A Pizza Farewell

We stretched and kneaded the fresh pizza dough, striving to make it into the perfect flat, circular crust. With some good old-fashioned tugging, we finally got it into the perfect shape. Now the next question was what to top our soft, golden surface with. Allison and I decided that pesto was a must, since we had made it the day before from fresh basil and parmesan cheese. We spooned it on and spread it around the surface, careful to cover every last space of white. Next we sliced some tomatoes and set them on top of the pesto, evenly spaced out. We topped our creation with fresh crumbles of mozzarella and a sparse sprinkling of chopped mushrooms and pine nuts. Yeah, we know. Pretty gourmet, huh? It looked beautifully delicious.  

Excited, we slid our pizza onto a oven panhandle. Before we knew it, our pizza was inside the roaring cob oven, baking at a very rapid speed. Within minutes, to our delight, it was steaming, melted, and golden brown--ready to eat. Wow, it tasted even better than it looked. Like little bites of Italian heaven. The flavors balanced themselves out perfectly, the wood smoke flavor of the cob oven providing a perfect contrast to the robust pairing of pesto and cheese.

After four weeks of a compelling seminar on food-related issues and topics, this outdoor class pizza bake was a perfect finale. After having discussed the importance of the slow food movement, making our own pizzas from scratch was a perfect activity. It brought our class together, as we tried little bites and slices from everyone’s pizzas and helped each other with all of the necessary preparations.  

As college students living in the dorms, this was a pretty special and unusual sort of lunch. Usually we are forced to consume whatever Eleven-Oh-One has to serve for us...and its probably either a pork riblet sandwich or pasta. I find it so much more enjoyable to eat something when you know where it’s from and what it’s made out of. This is why cooking your own food is so rewarding, in many more ways than one. 

After reading contemporary food works by Michael Pollan, Raj Patel, and Ruth Ozeki, I feel that I have become much more aware of the issues we face as a society today. Food is the basic building blocks of life, without it you starve, with too much you become obese (and run into a whole other set of medical problems). What is in the food you eat is also crucial. It is important to eat foods with large amounts of vitamins and minerals and with little additives or preservatives. Environmental sustainability is another major issue, and is why eating organic is often times the way to go. Now that I have a much better sense of what goes into the food industry and into what I consume personally, I feel that I am much better equipped to make better choices to live a healthier, more environmentally aware life. If we do not keep sustainability in mind, then we could really be in big trouble down the road concerning agricultural land space, air quality, soil quality, water availability, and much more.

I am so glad that I signed up for this class, and it really has given me some food for thought! I’ve already noticed myself becoming more subconsciously aware of what I eat and hope that I continue to make healthier choices both for me and the world around me.

Photo Credit: http://www.bfeedme.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/grilled-pesto-pizza-recipe-6-12-07.jpg