The World BP



Chicago Style



I was born before the stock market crashed, lived through the Great Depression, through a World War, lived in a big city, lived in the country, graduated high school, went to college -- and believe it or not, kids, had never heard of pizza.

There must have been pizza somewhere in those days – in squares cut out of big trays at old-fashioned Italian weddings, for instance.  But I’m pretty sure – much of America had never heard of pizza.

I know exactly where I was when I had my first slice, and I can even pinpoint the year, 1945.  My folks were driving me back to college (with precious rationed gasoline), and my father stopped at a shack outside a small town.  He’d heard they were serving this trendy new thing.  I remember him getting back in the Buick saying “Well, now I’ve tried it.”

That was my first piece of pizza.  A couple of months later I had a second, and again I remember exactly where -- a brand-new restaurant on the south side of Decarie Boulevard in Montreal. 

It was delicious. 

But kids -- believe it or not -- there really was a world Before Pizza.