A “PIZZA” FOOD FOR THOUGHT

October is National Pizza month. Why wouldn’t we write a whole article about it? Anything else would feel like a missed opportunity. So let’s bite right into it.

Pizzas are a big deal all over the world, which is clearly evident due to the random facts about pizzas we don’t really need to know. Statistics reveal that Americans eat 350 slices of pizza every second. Statistics also reveal that the majority of statistics are about America, and tend to ignore the rest of the world. So how much pizza is eaten in South Africa? We can only guess.

Speaking of the world, there are conflicting reports as to its origin. Egyptians and Ancient Greeks were eating “a type of flat bread” long before delivery guys brought pizza boxes to your door. But it seems tomatoes sealed the deal. Because it was only when people in Naples started adding tomatoes that the pizza is said to have been born.

According to more statistics that need to be verified and don’t represent the entire world, the most popular pizza topping is pepperoni. Except if you’re in India, where another study has revealed that the most popular topping is tofu. And while October has everyone talking about the latest US presidential debate, the real debate has been raging for decades. You know the one… whether or not pineapple belongs on a pizza. Let’s not even get into it.

Strangely enough, Hawaiian pizza (pineapple included) was invented in Canada. No, not strange because Canada isn’t Hawaii – strange because Canadians are regarded as the nicest people on earth. They’re the last people we’d expect to launch a debate that continues to pull people apart.

Not only is pizza popular around the world. It’s also popular out of this world. In 2001, the Russian Space Agency was paid over a million dollars to have a pizza delivered to the International Space Station. The most expensive pizza ever delivered, but no one ever mentions how hot it was when it got there. (Probably not very…) And that astronaut most definitely got his pizza for free, because it sure wasn’t delivered within an hour as per the company promise.

Also interesting and completely random is the fact that there’s a Pizza Theorem. In essence, it’s about the equality of two areas that arise when one partitions a disc in a certain way. If anyone knows what that could possibly mean, please send an email and explain. Nobody’s talking about why it’s named after a pizza… which could very possibly be because no one understands the theorem in the first place.

And according to legend, one of the first documented Internet purchases was the buying of a pizza. Pepperoni and mushrooms with extra cheese, purchased at the click of a button in 1994.

So there it is. Pizza is part of our lives. That’s why we’re celebrating it for a whole month and a whole newsletter article. It also makes a change from talking about Halloween again.