FOOD WITH SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE

As is the case with many conversations nowadays, yesterday's most data-filled discussion (about pizza) was entirely on the internet. Cheese pizza, it turns out, can be eaten with chopsticks. A normal-sized slice can easily be picked up and held thus.

My apartment mate, being Chinese American, often and habitually eats stuff with chopsticks. But I did not confirm with her that pizza is one of the things that one eats with chopsticks.


Normally, I eat pizza with Sriracha.


My first exposure to pizza was probably in Italy when I was six. They did not have sambal of any kind in that country at that time, which was not entirely unexpected then, but they probably still don't, which in this day and age just seems kind of perverse.
What kind of country has fermented fish or chilies but NO sambal?
Fuh gads-aiks, they've got tomatoes!
Also from Mexico.

Civilization, as every blinkered culinarist knows, didn't start until chili peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, peppercorns, and fermented fish products, all met each other in the same kitchen.
Previously I would have said that caffeine was the spark -- no more stale beer or diluted wine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, because the water just wasn't drinkable -- but after careful consideration, these food products were more important. A well-fed person is less likely to kill someone over Jeebus than someone with acid-indigestion. Religious war lasted longer where there was no cuisine. Scotland, Ireland, and New York once the Dutch left.
The Viking age endured in Iceland till modern times.
Probably because of hákarl.
Q.E.D.


The other thing is cheese, of course, but that almost goes without saying. There is no pizza in a warzone.




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