Pizza over Berlin, 1949

As I was housebound yesterday, I got some long-gestating reading done, in Peter Rheinhart's American Pie and especially Moveable Feasts, by Sarah Murray. This book is a series of essays about the history of food and transportation, and how the two overlay each other. Ilsa was brainstorming with me the other day about how to do something entrepreneurial with food , maybe make and deliver lunches to people in offices. In India, this has been a booming business since the 1850s of people who would pick up homemade food in metal canisters called tiffin, take the later trains into town, and deliver the homemade meals to the spouses. The trains were so crowded in the morning that anyone bringing lunch with them would be in danger of a big mess...thus, a whole industry of people taking the later trains just to deliver lunch evolved.

Most interesting was the list of staples that were delivered to the barricaded citizens of West Berlin via airdrop:

• Flour
• Cereal
• Fat
• Meat & Fish
• Dehydrated Potatoes
• Sugar
• Coffee
• Powdered Milk
• Whole Milk
• Fresh Yeast
• Dehydrated Vegetables
• Cheese
• Salt

Hmmm...flour, yeast, cheese, salt....that's almost a pizza!! The British wanted to also airlift soil so that urban farmers could grow their own stuff, as they had their own 'Dig for Victory!' campaign during WWII, but the Americans squashed it. Hrumph. They needed to grow tomatoes to finish up that pizza...

ADDENDA:
So it looks like I'll be working (for pay) at the restaurant on Sunday afternoons and Monday evening. I guess I'm now too legit, too legit to quit...

BREAKFAST: Noon, organic cheerios with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, fresh onion bagel with butter, black cherry soda, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, slug of apple cider, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, shrimp curry with basil fried rice, water, 3 freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5