I CONTINUE to be persecuted for my stance against American pizza. Another reader, whose comment I will not include here because it is so critical it may precipitate a more widespread loss of confidence in this site, has said that I am unfair and petty. There is plenty of very good pizza, he said. Besides, how could I possibly consider pizza a serious cultural issue?

I pointed out to this reader that I have acknowledged a number of times that there is good pizza. Even Pizza Hut pizza has its place if consumed in moderation. But the pizza-fication of America, with pizza joints on every corner and landfills bursting with greasy cardboard boxes and children taking cold slices in their lunch boxes five days a week and pizza probably being served at State dinners to foreign dignitaries and microscopic cheap mozzarella coursing through the arteries of perfectly decent citizens, is something I must contine to fight, however lonely the battle may be. After all, I am not in any way dependent on the pizza-industrial complex.  

My discussion with this reader reminded me of a relevant pizza anecdote. My son was driving along a deserted mountain road last year when he saw a beautiful fox. The animal was walking along the shoulder of the road. The road was miles from the nearest town and high mountains rose up in the background, suggesting primeval separation from civilization. But this was somewhat illusory. In the fox’s mouth was a very large slice of pizza. The pizza-fication of America is all-encompassing. Even wild animals grab a slice.

I urge those coolly indifferent to pizza’s effects on human beings to pause and consider what it does to other species. Pizza, in addition to everything else, is an environmental issue.

Perhaps Aesop’s tale of the fox and crow should be revised for modern audiences. Instead of a piece of cheese, the crow should have a slice of cheese pizza in its beak. When the fox flatters the bird, the slice falls. Right into the waiting mouth of the fox.

The moral is for you to guess, dear reader.

                                                                   — Comments —

Lisa writes:

Mmmm. Shouldn’t have read that right before time to cook supper. Now I have to go make pizza. With my home-milled whole wheat flour. With the beef that was raised in my neighbor’s pasture. With cheese from a fifteen pound horn in the fridge from a cheese maker in Wisconsin.

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