the most italian amongst italian words, pizza is a lifestyle that streches from glam restaurants to shabby take away places. you have pizza for dinner, while at lunchtime is more common to get simply a trancio (slice) di pizza.
sliced pizza is conceptually different from pizza, and is usually sold in takeaway-only places, strategically located close to elementary schools, high schools, universities and justice courts. the management tends to be strictly family based: the pater familias, dark-haired, dark-skinned, greasy and eternally stuck in the limbo of his forties, cooks the pizzas and slices them. the wife, short, mustache-endowed, big breasted, serves the customers and attend the cash desk. finally, the emaciated daugther wanders around, gently taking care of the estetics of the pizzas by sticking her fingers on them.
the piazzas themselves differ slightly from the typical pizza that you have for dinner. vaguely reminding of the junk-food downtown Amsterdam, these pizzas are big and thick. the varieties are limited, and the supply follows the demand in a totally elastic way, in the sense that a new unit of a given variety of pizza is produced only when the former unit is completely sold. the golden rule of the pizza al trancio precribes to serve the following varieties* : pizza margherita, pizza al prosciutto e patate, pizza al salamino. the rule also recommends to have each pizza sliced in exactly six parts.
a wide range of customers floats in these places between 12:00 and 14:00. the inflow increases with the arrival of the good season. students nevertheless do not follow a seasonal pattern. the trancio di pizza is eaten with the hands in no more than 5 minutes. as in any business involving italians, there is evidence of strong favoritism towards certain customers rather than others. inside information about the baking time of new pizzas or on-request baking of special varieties is well documented nation-wide. the Foreigner therefore has no other options than to accept the delay with which he will be served, and the voluntary unfortunate smallness of his trancio. all minor details, considering that if he will disregard the trancio and go straight for a real pizza sittinng at a table at lunchtime, he will be totally ripped off. and in any case, anyone knows that real pizza tastes better at night.
*allowing for small regional variations
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