will have its own character and enjoy it for the pizza it is. I find this difficult to do with any other food.

But now I’m losing my taste for pizza. There are so many reasons. My sinuses have always been clogged, limiting my sense of taste. Too often all I get from food is what hits my tongue: bitter, sour, sweet, salty. Or, worse, I have days when only certain odors cut through and what might normally be pleasant becomes offensive (back to that stinky cheese). But it also has to do with age and the deterioration of my body. Fats and acids now sometimes cause pain where they once gave pleasure—in my stomach. Regarding grease, it’s the combination of grease and acid together (for instance, French fries remain perversely satisfying), turning chili, pizza, marinaras, and my beloved berbere against me.

Of all my oddnesses and eccentricities, I can’t think of many things that put me further outside the mainstream of humanity and civilization than an aversion to pizza.