#421 Brick and Mortal

So what’s the big deal about brick oven pizza? That’s what I asked myself the other day, and then it occurred to me. Lately America seems to have this obsession with reclaiming primitive cooking methods. From barbeque, to cooking pigs in the ground, to the latest craze, wood-fired pizza. Now I hate to be the kid telling the emperor that not only don’t his new clothes fit, they lack something in the coverage department, but really, has anyone ever had a wood-fire pizza that wasn’t burnt somewhere? Some part of it that wasn’t a little too crispy, and some part that wasn’t a little too raw? Admit it, I don’t care how sophisticated the oven, how good the chef, or how kiln-dried the freaking wood, wood-fired cooking is a primitive cooking method. That’s why grandma was happy to switch to an even-burning gas stove. Apple pies are hard enough without one side flaming up and then reduced to a pile of ash. And gas, for all its environmental problems when we harvest it from the ground, is certainly no worse than burning trees when it comes to greenhouse emissions. The CO2 generated from burning a couple of hunks of forest, just to make a pizza for god’s sake, is enough to make Northface-clad eco-nuts get heavy metal poisoning from the irony. By the way, polar fleece is made from polyester, and polyester comes from oil. Just a little heads up fellow lovers of the forest. Wool is a lot more eco-friendly. Except for that part about clearing the land so the sheep have a place to feed. Damn. It’s so hard to cut a low eco-damage profile. But back to the main point, primitive cooking methods are just that—primitive. It would be like skipping that flu shot and asking for a shaman rattle wave instead. Or eating mercury to stave off a cold. I mean really, there was a reason we progressed to methods of cooking that conveyed a more even level of heat—not the least of which was salmonella, ptomaine and gastroenteritis. Note to all wood-fired food lovers. The average life expectancy in the years when wood-fired cooking was popular was about 35. It’s true not many folks got cancer and heart disease back then, but it’s not because the cooking was better, it’s because the food poisoning was worse. Next time you go to Costco and see those dozens of chickens twisting on the rotisserie, reflect on the fact that if you were trying to do the same thing over an open cookfire in the forest, chances are good you’d be hiking home with your sphincters clenched on both ends. And that’s not the kind of crampons anyone wants in the snow. So the next time you see a restaurant advertising primitive cooking, beware. Rabbit on a stick may have been a connoisseur’s delight back in the days of Og and Grog, but tularemia is a painful and debilitating disease. So tell me, when they’re cooking a rotisserie rabbit on a spit inside that brick oven, is it then called a brick spithouse?
America, ya gotta love it.