THE PIZZA EFFECT
I’d never heard of the pizza effect. That is, until Bob Lucky commented on my Cornish pasty post.* The Cornish pasty’s export to other parts of the world with emigrants, its transformation, and its reintroduction to Cornwall, he said, was an example of the pizza effect.
Bob went on to mention that the anthropologist Agehananda Bharati had introduced the concept of the pizza effect** in religious and Asian studies in the 1970s. So off I went to Wikipedia and Google Scholar, and came across a strange tale.
But first, the pizza effect. Bharati used the term in a scholarly article “The Hindu Renaissance and Its Apologetic Patterns” in the Journal of Asian Studies 29. 2 (1970), 267-287 (available on J-Stor for those readers who have access), as a pithy way to talk about the creation of national traditions more generally. Here’s what he says about pizza.
“The original pizza was a simple, hot-baked bread without any trimmings, the staple of the Calabrian and Sicilian contadini from whom well over 90% of all Italo-Americans descend. After World War I, a highly elaborated dish, the U.S. pizza of many sizes, flavors, and hues, made its way back to Italy with visiting kinsfolk from America. The term and the object have acquired a new meaning and a new status, as well as many new tastes in the land of its origin, not only in the south, but throughout the length and width of Italy.”
Bharati’s very scholarly article (in which pizza is just a mere footnote) explores the back and forth, or rather forth and back, of ideas about the nature of Sanskrit, yoga***, Tantrism, mysticism, transcendental meditation from India to the West and back again. It’s a thesis that has received scholarly approval as the ninety plus citations in Google Scholar indicate.
Who, I wondered, was Bharati? Well, originally he was Leop-
old Fischer, sone of a well-to-do Viennese family, born in Vienna, Austria in 1923. (See also here).
As a boy he met Indian students studying in Vienna and became interested in the languages and culture of the sub-continent. When Hitler formed the Free India Legion in 1941 (another story that was new to me), the eighteen-year old was assigned to the unit as a translator.
Following the war, in 1949, Fischer finally made his way to India, which had fascinated him for so long. He persuaded one order of Hindu monks to take on this foreigner and, on becoming a monk himself, changed his name to Agehananda Bharati.
Besides traveling across India, he taught at the University of Delhi, Banaras Hindu University, the Nalanda Institute, a Buddhist academy in Bangkok, and the University of Tokyo.
Then he migrated to the United States and by the early 1960s was chair of Anthropology at the University of Syracuse, shortly after becoming an American citizen.
Bharati published prolifically, his scholarly interests now converging with many of the hot button topics of the 60s and 70s: the Tantric tradition, LSD, and mysticism. Among his more popular writings were his autobiography, The Ochre Robe and Fictitious Tibet, a searing indictment of the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Tibetan religion at the hands of Madam Blavatsky and followers. Here he is lecturing in Hyderabad.
And yes, this does get back to food. In 2005, a charitable foundation, The Lotus Trust, with Hindu underpinnings, was established in the UK. One of their initiatives, that has support from the European Union Lifelong Learning Program, is called the Pizza Effect Project.
Lack of confidence in one’s own culture, combined with the blind acceptance of all things new and foreign, often results in a phenomenon that social scientists call the “Pizza Effect,” a phrase that was coined in as late as 1970 by an anthropologist named Agehananda Bharati.
This project will unite adults around a common idea of healthy simple food, appreciation of one’s own and other’s culture, and active social integration into the European community. Through several cooking workshops, the partners will establish
1 Buonassisi, Rosario (2000). Pizza: From its Italian Origins to the Modern Table. Firefly.
2 https://munchies.vice.com/ en_us/article/vvxpm9/apparently-pizza-is-the-most-photographed-food-on-instagram
3 https://www.ted.com/talks/ al_vernacchio_sex_needs_a_ new_metaphor_here_s_one
4 http://knowyourmeme. com/memes/pizzagate
5 https://books.google. ca/books?id=5aNERulnsF0C&pg=PA380&lpg=PA380&dq=this+slice+of+pizza+came+flying+over+my+head+and+hit+Fergie+straight+in+the+mush&source=bl&ots=k-
5c2X0_7gv&sig=pMrsk2bjBJWfNWZSEBk8E7Mvncw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGgJ7V_47XAhWh4IMKHb60Ah0Q6AEIKjAB#v=onepage&q=this%20 slice%20of%20pizza%20 came%20flying%20over%20 my%20head%20and%20hit%20 Fergie%20straight%20in%20 the%20mush&f=false
6 http://www.bbc.com/sport/ football/29712118
7 http://www.telegraph. co.uk/news/picturegalleries/ celebritynews/8678482/PaulDaniels-injured-in-Sooty-pizzathrowing-accident.html
8 http://www.dailyedge.ie/ paul-daniels-hospitalised-af-
communication, encourage peer learning within target groups of adults, as well as intergenerational interaction. Using food as an integrating topic, the project aims to update the knowledge and skills of participating staff by improving their competencies necessary for managing organizations.
As a result of the project “Recipe book – Pizza Effect” with the descriptions of culture and way of life of participating countries will be published and distributed locally by partners. And if, by now, your head is spinning with these complex links between national cultures, migration, colonialism and settlement, and food, well, so is mine. Food takes one down strange and unexpected paths. But I like the setting of food changes in the much broader context.
ter-bizarre-sooty-pizza-injury-192376-Aug2011/ 9 http://www.ctvnews.ca/ canada/woman-charged-in-bizarre-n-s-attack-with-hot-pizzaslice-1.2314359
10 https://www.vice.com/en_ ca/article/8xa59x/confirmed-canadians-can-get-charged-withassault-for-throwing-pizza
11 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=t2L_8NWSjWg 12 https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pizza%20Slut
13 http://www.cosmopolitan. com/entertainment/celebs/ news/a38643/chris-wallace-kelly-clarkson/
14 http://people.com/celebrity/ chris-wallaces-apology-to-kelly-clarkson/
15 https://www.eater. com/2017/8/10/16125150/victoria-beckham-anorexic-pizza-ad 16 http://time.com/3771465/ indiana-no-gay-wedding-pizza-parlor-raises-money/ 17 https://www.gofundme. com/MemoriesPizza 18 https://www.salon. com/2015/04/04/secrets_of_ the_hate_pizza_revolution_indianas_dreadful_culture_war_ week/ 19 Buonassisi, Rosario (2000). Pizza: From its Italian Origins to the Modern Table. Firefly. 20 https://munchies.vice.com/ en_us/article/vvxpm9/appar-
ently-pizza-is-the-most-photographed-food-on-instagram 21 https://www.ted.com/talks/ al_vernacchio_sex_needs_a_ new_metaphor_here_s_one 22 http://knowyourmeme. com/memes/pizzagate 23 https://books.google. ca/books?id=5aNERulnsF0C&pg=PA380&lpg=PA380&dq=this+slice+of+pizza+came+flying+over+my+head+and+hit+Fergie+straight+in+the+mush&source=bl&ots=k5c2X0_7gv&sig=pMrsk2bjBJWfNWZSEBk8E7Mvncw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGgJ7V_47XAhWh4IMKHb60Ah0Q6AEIKjAB#v=onepage&q=this%20 slice%20of%20pizza%20 came%20flying%20over%20 my%20head%20and%20hit%20 Fergie%20straight%20in%20 the%20mush&f=false 24 http://www.bbc.com/sport/ football/29712118 25 http://www.telegraph. co.uk/news/picturegalleries/ celebritynews/8678482/PaulDaniels-injured-in-Sooty-pizzathrowing-accident.html 26 http://www.dailyedge.ie/ paul-daniels-hospitalised-after-bizarre-sooty-pizza-injury-192376-Aug2011/ 27 http://www.ctvnews.ca/ canada/woman-charged-in-bizarre-n-s-attack-with-hot-pizza-
slice-1.2314359
28 https://www.vice.com/en_ ca/article/8xa59x/confirmed-canadians-can-get-charged-withassault-for-throwing-pizza
29 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=t2L_8NWSjWg
30 https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pizza%20Slut
31 http://www.cosmopolitan. com/entertainment/celebs/ news/a38643/chris-wallace-kelly-clarkson/ 32 http://people.com/celebrity/ chris-wallaces-apology-to-kelly-clarkson/ 33 https://www.eater. com/2017/8/10/16125150/victoria-beckham-anorexic-pizza-ad 34 http://time.com/3771465/ indiana-no-gay-wedding-pizza-parlor-raises-money/ 35 https://www.gofundme. com/MemoriesPizza 36 https://www.salon. com/2015/04/04/secrets_of_ the_hate_pizza_revolution_indianas_dreadful_culture_war_ week/
37 Buonassisi, Rosario (2000). Pizza: From its Italian Origins to the Modern Table. Firefly. 38 https://munchies.vice.com/ en_us/article/vvxpm9/apparently-pizza-is-the-most-photographed-food-on-instagram
39 https://www.ted.com/talks/ al_vernacchio_sex_needs_a_ new_metaphor_here_s_one
PIZZA AS A WEAPON
As a teen, gaping at a blue screen in rural Nova Scotia, I watched in envy as the cast of Friends shared their lives and shared pizzas. I wanted so badly to connect. Pizza, the first communal fast food,1 provided the perfect excuse to do so. Everyone loves pizza. It is one of the most popular foods in the world and, according to VICE, the most commonly photographed food on Instagram.2 It has proved an excellent metaphor for globalization and cultural transformation, and recently in a TED talk by Al Vernacchio, it was even proposed as a replacement for the baseball metaphor for sex, representing a form of shared pleasure, discussion and agreement.3 The love of pizza is a connector, a way to make friends and a way to keep them. McCauly Caulkin’s Pizza Underground, the Pizza Pavilion, Mystic Pizza screenings, blogs, memes and Pizza - The Reader itself all work to cultivate this nostalgic relationship we have with pizza. I am always thrilled when things and people come together on account of this cheesy pie.
Enter the Memories Pizza scandal.
Enter Pizzagate.
Enter my realization that pizza, like all else, has a darker side. I am not talking about a few burnt crusts… no, it can, despite its social history, be appropriated to harm physically, uphold outdated cultural norms and to contribute to trending culture wars.
Pizza as a physical weapon:
In 2016, Pizzagate went viral when Trump supporters accused Clinton’s chairman John Podesta of running a pedophile ring attached to Comet Ping Pong Pizza based on emails hacked from Clinton’s account.4 In fact, there have been other Pizzagates. In October of 2004 an Arsenal player rumored to be Cesc Fàbregas threw a slice of pizza at Manchester United’s manager Sir Alex Fergeson (Fergie). The incident is a ghostno accurate account or footage of the event exists. Regardless, it was picked up by the tabloids as a means to fuel the feud between Arsenal and Manchester. Former Arsenal defender Ashley Cole went as far as to describe the incident in his autobiography: «this slice of pizza came flying over my head and hit Fergie straight in the mush ... «5. It was written about in memoirs and exhausted in the British news. It even inspired the
article Manchester United v Arsenal: Pizzagate revisited - 10 years on…..6 It is a funny story, but on a more serious note, inciting football rivalries can have catastrophic results. There have been over eighty deaths associated with soccer hooliganism and countless acts of violence.7 The 2004 Pizzagate is also not the only time someone was assaulted by a pizza. In 2011, a magician was hospitalized after having a pizza thrown in his face by a puppet,8 and in 2015, Paige Beaudry suffered burn wounds to the face, neck and chest after having a pizza shoved in her face by another customer. 9 Most recently, an 18-year-old man from Newfoundland was charged with assault after attempting to hit a man in a pizza throwing drive-by. 10Pizza is, of course, not a weapon of choice… but in all three incidents, we see words in the headlines like “bizarre” and “funny”. It can be… but this farcical attitude is suspect when volatile divisions are fueled and people are harmed.
PIZZA AS A VERBAL WEAPON (THE PIZZA DISS)
In Amy Schumer’s skit, I’m so bad a group of women sit at a restaurant confessing their food indulgences; “I am seriously bad,” one woman confides, “I can’t get out of bed without eating a calzone. The other day, when the woman walked off the GW Bridge, I didn’t do anything to help her. It’s because I was chewing my calzone! I’m so bad!.” Her friends console her, not for her lack of action, but for the caloric intake. The skit ends with the women collectively lunging at a waiter who has offered them dessert. They eat him alive while repeating “I am so bad.”11 In this extreme example, looking good takes precedence over possessing a moral compass or even valuing human life. Schumer cleverly reveals the insidious damage done through the upholding of trivial cultural standards as a tool for appearance and lifestyle shaming. Pizza is not immune. “Pizzaface,” referring to someone with acne scars, is one of the crueler insults spat from the mouths of pubescent teens, “pizzaboy” is slang for an outcast in a group and “pizzaslut” is used to refer to a girl who will perform sex acts for pizza.12 Aside from slang, pizza has also been used to slam celebrities and maintain the almost impossible beauty standards imposed on us through mainstream media. Recently, Fox News host Chris Wallace insulted pop singer and new mother Kelly Clarkson by saying she “could stay off the deep dish pizza for a while.”13 After sparking almost immediate outrage online, Wallace publicly apologized and admitted that he should have focussed on her talent and not her weight.14 Conversely, Victoria Beckham was rumoured to have sought legal advice after a pizza company labelled their pizza thinner than her, an “anorexic celebrity icon”.15 The pizza diss - in all of its toxic iterations, functions as a symbol of the pressures imposed on us to fulfill unrealistic and homogenous lifestyle standards at all costs.
PIZZA AS A POLITICAL WEAPON
Perhaps one of the saddest and most publicized incidents of pizza being used for purposes of insult and exclusion involves Memories Pizzeria in Walkerton, Indiana. On April 1st, 2015, sixty-one year old Kevin O›Connor shut down his small restaurant for eight days after controversial comments on a local news station. In his short but damning interview he stated that his religious beliefs did not allow him to cater a gay wedding. For all of those who chastised O’Connor for his prejudice, there were equal numbers who celebrated his stance as a symbol of religious freedom. Many came forward to offer his pizza shop their business and donations in solidarity. When Memories Pizzeria re-opened ten days later, it did so to a packed house.16 The family business also managed to raise over $846,000 from almost 30,000 contributors in a GoFundME campaign.17 Andrew O›Hehir summarized the problem nicely in his article about Memories pizza, “$842,637, as I see it, is where the real meaning of the hate-pizza counter-revolution lies. Each $10 donation contained within that middling-impressive sum is like a condensed droplet from the deep pool of alienation and bitterness in heartland white America.”18 Although they publicly stated they would serve everyone and have never indeed been asked to cater a wedding (pizza is not a top choice of wedding foods), the hypothetical scenario became a symbol of the floodgates of discrimination in Indiana and thus, the Memories pizza controversy ended up at the very heart of the debate between gay marriage and religious freedom. Although some of these incidents may come across as harmless spectacle, one need only to look back at the United States in 2003 with the renaming of french fries as freedom fries to understand just how far fast food can go in acting as a means to establish distance and contention. Pizza is not unique in this sense. French toast, donuts, chocolate bars and wine are all small and often arbitrary symbols that have been picked up, dropped and replaced in cultural struggles. The real issue may not be pizza, but it serves as a greasy symbol for co-opted beliefs so that nothing, no matter how small or unassuming, is safe from morphing into a misguided societal emblem. For the love of pizza and its history, let›s be sure to maintain its well deserved reputation as a food the symbolizes shared pleasure and a tie- or pie- that binds.
1 When Bob Lucky comments, I follow up. Bob’s a cultural anthropologist, has lived across Asia, and in the 1990s published an indispensable newsletter, The Asian Foodbookery, which I have carried from Hawaii to Mexico and now to the US.
2 There is another kind of pizza effect having to do with the changes in glycemic
index particularly in those with diabetes following the eating of foods such as pizza. Needless to say that’s completely different.
3 For a more recent study of this see Mark Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Postural Yoga (Oxford University Press, 2010).
“Singleton’s surprising–and surely controversial–thesis is that yoga as it is popularly prac -
ticed today owes a greater debt to modern Indian nationalism and, even more surprisingly, to the spiritual aspirations of European bodybuilding and early 20th-century women’s gymnastic movements of Europe and America, than it does to any ancient Indian yoga tradition.”
See also Joseph S. Alter, Yoga in Modern India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), Silvia Ceccomori, Cent ans de yoga en France (Paris: Edidit, 2001), and Elizabeth De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga (London: Continuum, 2004).
THE PIZZA EFFECT
I’d never heard of the pizza effect. That is, until Bob Lucky commented on my Cornish pasty post.* The Cornish pasty’s export to other parts of the world with emigrants, its transformation, and its reintroduction to Cornwall, he said, was an example of the pizza effect.
Bob went on to mention that the anthropologist Agehananda Bharati had introduced the concept of the pizza effect** in religious and Asian studies in the 1970s. So off I went to Wikipedia and Google Scholar, and came across a strange tale.
But first, the pizza effect. Bharati used the term in a scholarly article “The Hindu Renaissance and Its Apologetic Patterns” in the Journal of Asian Studies 29. 2 (1970), 267-287 (available on J-Stor for those readers who have access), as a pithy way to talk about the creation of national traditions more generally. Here’s what he says about pizza.
“The original pizza was a simple, hot-baked bread without any trimmings, the staple of the Calabrian and Sicilian contadini from whom well over 90% of all Italo-Americans descend. After World War I, a highly elaborated dish, the U.S. pizza of many sizes, flavors, and hues, made its way back to Italy with visiting kinsfolk from America. The term and the object have acquired a new meaning and a new status, as well as many new tastes in the land of its origin, not only in the south, but throughout the length and width of Italy.”
Bharati’s very scholarly article (in which pizza is just a mere footnote) explores the back and forth, or rather forth and back, of ideas about the nature of Sanskrit, yoga***, Tantrism, mysticism, transcendental meditation from India to the West and back again. It’s a thesis that has received scholarly approval as the ninety plus citations in Google Scholar indicate.
Who, I wondered, was Bharati? Well, originally he was Leopold Fischer, sone of a well-to-do Viennese family, born in Vienna, Austria in 1923. (See also here).
As a boy he met Indian students studying in Vienna and became interested in the languages and culture of the sub-continent. When Hitler formed the Free India Legion in 1941 (another story that was new to me), the eighteen-year old was assigned to the unit as a translator.
Following the war, in 1949, Fischer finally made his way to India, which had fascinated him for so long. He persuaded one order of Hindu monks to take on this foreigner and, on becoming a monk himself, changed his name to Agehananda Bharati. Besides traveling across India, he taught at the University of Delhi, Banaras Hindu University, the Nalanda Institute, a Buddhist academy in Bangkok, and the University of Tokyo. Then he migrated to the United States and by the early 1960s was chair of Anthropology at the University of Syracuse, shortly after becoming an American citizen.
Bharati published prolifically, his scholarly interests now converging with many of the hot button topics of the 60s and 70s: the Tantric tradition, LSD, and mysticism. Among his more popular writings were his autobiography, The Ochre Robe and Fictitious Tibet, a searing indictment of the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Tibetan religion at the hands of Madam Blavatsky and followers. Here he is lecturing in Hyderabad. And yes, this does get back to food. In 2005, a charitable foundation, The Lotus Trust, with Hindu underpinnings, was established in the UK. One of their initiatives, that has support from the European Union Lifelong Learning Program, is called the Pizza Effect Project.
Lack of confidence in one’s own culture, combined with the blind acceptance of all things new and foreign, often results in a phenomenon that social scientists call the “Pizza Effect,” a phrase that was coined in as late as 1970 by an anthropologist named Agehananda Bharati. This project will unite adults around a common idea of healthy simple food, appreciation of one’s own and other’s culture, and active social integration into the European community. Through several cooking workshops, the partners will establish communication, encourage peer learning within target groups of adults, as well as intergenerational interaction. Using food as an
<?> Buonassisi, Rosario (2000). Pizza: From its Italian Origins to the Modern Table. Firefly. <?> https://munchies.vice.com/ en_us/article/vvxpm9/apparently-pizza-is-the-most-photographed-food-on-instagram <?> https://www.ted.com/talks/ al_vernacchio_sex_needs_a_ new_metaphor_here_s_one <?> http://knowyourmeme. com/memes/pizzagate <?> https://books.google. ca/books?id=5aNERulnsF0C&pg=PA380&lpg=PA380&dq=this+slice+of+pizza+came+flying+over+my+head+and+hit+Fergie+straight+in+the+mush&source=bl&ots=k5c2X0_7gv&sig=pMrsk2bjBJWfNWZSEBk8E7Mvncw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGgJ7V_47XAhWh4IMKHb60Ah0Q6AEIKjAB#v=onepage&q=this%20 slice%20of%20pizza%20 came%20flying%20over%20 my%20head%20and%20hit%20 Fergie%20straight%20in%20 the%20mush&f=false <?> http://www.bbc.com/sport/ football/29712118 <?> http://www.telegraph. co.uk/news/picturegalleries/ celebritynews/8678482/PaulDaniels-injured-in-Sooty-pizzathrowing-accident.html <?> http://www.dailyedge.ie/ paul-daniels-hospitalised-af-
integrating topic, the project aims to update the knowledge and skills of participating staff by improving their competencies necessary for managing organizations.
As a result of the project “Recipe book – Pizza Effect” with the descriptions of culture and way of life of participating countries will be published and distributed locally by partners. And if, by now, your head is spinning with these complex links between national cultures, migration, colonialism and settlement, and food, well, so is mine. Food takes one down strange and unexpected paths. But I like the setting of food changes in the much broader context.
And I want to come back to the Cornish pasty ere long. Lots new to say about that.
ter-bizarre-sooty-pizza-injury-192376-Aug2011/ <?> http://www.ctvnews.ca/ canada/woman-charged-in-bizarre-n-s-attack-with-hot-pizzaslice-1.2314359 <?> https://www.vice.com/en_ ca/article/8xa59x/confirmed-canadians-can-get-charged-withassault-for-throwing-pizza <?> https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=t2L_8NWSjWg <?> https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pizza%20Slut
<?> http://www.cosmopolitan. com/entertainment/celebs/ news/a38643/chris-wallace-kelly-clarkson/ <?> http://people.com/celebrity/ chris-wallaces-apology-to-kelly-clarkson/ <?> https://www.eater. com/2017/8/10/16125150/victoria-beckham-anorexic-pizza-ad <?> http://time.com/3771465/ indiana-no-gay-wedding-pizza-parlor-raises-money/ <?> https://www.gofundme. com/MemoriesPizza <?> https://www.salon. com/2015/04/04/secrets_of_ the_hate_pizza_revolution_indianas_dreadful_culture_war_ week/ <?> Buonassisi, Rosario (2000). Pizza: From its Italian Origins to the Modern Table. Firefly. <?> https://munchies.vice.com/ en_us/article/vvxpm9/appar-
ently-pizza-is-the-most-photographed-food-on-instagram <?> https://www.ted.com/talks/ al_vernacchio_sex_needs_a_ new_metaphor_here_s_one <?> http://knowyourmeme. com/memes/pizzagate <?> https://books.google. ca/books?id=5aNERulnsF0C&pg=PA380&lpg=PA380&dq=this+slice+of+pizza+came+flying+over+my+head+and+hit+Fergie+straight+in+the+mush&source=bl&ots=k5c2X0_7gv&sig=pMrsk2bjBJWfNWZSEBk8E7Mvncw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGgJ7V_47XAhWh4IMKHb60Ah0Q6AEIKjAB#v=onepage&q=this%20 slice%20of%20pizza%20 came%20flying%20over%20 my%20head%20and%20hit%20 Fergie%20straight%20in%20 the%20mush&f=false <?> http://www.bbc.com/sport/ football/29712118 <?> http://www.telegraph. co.uk/news/picturegalleries/ celebritynews/8678482/PaulDaniels-injured-in-Sooty-pizzathrowing-accident.html <?> http://www.dailyedge.ie/ paul-daniels-hospitalised-after-bizarre-sooty-pizza-injury-192376-Aug2011/ <?> http://www.ctvnews.ca/ canada/woman-charged-in-bizarre-n-s-attack-with-hot-pizza-
slice-1.2314359 <?> https://www.vice.com/en_ ca/article/8xa59x/confirmed-canadians-can-get-charged-withassault-for-throwing-pizza <?> https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=t2L_8NWSjWg <?> https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pizza%20Slut <?> http://www.cosmopolitan. com/entertainment/celebs/ news/a38643/chris-wallace-kelly-clarkson/ <?> http://people.com/celebrity/ chris-wallaces-apology-to-kelly-clarkson/ <?> https://www.eater. com/2017/8/10/16125150/victoria-beckham-anorexic-pizza-ad <?> http://time.com/3771465/ indiana-no-gay-wedding-pizza-parlor-raises-money/ <?> https://www.gofundme. com/MemoriesPizza <?> https://www.salon. com/2015/04/04/secrets_of_ the_hate_pizza_revolution_indianas_dreadful_culture_war_ week/
PIZZA AS A WEAPON
As a teen, gaping at a blue screen in rural Nova Scotia, I watched in envy as the cast of Friends shared their lives and shared pizzas. I wanted so badly to connect. Pizza, the first communal fast food,19 provided the perfect excuse to do so. Everyone loves pizza. It is one of the most popular foods in the world and, according to VICE, the most commonly photographed food on Instagram.20 It has proved an excellent metaphor for globalization and cultural transformation, and recently in a TED talk by Al Vernacchio, it was even proposed as a replacement for the baseball metaphor for sex, representing a form of shared pleasure, discussion and agreement.21 The love of pizza is a connector, a way to make friends and a way to keep them. McCauly Caulkin’s Pizza Underground, the Pizza Pavilion, Mystic Pizza screenings, blogs, memes and Pizza - The Reader itself all work to cultivate this nostalgic relationship we have with pizza. I am always thrilled when things and people come together on account of this cheesy pie.
Enter the Memories Pizza scandal.
Enter Pizzagate.
Enter my realization that pizza, like all else, has a darker side. I am not talking about a few burnt crusts… no, it can, despite its social history, be appropriated to harm physically, uphold outdated cultural norms and to contribute to trending culture wars.
Pizza as a physical weapon:
In 2016, Pizzagate went viral when Trump supporters accused Clinton’s chairman John Podesta of running a pedophile ring attached to Comet Ping Pong Pizza based on emails hacked from Clinton’s account.22 In fact, there have been other Pizzagates. In October of 2004 an Arsenal player rumored to be Cesc Fàbregas threw a slice of pizza at Manchester United’s manager Sir Alex Fergeson (Fergie). The incident is a ghostno accurate account or footage of the event exists. Regardless, it was picked up by the tabloids as a means to fuel the feud between Arsenal and Manchester. Former Arsenal defender Ashley Cole went as far as to describe the incident in his autobiography: «this slice of pizza came flying over my head and hit Fergie straight in the mush ... « 23. It was written about in memoirs and exhausted in the British news. It even inspired the
“Wise men say forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.”
Michelangelo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1990
PIZZA AS A WEAPON
As a teen, gaping at a blue screen in rural Nova Scotia, I watched in envy as the cast of Friends shared their lives and shared pizzas. I wanted so badly to connect. Pizza, the first communal fast food,37 provided the perfect excuse to do so. Everyone loves pizza. It is one of the most popular foods in the world and, according to VICE, the most commonly photographed food on Instagram.38 It has proved an excellent metaphor for globalization and cultural transformation, and recently in a TED talk by Al Vernacchio, it was even proposed as a replacement for the baseball metaphor for sex, representing a form of shared pleasure, discussion and agreement.39 The love of pizza is a connector, a way to make friends and a way to keep them. McCauly Caulkin’s Pizza Underground, the Pizza Pavilion, Mystic Pizza screenings, blogs, memes and Pizza - The Reader itself all work to cultivate this nostalgic relationship we have with pizza. I am always thrilled when things and people come together on account of this cheesy pie.
Enter the Memories Pizza scandal.
Enter Pizzagate.
Enter my realization that pizza, like all else, has a darker side. I am not talking about a few burnt crusts… no Arsenal player rumored to be Cesc Fàbregas threw a slice of pizza at Manchester United’s manager, it can, despite its social history, be appropriated to harm physically, uphold outdated cultural norms and to contribute to trending culture wars.
Pizza as a physical weapon:
In 2016, Pizzagate went viral when Trump supporters accused Clinton’s chairman John Podesta of running a pedophile ring attached to Comet Ping Pong Pizza based on emails hacked from Clinton’s account.40 In fact, there have been other Pizzagates. In October of 2004 an Arsenal player rumored to be Cesc Fàbregas threw a slice of pizza at Manchester United’s manager Slex Fergeson (Fergie). The incident is a ghost- no accurate account or footage of the event exists. Regir Alex Fergeson (Fergie). The incident is a ghost- no accurate account or footage of the event exists. Regardless, it was picked up by the tabloids as a means to fuel the feud between Arsenal and Manchester.
article Manchester United v Arsenal: Pizzagate revisited - 10 years on…..24 It is a funny story, but on a more serious note, inciting football rivalries can have catastrophic results. There have been over eighty deaths associated with soccer hooliganism and countless acts of violence.25 The 2004 Pizzagate is also not the only time someone was assaulted by a pizza. In 2011, a magician was hospitalized after having a pizza thrown in his face by a puppet, 26 and in 2015, Paige Beaudry suffered burn wounds to the face, neck and chest after having a pizza shoved in her face by another customer.27 Most recently, an 18-year-old man from Newfoundland was charged with assault after attempting to hit a man in a pizza throwing drive-by. 28Pizza is, of course, not a weapon of choice… but in all three incidents, we see words in the headlines like “bizarre” and “funny”. It can be… but this farcical attitude is suspect when volatile divisions are fueled and people are harmed.
PIZZA AS A VERBAL WEAPON (THE PIZZA DISS)
In Amy Schumer’s skit, I’m so bad a group of women sit at a restaurant confessing their food indulgences; “I am seriously bad,” one woman confides, “I can’t get out of bed without eating a calzone. The other day, when the woman walked off the GW Bridge, I didn’t do anything to help her. It’s because I was chewing my calzone! I’m so bad!.” Her friends console her, not for her lack of action, but for the caloric intake. The skit ends with the women collectively lunging at a waiter who has offered them dessert. They eat him alive while repeating “I am so bad.” 29 In this extreme example, looking good takes precedence over possessing a moral compass or even valuing human life. Schumer cleverly reveals the insidious damage done through the upholding of trivial cultural standards as a tool for appearance and lifestyle shaming. Pizza is not immune. “Pizzaface,” referring to someone with acne scars, is one of the crueler insults spat from the mouths of pubescent teens, “pizzaboy” is slang for an outcast in a group and “pizzaslut” is used to refer to a girl who will perform sex acts for pizza. 30 Aside from slang, pizza has also been used to slam celebrities and maintain the almost impossible beauty standards imposed on us through mainstream media. Recently, Fox News host Chris Wallace insulted pop singer and new mother Kelly Clarkson by saying she “could stay off the deep dish pizza for a while.”31 After sparking almost immediate outrage online, Wallace publicly apologized and admitted that he should have focussed on her talent and not her weight. 32 Conversely, Victoria Beckham was rumoured to have sought legal advice after a pizza company labelled their pizza thinner than her, an “anorexic celebrity icon”. 33 The pizza diss - in all of its toxic iterations, functions as a symbol of the pressures imposed on us to fulfill unrealistic and homogenous lifestyle standards at all costs.
PIZZA AS A POLITICAL WEAPON
Perhaps one of the saddest and most publicized incidents of pizza being used for purposes of insult and exclusion involves Memories Pizzeria in Walkerton, Indiana. On April 1st, 2015, sixty-one year old Kevin O›Connor shut down his small restaurant for eight days after controversial comments on a local news station. In his short but damning interview he stated that his religious beliefs did not allow him to cater a gay wedding. For all of those who chastised O’Connor for his prejudice, there were equal numbers who celebrated his stance as a symbol of religious freedom. Many came forward to offer his pizza shop their business and donations in solidarity. When Memories Pizzeria re-opened ten days later, it did so to a packed house. 34 The family business also managed to raise over $846,000 from almost 30,000 contributors in a GoFundME campaign. 35 Andrew O›Hehir summarized the problem nicely in his article about Memories pizza, “$842,637, as I see it, is where the real meaning of the hate-pizza counter-revolution lies. Each $10 donation contained within that middling-impressive sum is like a condensed droplet from the deep pool of alienation and bitterness in heartland white America.”36 Although they publicly stated they would serve everyone and have never indeed been asked to cater a wedding (pizza is not a top choice of wedding foods), the hypothetical scenario became a symbol of the floodgates of discrimination in Indiana and thus, the Memories pizza controversy ended up at the very heart of the debate between gay marriage and religious freedom. Although some of these incidents may come across as harmless spectacle, one need only to look back at the United States in 2003 with the renaming of french fries as freedom fries to understand just how far fast food can go in acting as a means to establish distance and contention. Pizza is not unique in this sense. French toast, donuts, chocolate bars and wine are all small and often arbitrary symbols that have been picked up, dropped and replaced in cultural struggles. The real issue may not be pizza, but it serves as a greasy symbol for co-opted beliefs so that nothing, no matter how small or unassuming, is safe from morphing into a misguided societal emblem. For the love of pizza and its history, let›s be sure to maintain its well deserved reputation as a food the symbolizes shared pleasure and a tie- or pie- that binds.
1 When Bob Lucky comments, I follow up. Bob’s a cultural anthropologist, has lived across Asia, and in the 1990s published an indispensable newsletter, The Asian Foodbookery, which I have carried from Hawaii to Mexico and now to the US.
2 There is another kind of pizza effect having to do with the changes in glycemic
index particularly in those with diabetes following the eating of foods such as pizza. Needless to say that’s completely different.
3 For a more recent study of this see Mark Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Postural Yoga (Oxford University Press, 2010).
“Singleton’s surprising–and surely controversial–thesis is that yoga as it is popularly prac -
ticed today owes a greater debt to modern Indian nationalism and, even more surprisingly, to the spiritual aspirations of European bodybuilding and early 20th-century women’s gymnastic movements of Europe and America, than it does to any ancient Indian yoga tradition.”
See also Joseph S. Alter, Yoga in Modern India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), Silvia Ceccomori, Cent ans de yoga en France (Paris: Edidit, 2001), and Elizabeth De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga (London: Continuum, 2004).
article Manchester United v Arsenal: Pizzagate revisited - 10 years on…..42 It is a funny story, but on a more serious note, inciting football rivalries can have catastrophic results. There have been over eighty deaths associated with soccer hooliganism and countless acts of violence.43 The 2004 Pizzagate is also not the only time someone was assaulted by a pizza. In 2011, a magician was hospitalized after having a pizza thrown in his face by a puppet,44 and in 2015, Paige Beaudry suffered burn wounds to the face, neck and chest after having a pizza shoved in her face by another customer.45 Most recently, an 18-year-old man from Newfoundland was charged with assault after attempting to hit a man in a pizza throwing drive-by. 46Pizza is, of course, not a weapon of choice… but in all three incidents, we see words in the headlines like “bizarre” and “funny”. It can be… but this farcical attitude is suspect when volatile divisions are fueled and people are harmed.
PIZZA AS A VERBAL WEAPON (THE PIZZA DISS)
In Amy Schumer’s skit, I’m so bad a group of women sit at a restaurant confessing their food indulgences; “I am seriously bad,” one woman confides, “I can’t get out of bed without eating a calzone. The other day, when the woman walked off the GW Bridge, I didn’t do anything to help her. It’s because I was chewing my calzone! I’m so bad!.” Her friends console her, not for her lack of action, but for the caloric intake. The skit ends with the women collectively lunging at a waiter who has offered them dessert. They eat him alive while repeating “I am so bad.”47 In this extreme example, looking good takes precedence over possessing a moral compass or even valuing human life. Schumer cleverly reveals the insidious damage done through the upholding of trivial cultural standards as a tool for appearance and lifestyle shaming. Pizza is not immune. “Pizzaface,” referring to someone with acne scars, is one of the crueler insults spat from the mouths of pubescent teens, “pizzaboy” is slang for an outcast in a group and “pizzaslut” is used to refer to a girl who will perform sex acts for pizza.48 Aside from slang, pizza has also been used to slam celebrities and maintain the almost impossible beauty standards imposed on us through mainstream media. Recently, Fox News host Chris Wallace insulted pop singer and new mother Kelly Clarkson by saying she “could stay off the deep dish pizza for a while.”49 After sparking almost immediate outrage online, Wallace publicly apologized and admitted that he should have focussed on her talent and not her weight. 50 Conversely, Victoria Beckham was rumoured to have sought legal advice after a pizza company labelled their pizza thinner than her, an “anorexic celebrity icon”. 51 The pizza diss - in all of its toxic iterations, functions as a symbol of the pressures imposed on us to fulfill unrealistic and homogenous lifestyle standards at all costs.
Pizza and God
I'D NEVER HEARD OF THE PIZZA EFFECT. THAT IS, UNTIL I PUBLISHED A BLOG ON HOW ENGLISH EMIGRANTS HAD TAKEN A SIMPLE PIE WITH THEM TO AUSTRALIA, MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES, TRANSFORMED IT INTO SOMETHING MUCH MORE ELABORATE, AND THEN REINTRODUCED IT TO ENGLAND AS THE CORNISH PASTY. A READER WROTE IN TO SAY THAT THIS WAS AN EXAMPLE OF THE “PIZZA EFFECT.” THE METAPHOR, HE SAID, HAD BEEN COINED BY THE ANTHROPOLOGIST AGEHANANDA BHARATI IN RELIGIOUS AND ASIAN STUDIES IN THE 1970
Pizza and Humans
SINCE THE TIME OF THE FLORENTINE CAMERATA OPERA HAS DEVELOPED FAR BEYOND THAT WHICH THE CAMERATA SET OUT TO EMULATE, EVOLVING BEYOND SIMPLE MONOPHONIC MELODIES INTO A COMPLEX MUSICAL ART THAT EXISTS TO SERVE MORE THAN JUST THE INTELLIGIBILITY OF TEXT.
POINTS OF ORIGIN AND AUTHENTICITY CLAIMS: PIZZA’S MURKY PAST
As a teen, gaping at a blue screen in rural Nova Scotia, I watched in envy as the cast of Friends shared their lives and shared pizzas. I wanted so badly to connect. Pizza, the first communal fast food,52 provided the perfect excuse to do so. Everyone loves pizza. It is one of the most popular foods in the world and, according to VICE, the most commonly photographed food on Instagram.53 It has proved an excellent metaphor for globalization and cultural transformation, and recently in a TED talk by Al Vernacchio, it was even proposed as a replacement for the baseball metaphor for sex, representing a form of shared pleasure, discussion and agreement.54 The love of pizza is a connector, a way to make friends and a way to keep them. McCauly Caulkin’s Pizza Underground, the Pizza Pavilion, Mystic Pizza screenings, blogs, memes and Pizza - The Reader itself all work to cultivate this nostalgic relationship we have with pizza. I am always thrilled when things and people come together on account of this cheesy pie.
Enter the Memories Pizza scandal.
Enter Pizzagate.
Enter my realization that pizza, like all else, has a darker side. I am not talking about a few burnt crusts… no, it can, despite its social history, be appropriated to harm physically, uphold outdated cultural norms and to contribute to trending culture wars.
Pizza as a physical weapon: In 2016, Pizzagate went viral when Trump supporters accused Clinton’s chairman John Podesta of running a pedophile ring attached to Comet Ping Pong Pizza based on emails hacked from Clinton’s account. 55 In fact, there have been other Pizzagates. In October of 2004 an Arsenal player rumored to be Cesc Fàbregas threw a slice of pizza at Manchester United’s manager Sir Alex Fergeson (Fergie). The incident is a ghostno accurate account or footage of the event exists. Regardless, it was picked up by the
MANUEL SCHEIWILLER
PIZZAG8
Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simpl. Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simple monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text. e monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text.
Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simpl. Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simple monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text. e monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text.
PAUL BARSCH
PIZZA VOYEUR
Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simpl. Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simple monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text. e monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text.
Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simpl. Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simple monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text. e monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text.
PAUL BARSCH
PIZZA VOYEUR
Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simpl. Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simple monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text. e monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text.
Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simpl. Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simple monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text. e monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text.
YESTERDAY
(LARGE CARD TOWER)
Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simpl. Since the time of the Florentine Csimpt exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text. e monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text.
Since the time of the Florentine Camerata opera has developed far beyond that which the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simpl. Since the Camerata set out to emulate, evolving beyond simple monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text. e monophonic melodies into a complex musical art that exists to serve more than just the intelligibility of text.