May 30, 2001

Would somebody please order pizza?

Some people remember their first date. Some their first long pants. I remember my first pizza. When the army sent me to Fort Devens, Mass., just in time for a Massachusetts winter, they confirmed my good judgment in choosing to be a native Californian.

Just before winter 1951 hit, I got my first pass in Mass. And in the company of a couple of other recently minted soldiers, I headed for the village of Ayer.

Ayer (pronounced "air") was not much of a town, but it featured something new to me--- Pizza.

Now you'd think someone with an Italian mother, who had spent most of his young life in Santa Rosa, which was practically a suburb of North Beach, would at least have heard about pizza. Not true. Pizza was new to me, and delicious. I fell in love with pizza, in spite of the fact my very first one featured salty anchovies. That melted cheese, that hot tomato sauce, the blended flavors of salami or pepperoni (oh my heartburn) or sausage.

I first assumed pizza was a dish known in the east but not in the west, like the milk shakes in New England that don't include ice cream. Little did I know pizza had been in North Beach for years. Brick ovens were kept hot supplying the in-crowd who knew a good thing when they tasted it, but those ovens were very specialized devices, and they were few and far between.

I had stumbled on the beginning of a true phenomenon. A few months later pizza took off, all over the U.S., from California to the New York Island, as Woodie Guthrie would say. Like the hula hoop, it was a true cultural phenomenon, but pizza has had more staying power.

After that first discovery, I found pizza even within the medieval wall of the old city of Nuremberg in Franconia, West Germany, where an enterprising Italian immigrant had set up a pizza restaurant peddling his wares to occupation soldiers and hungry Germans.

Only in northern Italy did I find pizza hard to find. Pizza is from Naples, and Italians are pretty provincial when it comes to cuisine. If you want a Neapolitan specialty, they suggest you go to Naples. By mid-1954, on my return from duty, the pizza business was booming all over northern California.

The market for mozzarella, salami, pepperoni, sausage, tomato paste, and similar delicacies has been strong for almost half a century. I have actually seen pineapple and Canadian Bacon pizzas. (They're pretty good, actually). I think every variation has been tried, but those who think Monterey Jack cheese is as good as Mozzarella will get an argument from me. Pizza is so good it can't be completely ruined, but any number of folks have done their level best to accomplish that dubious goal. The dough needs tender, loving care to be at its best.

Pacifica has had a long history of great pizza, including that of the late lamented Enrico Romano who served his loyal fans for years, and then over-expanded to oblivion.

It would not be my place to tell you which of the current crop of Pacifica pizza restaurants is the best of the lot. Success these days depends far more on willingness to deliver in a dash and a flash than it does on producing a pizza that's twice as good as the other guys.

No matter which place you choose, you will be enjoying a truly American dish. We have made it our own, and it took only about fifty years. I suspect it will be with us for several centuries.

Paul Azevedo's e-mail address is thereactor2@earthlink.net