Pizza To Die For
Pyongyang’s first authentic pizzeria opens its doors. Timing’s a little awkward. UK Telegraph:
The launch of Pyongyang’s first Italian restaurant meanwhile brings to fruition a ten-year effort by Kim Jong-il - a renowned gourmand and lover of western food - to create the perfect pizza and pasta in his homeland.
Last year a delegation of local chefs was sent by Kim to Naples and Rome to learn the proper Italian techniques after their homegrown efforts to mimic Italian cuisine were found by Kim to contain “errors”.
That could be bad. No word on what happened to those pizza chefs. Also, nothing what the errors were. Kimchee and pepperoni pizza? Buffalo squid Chicago-style deep-dish? Mushroom and eel calzone?
In the late 1990s Kim brought a team of Italian pizza chefs to North Korea to instruct his army officers how to make pizza, a luxury which is now being offered to a tiny elite able to afford such luxuries in a country that cannot feed many of its 24 million inhabitants.
Despite the food shortages high-quality Italian wheat, flour, butter and cheese are being imported to ensure the perfect pizza is created every time.
“Our people should be also allowed to enjoy the world-famous food,” the manager of the Pyongyang eatery quoted Kim as saying …
Dude’s cold! That guy could do some wicked pizza phone pranks. Telegraph fails to mention what this joint is called. Papa Juche? Pyongyang Uno … no, there’s only one Uno in Pyongyang. Pizza To Die For. Not bad, but I like Kim Hut. No, too grubby, insufficently deferential. Better play it safe. Dear Leader’s Joyous Pizza Palace For The Workers. Here’s a slogan, “Pizza … That’s A Good Juche Idea!”
About the awkward timing issue, US State Department, via VOA:
In the latest of a series of moves toward apparent self-isolation, North Korea has informed the United States that it no longer wants American food assistance. U.S. officials are expressing disappointment over the move because of continuing food shortages in that country.
Despite the lack of diplomatic relations with the communist state, the United States has been the largest single donor of food aid to North Korea since the country’s famine in the mid-1990s.…
Wood said the United States has delivered nearly 170,000 metric tons of food since the aid arrangement was renewed last May, with the most recent shipment of 5,000 tons of cooking oil and corn/soy blended flour arriving in late January.
You could make a lot of … non-authentic pizza out of that.
The two countries have had disputes over U.S. demands for Korean-speaking international monitors in North Korea to assure that American food actually gets to those in need, but the spokesman would not speculate as to why Pyongyang is ending the program.
I guess they have all the authentic Italian pizza ingredients they need. VOA at the link includes a WFP photo of some kids who might enjoy a large corn/soy-blend kimchee and squid pizza.
Previously re North Korea, Life Sucks, And Then You Die.
OK, in the spirit of North Korea’s playful new multicultural venture, we’ll go out with some authentic pizza phone pranks. The other 23 million-odd North Koreans who will never see a pizza shop might as well have a laugh. Though these gags might not work for many Koreans, due to lack of phones: a phone pranks
1. If using a touch tone phone push random numbers while talking and ask the person to stop that.
2. Use CB lingo.
3. Terminate the call with, “Remember, we never had this conversation.”
4. Tell them to put the crust on top this time.
5. Instead of naming the toppings, spell them out.
6. Use these bonus words in the conversation: ROBUST, FREE-SPIRITED, COST-EFFICIENT, UKRAINIAN, and PUCE.
7. Ask what the order taker is wearing.
8. If they repeat your order to make sure they have it right, say, “Okay, that’ll be $10.99, please pull to the next window.”
9. Try to rent a pizza.
10. Have your pizza “shaken, not stirred.”
11. Move the mouthpiece farther and farther away as you speak. When the call ends, jerk it back and scream goodbye at the top of your lungs.
12. Eliminate verbs from your speech.
13. Ask to see a menu.
14. Report a petty theft.
15. If they suggest something, adamantly declare, “I will not be swayed by your sweet words.”
17. Start your conversation with, “My call to Pizza Hut, Take one… and…. ACTION!”
18. Act nervous and press 9-1-1 every five seconds throughout the order.
19. After ordering, say, “I wonder what this button does” and simulate a cut-off.
20. Start your conversation by reciting the day’s date and saying, “This may be my last entry.”
21. Say, “Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt” rather loudly and ask them if they felt that.
22. Teach the order taker a secret code and use it on all subsequent orders.
23. When the price is quoted,say, “Ooooooooo, that sounds complicated. I hate math.”
24. If they suggest a side order ask, “Why are you punishing me?”
25. Have a movie with a car chase scene playing loudly in the background. Yell, “OW!” when a bullet is fired.
26. Dance around the word “pizza” and avoid it at all costs. If they say it, say, “Please don’t mention that word!”
Those gags, for all the earnest effort to annoy that some zit-faced teenagers put into them, are pretty small by comparison. Hard to compete with Kim, who’s just pulled off the biggest, stupidest, most adolescent pizza prank ever.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:18 pm on Tuesday, March 17, 2009
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