Pizza got in how?

[mjp.livejournal.com]

OK, this is probably reading way, WAY too much into Code Geass, but it's time for some good ol' over-analyzing. Pizza Hut: how could it happen?

Flash back if you will: flat yeast breads have been staple foods of countless ancient cultures (paratha and naan in Indian, pita in Middle Eastern, injera in Ethiopian/sub-Saharan African, I could go on forever) but pizza didn't really evolve until the 18th century in Naples. Queen Margherita was presented with the first pizza we'd recognize, topped with tomatoes, basil, and mozzerella to represent the colors of the new Italian flag) and was brought over to the US as immigration expanded in the late 1890s.

What is that with Code Geass? Well, if Britannia suppressed the American Revolution and settled it with their own people, it'd stand to say that immigration never happened, Italians never brought pizza to the New World, and without pizza, there's no Domino's and no Pizza Hut to compete with them.

I think it's a bit of over-analyzing, but doesn't anyone else think it'd be weird that pizza would spontaneously become a good enough business in Area 11 to exist, period?

Just a thought. Feel free to sage this post. :-P

Comments

[zidane.livejournal.com]

It's not as if food is always constrained to its country of origin. It could have caught on as something popular in Europe and spread to Britannia, who then spread it through conquest.

[halevy.livejournal.com]

Eat pizza or die?

[mjp.livejournal.com]

True, but then it brings into account how it got established in Area 11 in the first place. Japan brought over pizza as an American concept (long and fun story about mob connections to that) and a lot of other culinary concepts came from plenty of other places... there's too many holes, though:

A) If the European Union exists and has resisted Britannian occupation, where does Italy lie? Would Europe have been in near-constant wars with Britannia expanding, funded by the economic boon of North America? Look at how long Spain prospered on gold from the Caribbean and Mexico.

B) If Britannia was still expanding after the Revolution, what would it have done with resources and further expansion? Would there have been an Ottoman Empire still gunning for Italy? Would the World Wars have happened, or on different battle fronts?

C) How much of Japan had changed before it was occupied, especially since there was no United States to guarantee a post-war security relationship with?

I'm an alternate-history junkie, so I hope that if CG ever gets licensed, someone translates the inevitable fanbooks and backstories that would come along with it. XD

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

I thought pizza was invented in America...which would be Britannia from the anime. And it's certainly popular enough in Japan now...though that might be because of the occupation, I don't know. Hmm.

[x-reggg.livejournal.com]

i thought brittania was britain? then they moved over to USA coz they liked it more there? D:

[hylarn.livejournal.com]

It's case of parallel evolution. There's just something about Pizza Hut that's engraved into human DNA.

[tatooine.livejournal.com]

Hey, there was an Elizabeth I despite a thousand years of divergent history, why not Pizza Hut?

I call parallel evolution, too. There was a delicious-looking recipe in a Turkish cookbook I used to have for pita topped with goat cheese and tomatoes. Assuming that the Brits have all of the historical empire of real-world Britain, including its League mandate of Iran, it would have had exposure to that, at least!

[mjp.livejournal.com]

The thing is that most English, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish bread applications have it as a side dish or a component, not a meal itself as pizza became. It's peasant/poverty food at its origins, a cheap dough, crushed tomatoes, and herbs. Those could be found in gardens or raised/milled. British culture also didn't take too much out of its colonial possessions and mandates over the years, though; the only Indian applications we see in English cuisine are cardamom, clover, etc. for sweets. There were spices, but those were reserved for the wealthy who could afford them. I see the parallel evolution argument as having some merit, but definitely not as a native thing for Japanese or English (Japan has no native yeasts or arable grain by nature; anything of the sort came after the Tokugawa period). I'd love to see how it came to be, though; I'm not trying to debunk, more like trying to fit it in to Geass-world. ^_^

Totally OT: do you still have that recipe? It sounds delicious. O_O

[tatooine.livejournal.com]

This places introduction of wheat at about 2000 BCE (http://fibers.destinyslobster.com/Japanese/Food/japfood.htm), which is pretty consistent with migration from the continent, imho? Other than that, no idea what to tell you about your pizza problem! I put it up there somewhere next to "How do you have industrial society without inventing internal combustion?" and "Look, they were teleported!"

I don't have the cookbook anymore, which is a tragedy.

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

I'm more interested in how Britannian people are willingly using Japanese search engines---possibly a case of countrywide internet censorship to/from the outside world?---than the growth of Pizza Hut, but this is interesting. The easiest explanation, I think, would be convergent evolution. Perhaps it originates in Britannia by Britannic-Italians, since I doubt not every EEU person thinks immigrating to the most prosperous empire in the world is a bad idea. Or it could just like heebee said.

I don't think the spread/acceptance of pizza in Area 11 is hard to place, though. We see it mostly eaten among Britannian circles, which does suggest the thing being imported via conquest. And though Japan seemed reclusive back in the day, it's probably not a stretch to think Pizza Hut would've a few branches there before the war as well...it's a business entity, and judging from Genbu's uniform, Japan's opened its doors sometime prior.

(I love the overanalyzing, btw. CG practically calls for it. SO many issues.)

[rukawagf.livejournal.com]

Italians migrated to Britain and brouth Pizza in to the world (mystery solved) XD

[norikosama.livejournal.com]

If I get to overanalyze stuff,then it's my place!XD
Well...Britannia has taken over America,some of Europe,and a middle-eastern country.Perhaps in all their travels-rather conquests,they passed through Italy and found....PIZZA.
They turned out liking it,one guy or several guys asked or stole the recipe,and continued on Britannia's conquests to find pizza.Along the way,they were probably trying to find good pizza businesses as they had eaten enough pizza to love it to the ends of the universe.So they found Pizza Hut,probably took a few people captive,and imprisoned them in Area 11.They lent them money and they started Pizza Hut and other pizza businesses so there wouldn't be one pizza taste.
*silence* Sounds more like a fairy tale.Well,in the most simple and logic way,pizza just came with Area 11!XD

[meitsu.livejournal.com]

what they should do, is make Sunrise release some clif-notes for the origin of Pizza in Geass world. That way we won't have to speculate if some Italian brought it over to Britannia, or that Britannia invaded Europe and somehow got ahold of it.

Personally, I think it's quite possible that it was brought into Britannia by Europeans (most likely middle class, i will explain why). Seeing as how Pizza wouldn't have been considered a commodity, it could have gotten popular in the populace (Noble+ classes would probably prefer eating something that requires utenciles?) and spread later to the colonial areas. Personally, I think this is quite possible, from what I've seen, many Britannian attire and traditions seem like they originate from mainland Europe and concentrated usually on the southern coast (which urkes me, isn't Britannia supposed to be a spiritual alternate of Briton?), Suzaku's clothing, a more religious society, etc.

~_~ great..now I want pizza, and it's 12:25am....sleep =p