North Korea may have the most oppressive government on earth, and its people may be starving as a result of horrendous communist policies. But the North Korean proletariat was surely thrilled to learn that their Dear Leader Kim Jong Il has thoughtfully provided "authentic" Italian pizza for a few of his most privileged subjects. And it only took a mere ten years to achieve this triumph of socialist central planning:
It has taken almost 10 years of work, but North Korea has acquired the technology to launch a project very dear to its leader's heart - the nation's first "authentic" Italian pizzeria.
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".
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.
Although the news story isn't clear on this point, I suspect that the access to the Pyongyang Italian pizzeria is limited to those with special privileged status given by the government, as was standard for stores providing unusual goods in most communist societies.
On the upside, Kim Jong Il's plan to provide pizza for the toiling masses of North Korea seems to have worked out better than his earlier plan to alleviate food shortages by breeding imported giant rabbits, which was aborted when the greedy Dear Leader decided to eat the initial batch of rabbits himself.
Related Posts (on one page):
- North Korea - A Real-Life 1984:
- Communism Provides Pizza for the Masses - Or at Least the Communist Party Elite:
Maybe they're not practicing strict communism. Oh, but wait, your link says their government is the most oppressive and therefore is probably enforcing one of the closest things to strict communism on earth.
Maybe I need to think through my support for redistributionalist, socialist, and communist ideology.
Nah, when we do it here in the US it will be different. It won't result in the economic slowdown, stagnation, degradation, and declining living standards like it has everywhere else it has been done.
[sarcasm off]
I suspect the Dear Leader's pizza will probably be better than New York pizza. Which is, by far, the worst food that people are snobby about.
Second place: the Philly Cheese Steak.
It is announced that all those who show up for the rally will be given an orange. Crowds gather at dawn and the commissars soon realize that the supply of oranges is inadequate. They announce that all Jews should leave, because Jews will not be given oranges. The Jews go home.
A little later, realizing that there are still not enough oranges, the commissars announce that only Party members will get oranges. Many people leave.
By noon, still short, they announce that only army veterans will get oranges. More people leave.
Finally, in the afternoon, the commissars determine that if they section the oranges they have enough to give each remaining veteran one section, so they do that and distribute orange sections.
Two old veterans are standing in the square, eating their sections of orange, when one turns to the other and says,
"Those damn Jews. They always get the best deal."
Dirt pizza for the masses
North Korea has had Chicago style for decades.
Oh, you meant the pizza.
I suppose you could put the pizza in the over upside down, or attempt to boil the noodles in kerosene, but I thought even the Commies would have wit enough to avoid anything like that.
The stuff they sell in New Yawk is not pizza. If you want pizza, come to Chicago.
Shocking! Please say it ain't so. . .
Talk about a negative restaurant review...
Give me a break, I've lived in Chicago. You want good pizza you go to Madison, WI. They use the proper amount of cheese.
I can sympathize. When I was stationed in Germany, the local pizza place would make a Hawaiian pizza, but they'd put the pineapple on AFTER cooking the pizza.
Can you imagine being the guy who put in too much oregano, or net enough fennel, and derailed dear leaders ten year plan?
"Hey inmate 64903, what are you in for?"
"Seasoning."
And in North Korea, that would probably be understood by all to be a reasonable response.
Never underestimate commie witlessness.
In the early 90s, my management consulting firm did a project for Utopia.
They wondered why the bread in their stores was always dried out and stale, greatly reducing the effective supply.
Our recommendation? Um, pack it in plastic bags.
"Death sentence, Seasoning."
And in North Korea, that would probably be understood by all to be a reasonable response.
There fixed it fer ya'
"Seasoning."
Solzhenitsyn has a great little paragraph in The Gulag Archipelago in which he relates the story of a convoy of prisoners calling roll. Each prisoner was announced by his name, the article under which he was convicted, and the sentence, like this: Pushkin, Article 58, 10 years.
Solzhenitsyn explains that when one particular prisoner is called he has an unusually long sentence, 20 years or so. A guard is curious, and asks him what he did.
"Nothing!" says the prisoner.
"You're lying!" replies the guard, "The sentence for nothing at all is ten years."
Please. Everyone knows that the quality of pizza is inversely proportional to one's distance from Brooklyn, NY, where they made real pizza (not tomato sauce in a dough bowl) before the founder of Pizzaria Uno was a gleam in his parents' eyes.
Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Tell me where to go.
For good pizza in Brooklyn, I mean.
Kimchi.
Hope you hadn't just eaten as you read that.
Nick
Better to take ten years to learn how to make a simple Italian dish than to allow some of The People's teeth to be whiter than others. How I wish I lived under such a benevolent ruler.
We all know that there is a religious pizza war between NY and Chicago. (I like both; so I get shot at from both sides) But has anyone, who has been there, ever had a good pizza from Italy? I have not ever traveled there but have had friends come back and say NEVER order pizza when in northern Italy. One friend said they brought him a large salted cracker covered with slices of tomatoes and American cheese! WTF?
But anyone smart enough to make Communism work is certainly up to the challenge of making a pizza. Another ten years and they'll have calzone.
Perhaps the North Koreans based their pizzas off the Japanese; thus, NK pizzas are covered in mayonnaise.
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