Many, Many years ago I lived in Basingstoke England. It’s a wonderful little corner of Hampshire (Americans’ say hamp-SHIRE – like we expected to find damp hobbits there or something. The Brits would pronounce it hampsher – more like hampster. It was a sher not a shire).
While living there in the early 90′s we fell in love with the place, the people, and yes… sometimes even the food. Granted after 3 years we were ready to move home, but living abroad was a blast. For the most part, we tried to live locally, eating at local eateries, shopping at Tesco and learning to love “Tea”. But every now and then we would venture into a good old fashioned American Franchise restaurant for some “home” eating. Every now and then, these establishments would localize their fair. For years I joked about getting a “FishMac” in a McDonald’s in Switzerland. Sometimes even they would modify the recipes for local tastes.
One day, while Stacy and I were driving through the English country side visiting sights of various historic significance (old buildings and houses – everything there could be a museum), we stopped in and had lunch at a Pizza Hut. And right there on the menu was something I’d never seen before. A Seafood Personal Pan Pizza. Here’s the ingredients.
Seafood Pizza
- Corn
- Prawns (shrimp)
- Tuna!
Or as they called it, a Tuna, Corn and Prawn Pizza. How utterly bizarre. I remember thinking I liked all three ingredients separately, how bad could they be on a Pizza? I mean, Pineapple and Ham is pretty strange right? So I ordered one. And I fell in love with it. From then on, whenever I could order a pizza I would order that. Of course Stacy thought it was gross so I didn’t have it very often, but for me it was just fun and different.
And I haven’t had one in more than 15 years… until… I was standing in line in a Papa Murphy’s and realized… I could make one. I had a coupon for a free cheese Pizza and I asked them if They could wrap the cheese on the side so I could make my own. They agreed and I took my little bundle of Pizza fixings with me. For those of you who don’t know Papa Murphy’s specializes in Pizzas you bake at home. It’s quite clever really. Without the cost overhead of the big Pizza oven or the spoilage of cooked food left sitting too long for someone to pick up. You take them home and bake them in your own oven for a dozen minutes and you get great pizza cheap, hot, with what feels like minimal effort on my part. I mean, how hard is it to heat an oven?
But this time, I was going to exert more effort. Across from my local Papa Murphy’s was an Albertsons where I was able to locate rather swiftly a small can of sweet corn, an individual (lunch size) foil packet of Tuna, and a can of medium size shrimp (thank you Charlie). Those three ingredients cost more than the list price of my cheese pizza, but I didn’t care.
I took the stuff home and went to work, spreading prawny goodness and tuna chunks over the pizza sprinkled with Corn, then I smothered it with Cheese. Put in the oven, I backed it a little longer to brown the cheese and Voila!
When it came out of the oven I was back in the UK!
What surprised me is that all my kids loved it. Stacy still thought it was gross, but because we both care about expanding our Children’s horizons when it comes to trying new experiences like food, she smiled and encouraged them to try it. We scarfed it up and have made it twice more since.
So there you have it. If you want to make something fun and different, try a Prawn and Tuna pizza!
– Scott