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Roger Rabbits with |
There’s a point to all this. But a warning – you might pack on a couple of kilograms getting there. You could end up with pizza face, greasy fingers, and hot, sloppy topping-causing second degree burns to the groin.
That’s why pizza should be eaten with knife and fork from a plate. Like fish‘n’chips. It’s about niceness, being civilised. Fingers are for other things – pointing, scratching, flipping a bird – animal behaviours.
Anyhow, we all love a thousand-plus calories of medium-sized pizza. Delicious, gooey, fatty, chewy, salty, rich. But don’t bother eating it. Just strap it straight to your thighs because that’s where it’s headed anyway.
While on the high horse, I’m want a sponsor for a private member’s bill to have pineapple statutorily outlawed from pizzas. It has no place. Like butter chicken. It’s a cultural thing. Curry houses are quite different to pizzerias. And never the twain…! Not on a pizza. Also ‘meat lovers’. If you crave that much protein, go to a roast shop.
Why bastardise something so delightfully simple and classically Neapolitan – the way God intended pizza to be – crushed tomato, creamy mozzarella and fresh basil? The Margherita, ambrosia, food of the Gods. Leave great alone.
‘Kor-nee-cho-nay’
This is actually a moan about litter. We’re headed there. Have another slice while we navigate.
There can be as many as 1800 calories in a pizza depending on the thickness of the undercarriage, and the cornicione. Cornicione – say kor-nee-cho-nay – Italian meaning ‘little horn’, a word as delicious as a Margherita itself, the pizza’s raised outer rim. Yup, the outer crust has a special name. Stick cornicione in the memory bank, if it hasn’t rusted out, and drop it ‘wanker-ishly’ into the pizza party conversation sometime. “I prefer my ‘kor-nee-cho-nay’ more puffed.” People will be in awe. They won’t question you, they won’t want to appear culturally inadequate. Or plain pizza stupid.
Pizza pigs
Now, finally, to the point. Why can’t people use the energy generated by all those pizza calories to walk a just a few extra paces to dispose of a pizza box properly? In a public rubbish bin. Why do other people’s pizza boxes have to be my problem? Our problem? Why do pizza pigs think the easiest way to dispose of something they don’t want, or need any more, is to biff it, chuck it, toss it, anywhere, wherever. Eat on the go and dispose of the rubbish on the go. Out the car window, over the shoulder, or just dropped.
All this because of this. A scruff. seated on the pavement leaning against a business window on Cameron Rd, is chomping pizza and tossing his ‘kor-nee-cho-nay’ to screeching seagulls. How do seagulls qualify as God’s creatures? They’re ghastly. They don’t even go to sea.
Scruff has discarded his greasy, cheesy, and because of that, unrecyclable pizza box, in the middle of the footpath. A passerby with time and a social conscience, steps up to the pizza box. There’s a stand-off. “Excuse me young man! Do you want me to step over, or around, your rubbish?” Scruff just shrugs. “Well,” smiles Passerby. “I won’t be part of the problem, I will be part of the solution.” She gathers up the pizza box, and ‘kor-nee-cho-nay’ and dumps it all in a nearby public rubbish bin. “There!” smiles the champion of the public good. And with a “Please try harder” to Scruff, off she wanders. I wanted to applaud, yell: “Hell yeah, try harder Scruff!” and nominate said Passerby for a Nobel Pizza Prize.
But she could have given him an etiquette lesson for having pineapple on his pizza while she was at it.
Me, the pizza oven
Pizza is arguably the most popular takeaway food – every New Zealander ate about four medium pizzas in 2024, That’s about 3.9kg of pizza per capita, per annum. I may be the shape of a pizza oven but not because of pizza. Who’s eating my share?
Pizza boxes are not the only takeaway rubbish – not by a long shot. But if there’s a presence of any sort of litter, it seems easier for other people to litter. Litter generates more litter. Litter normalises littering for those looking for easy options. Littering is also apparently acceptable to many who pay rates for someone else to remove it.
So this is where you and I can make a difference.
Un-caped crusader
I watched a woman in Waihi Rd – she was hauling a wee cart and recovering trash, our trash. Bit by bit. What a trooper? She’s my garbage goddess.
Because now I aim to pick up 15 pieces of litter a day. Your crap. It’s very satisfying. If all 160,000 of us in Tauranga followed my shining example and picked up just one piece of trash every day, we would make a difference. The Litter Act 1979 prohibits the dropping of rubbish. But it doesn’t stop people. So, like said passerby, we can be part of the solution.
I watched a bloke step over discarded fried chicken packaging. He muttered something about “****ing litter louts” who should be quartered, flayed or boiled alive. He could have picked it up and binned it, but no.
Cue the un-caped crusader. I swooped in and did it for him. What a bloke.
Immensely satisfying. Try it.