Member-only story
Angry American hero
…trying to save pizza culture in Italy
Near the Milan train station there’s an Italian pizza shop that has probably been there for decades. An endless amount of tourists fill in and out of the quaint shop, buying pizzas and baguettes and other Italian eats that are shown in pictures on the store’s large window pane.
My girlfriend and I noticed the traffic of people and decided to go in, saying that if there’s plenty of customers, it must be good.
We sat down, tired from the early-morning flight from Bonn to Milan, ordered two sodas and two large pizzas and tried to stay warm as the door swung open and close, each time letting in a large waft of cold, city air.
I was in such a sleepy daze and wondering how much longer til we could check in at the nearby hotel that I had forgotten that we had even ordered. It couldn’t have been much longer than 5 minutes or 10, but the food came out quickly and piping hot. And when it did, I was shocked — not at how small the portions were — but that there were American-style cut-up hot dogs instead of some famed Italian sausage. It’s as if they knew I was from the US and wanted to appeal to my appetite by assuming, not my gender, but my gusto for American cuisine.
American accent: “Yes, please, I’ll take a hot dog with ketchup, mustard and pickles on…
