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Argentina 2019: Pizza

In the latest round of stories about our recent Argentina trip, I'm going to talk about pizza. It's not the first time that pizza has been the subject of a blog post, and it probably won't be the last time, either. It's just one of those dishes that shows up a bunch in life, y'know?

First of all, I should start by pointing out that Argentina has its own special brand of pizza. There may actually be several of these varieties, but the one I kept hearing about was the fugazza. The first time I heard about it, the Mild Wife had had some during the day, and mentioned to me that it was both different than the pizza we got at home and tasty. Given that she liked it, I was more than a little intrigued.

As it turns out, I was not the only one intrigued by this pizza. One of my other coworkers on the trip also had his curiosity piqued by this local pizza. I don't remember how it came up in conversation, but someone must have mentioned it at some point. Well, from that point on, he would occasionally suggest we get pizza for lunch. It seemed like a reasonable enough choice, especially if we wanted to get something that was easy to share and could be delivered to the office.

However, there were some logistical barriers to overcome in order for this to happen (e.g., pizzerias were far from the office, some didn't take credit card), so this plan kept getting put off. In fact, on the second-to-last day of the trip, this coworker brought it up one more time. He was going to fly out a day early, so it was actually his last day on the trip. It was, effectively, his last chance to sample this pizza.

Sadly, it was not meant to be, and we had a different meal for lunch. He was somewhat disappointed, but that was just how it turned out. We still had lunch, so he more or less chalked up to a minor disappointment in life.

Want to guess what we had for lunch on the last day of the trip, after he had left? Yup, pizza. In fact, we sort of went out of our way to get it, as a bit of a celebration for our trip coming to a conclusion. I don't know exactly how far we drove, but it took something like 25 minutes to arrive, and it then required us to split into two teams to order and pick up the pizza (the second team was in charge of parking and picking up/dropping off). All in all, I could see why there had been some hesitation to do this on a regular day of the week. On the last day of a two-week meeting, though, it makes total sense.

You better believe I was cracking up the whole time we were eating it, though. The one coworker who had asked for the pizza had missed out. I probably won't do it justice just describing it, but imagine a thick cheese pizza, almost to the height of a Chicago-style deep dish pizza. As toppings, throw in some grilled onions to get some flavor in the dish. The end result is a tasty variation on a cheese pizza, and I can understand why it has its own name and it's a local favorite.

Of course, a couple of folks had the bright idea to send a picture of the pizza, and all of the smiling faces eating it, to the coworker who had left the day before. His response was what really put the cherry on top for the whole episode. It was simple, but fully conveyed the message: "serious?" We did eventually have an actual adult conversation about it, but I remember laughing my head off when I got the reply.

Incidentally, if you're ever in Argentina, be on the lookout for fugazza and pizza in general. It might be worth a laugh or two.

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