Phil Elmore: Individual Authoring Services

"Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tag line."
- Paul O'Neil

All Original Site Content
Copyright © 2003-2004
Phil Elmore, all rights reserved.

Stop with the Food Already
February 2004

I remember when I was a kid and pizza involved two toppings at most: cheese and pepperoni. Sure, as a child I much preferred just cheese, but adults had a way of messing things up by introducing unnecessary permutations in my meals. First they added the pepperoni. Then they made it worse with the mushrooms.

Now, as a grownup, I understand that these toppings exist. I’ve made my peace with them and with the others, like sausage and ham and peppers and even onions. I gather that anchovies exist, somewhere, though I’ve never actually seen one and would run screaming from any pizza purporting to contain them.

I must, however, go on record as saying Pizza Hut must be stopped.

Pizza Hut, the company that previously brought us stuffed crust, stuffed pizza, stuffed pizza with stuffed crust, and stuffed crust stuffed with stuffed pizza stuffed in a box that is itself stuffed with cheese and deep-fried, has introduced a Philadelphia Cheese Steak pizza. As near as I can tell from the commercials, this is a pizza with the contents of several cheese steaks dumped unceremoniously in its midst.

We all know that Pizza Hut will not be satisfied with this abomination. They will stuff the cheese steak with cheese, wrap it in a burrito, stuff that with cheese, and roll the whole thing up in another pizza before stuffing that in the crust of a third pizza. We have reached the point where entire meals are being dumped on top of entire other meals and consumed in slices as a single dinner – or, if you find yourself at a Denny’s, as breakfast.

This must end. The exploitation of our food, the combination of our meals, must be decried as the affront to civilization that it is. If it is not, we will be met with far worse. Buffalo Wing Crab Meat Stuffed Crust Subs baked into calzones spread on top of pizzas whose crusts have been deep fried and smeared in garlic butter will be only the start. They will be followed by pizzas on top of steaks piled inside soft tortillas wrapped in chicken fingers spread with cream cheese, dipped in beef stew and baked into mincemeat pies. These will seem quite civilized compared to the sushi-covered Monte Christo sandwiches smeared with jam, sprinkled with shrimp, baked into lasagna, and served with artichoke hearts on a bed of Pizza Hut Meat Lover’s pizza soaked in chocolate and dusted with sprinkles.

Then they’ll add the anchovies and I’ll know there is no place for me in this world.