The first time I ate pizza

So, as previously mentioned, I grew up in a household where we ate very traditional Basque/Spanish food prepared by my mother. My breakfast usually consisted of mom trying to force a glass of milk down my throat and stuff a piece of croissant or a cookie in my mouth as she sent me off to take the bus to school. (Years later I found out that I'm lactose intolerant. That explains a lot.)

I ate lunch at school. I went to a Catholic school where we wore school uniforms and all that, see picture. I'm the one to the right with the blue cardigan, looking down at the brown envelope. It's someone's birthday party.

Lunch at school back home was nothing like the American school lunches that I experienced. All the food was cooked right there, and there was nothing frozen or processed. That doesn't mean it was good, though. Healthier, maybe. But some of the stuff tasted horrible. To this day, I can't stand the taste of lentils because of the muddy mess that was served at school.

If memory serves me right, this is a close example of our weekly meals at the Mary Ward School: Monday: red bean soup and ham omelette, apple or orange for dessert. Tuesday: chicken soup and roast chicken, apple or orange for dessert. Wednesday: vegetable puree and roast beef, apple or orange for dessert. Thursday: white rice with tomato sauce, baked ham with french fries (always a hit, that doesn't change), apple or orange for dessert. Friday: the always dreaded lentejas (lentil soup), cod fish, apple or orange for dessert. Mr. Dastardly should feel free to comment on this, as he endured this food for almost as long as I did.

I don't eat a lot of apples or oranges anymore, either.

Dinner was generally pretty light because we ate rather late. We didn't get back from school until around 6pm and then we had English, or German, or Basque tutoring. We did have merienda, an after school snack that filled the gap between our 1pm lunch and the late dinner. Merienda was usually a demi-baguette (sandwich sized french bread) filled with ham, chorizo - of course - salami, or something like that. Dinner happened late, around 9pm, and consisted of salad or soup, eggs or sausages, or a piece of fish.

My dad liked to take us out to eat. He thought it would teach us how to behave in public and to develop good manners. No eating with our hands or kids' menus for us (actually, there was no such thing as kids' menus when I was growing up). But restaurants were also mostly traditional Spanish, with the occasional regional difference (Galician food seemed kind of exotic back then). We did drive to France often - San Sebastian is very close to the French border. I remember my dad taking us to the restaurant of the Hotel De L'Ocean in Biarritz, in the French Basque Country. We always got the steak au poivre avec pommes frites and cresson (watercress salad.) So simple, but soooo delicious. And what a beautiful town!

So, that was the extent of my culinary knowledge for a while: Basque, Spanish regional variations, and the occasional , yet limited French. Then my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to learn English where English came from. So they shipped me to a summer boarding school in Birmingham, England, at the tender age of 12.

And that's where my first encounter with this strange, doughy food first happened ... PIZZA.

I lived with a bunch of girls from all over Spain at this beautiful place called The Manor House. We studied English, took road trips to places like Canterbury, London, and Stratford-Upon-Avon (a whimsical little town. Also, they told us a man called Shakespeare was born there) We went swimming and ice skating, and ate bizarre foods like "pizza." I can't remember much about the other food they fed us at The Manor House, which means it was probably pretty bad (I have very good food memory, meaning I remember the times and locations where I ate things that I really liked.) I do remember the pizza, for some reason, even though it was terrible. I'm pretty sure it was frozen, it was really spongy and had a strong taste of stale, dried oregano. I do remember the lunch packs they gave us for the road trips, but that's because we were always hoping we would NOT get the prawn flavored crisps (A.K.A. shrimp flavored potato chips) Chicken flavor was a little better, and everyone would fight for the bacon. If you had the bacon chips, you had the power. Apparently, Walkers - notorious crisp maker - has come a long way since the 80s, and now offers delights like Spanish paella, Scottish haggis, South African sweet chutney or French garlic baguette flavored crisps, to name a few. I'm serious. If you don't believe me, check them out.

So, that was the first time I ate pizza. Shortly after they started opening more international restaurants in San Sebastian, including Italian, Mexican and German. Soon enough, pizzerias followed, some really good ones, like La Torre de Pizza (incredible thin crust, wood fired pizza), Spanish franchises like Telepizza and of course, American pizza, like Pizza Hut and Domino's. In the late 90s they even opened McDonald's at the beautiful Mercado de La Brecha to the dismay of many, including myself. Its only saving grace: they serve beer.

"Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh; but that's no marvel, he drinks no wine." 
(William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II, Act IV)

Laister arte!