Buffalo Pizza

by Tom Shafer

February 15, 2021

Okay, so this will be a quick post, but a necessary one. And, I have to admit, an odd one as well. Frankly, I haven’t been very odd lately, so it does feel good to be exploring once again that part of the human spectrum.

And, like the title suggests, it does have to do with pizza. Last Friday evening, not necessarily wanting to prepare dinner (I am the chef of the house — and not a bad one to boot), I suggested to the wife that we have a frozen pizza instead. Now, both of us like the Paul Newman brand of frozen pizza (easily the best I’ve ever tried), so I wasn’t surprised when she answered in the affirmative.

This was the uncured pepperoni and sausage version, so, as always, I cut up a bell pepper and a sweet onion and liberally sprinkled the choppings (brand new word!) from edge to edge. Then, after completing the task of baking the pie (cooked one-and-a-half minutes longer than instructed for a nice, crispy-but-not-burned crust), I settled in to enjoy the fruits — er, pizza — of Paul’s fine work.

At some point while watching the evening news, I glanced at the slice I was chewing and this was what I saw:

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Now, I know what you’re thinking: he purposely chomped and nibbled his way to creating this mystical buffalo, but I promise (I never swear, as evidenced by my “And Strut About Like So Many Monsters” posting) that I did not. I was just grazing away while watching Lester Holt — and this was the result!

I know it’s not the Virgin Mary or even the sacred White Buffalo (it is pizza, after all), but it is a little weird. And, given that the buffalo is one of my favorite animals (right behind the coyote), that makes this accidental mastication even more magical.

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And, to take this to a more ethereal level, my cud-chewn (another new word!) masterpiece looks remarkably like a human-worked flint artifact I found a couple of years ago in Yellowwood State Park’s (Indiana) Jackson Creek:

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Okay, so I am well aware that this is mere coincidence, and I’m certainly not expecting anyone to show up at my home to worship the buffalo pizza — which would be impossible anyway because it has already been consumed, digested, and expelled. I just wanted to share this happenstance with the world at large — well, because I can.

Maybe I need to pay more attention to my food consumption. I might well be some sort of mastication savant, an unwitting master of mandible manipulation, creating unawares sacred (or not so much) images with just my teeth and jaws.

Ours is a fun little world, isn’t it?

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