February 25, 2021 • 35 mins
Illario 'Mario' Fabbrini was true American success story: An immigrant who built his own pizza empire just as this iconic food was becoming a normalized, nation-wide delicacy. When the business was brought low by allegations of tainted mushrooms, he did something few people would have been brave enough to consider -- he made the disposal of these so-called 'tainted' pizzas a public event, holding a mass burial for an estimated 30,000 frozen pizzas. The funeral was attended by numerous notable individuals, including the Governor of Michigan. Tune in to learn more about the inspiring, bittersweet story of one man in love with pizza, and how he learned to say goodbye.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Uh. The title of today's show,
I think really captivated all three of us from the jump.
So we'll just what if we just say the headline
and then we'll figure out what the heck we're talking about? Uh?
The old Today's episode is called the Great Michigan Pizza Funeral. Now, Ben,
(00:52):
I've certainly heard of a pizza party, but not a
pizza funeral. Yeah. Yeah, same man, same super producer, Casey
pegram Off, Mike, and we are going to put the
spotlight on you for this one. Casey uh said to
what did you say, Casey? Too great taste a good
great together pieces and funerals. Yeah, Casey's got that Monday
(01:14):
morning energy. Yeah in case I mean, it's something that
I think we all thought when we saw this headline. Uh,
is this a funeral that lightened the mood by serving
the mourner's pizza? You know, there's so many questions when
you see this topic, But it turns out that's not
the case at all, And it really is. As I
said to you of Mike, Uh, pretty much exactly what
(01:36):
it sounds like. Yep, that's correct. Uh. This this story
has has lots to unpack. So let's start with food contamination.
At some point, Uh, statistically speaking, most everybody has run
into some food that's gone off, or that's turned or
maybe even has become contaminated with something dangerous like salmonella
(02:00):
kale or listeria in ice cream. This is not a
laughing matter, but it does get us to a very
weird situation in the nineteen seventies. This concern over contaminated
food is what led to the Great Michigan Pizza Funeral.
So let's let's get into it. I like the way
(02:21):
Atlas Obscura describes this knoll when they say, quote, the
story of what became known as the Greek Michigan Pizza
Funeral is one of lost terrible maladies and spilled marinera. Yeah,
for sure, and and more than a little bit of
savvy pr spin from an Italian immigrant or shall I say,
(02:42):
a Fiumian immigrant, but we'll get into what that means
in a second. By the name of Ilario Mario Fabrini
um Ilaria, we'll call him Mario, has his friends called
him we're all friends here. Uh fled fascist Italy for
the United States to start a new life for himself
and um he originally lived in what used to be
(03:06):
its own little state called you May And I'm not
gonna lie. I'm gonna cop to it right away. When
I was first reading this stuff, I read that as Flume,
and I wanted so badly for him to be a
Flumian who hailed from the failed state of Flume, but
it was not to be. It is Fiume was also
a beautiful name. But I really want there to be
(03:27):
a magical place called Flume. But it is now a
part of what is currently Croatia. Uh And and initially
became autonomous in seventeen nineteen, but it was, you know,
kind of under the whims and wiles of different emperors
and kings and kind of got kicked around and lost
and regained freedom multiple times over the course of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yeah. Yeah, And for anybody who's
(03:51):
saying I also want Flume to be a word, shout
out to the Australian musician, DJ and record producer Harley
Edwards Street, also known as Flu. I don't know how
you handle the A or the E and the pronunciation
at the end there. I'm not sure either, but I
think it's also spelled the same as that cool water
ride at six Flags called the log Flume. Uh yeah, yeah,
(04:15):
throwback there. So the story of few May is a
story of ups and downs. It's a roller coaster for
six Flags. For reference, Fight eighteen sixty eight. This was
part of the Kingdom of Hungary asterisk caveat technically because
on the ground, and this happens in so many places
(04:36):
around the world, on the ground, this is a place
where the population is composed of Germans, Hungarians, and Italians,
and they all speak this local dialect that's sort of
a mash up of pot pourri of all the members
native languages. After World War One, in nine few May
(04:59):
is declared an official free state, primarily because the kingmakers
and the militaries and the politicians thought it would be
a good idea to have a buffer between Italy and
what was fast becoming the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. So what
if you may do? When it became sovereign, it doubled
down on becoming a melting pot, and according to Tom Topel,
(05:24):
nationality was defined mostly by the language given person spoke.
This is where Mario comes in. As as we said earlier,
he came to Michigan from few May after World War Two.
He had grown up under the Fascist regime. When he
was six years old, he was indoctrinated, forced to wear
you know, the infamous black shirt. Uh, And he traveled
(05:48):
This is a tragic story. He traveled to Michigan with
his grandfather because his father was killed in World War two. Yes, so,
as you said, he joined the U. S. Army. He
was stationed in San Diego, oh uh, and he really
liked it there. He he ultimately thought that he would
maybe one day retire there he served in the Korean War,
(06:09):
and then after the Korean War, he and his wife
Olga moved to Detroit, where they started a pizza business
called Fabrini Pizza. And they adapted a pizza recipe from there,
you know, home country, and tried to kind of americanize
it a little bit. They described it as the pizza
from my country no one here would eat. Kind of
(06:31):
reminds me of like americanized Chinese food a little bit. Um.
But the thing that he did that was very innovative
and we totally take for granted now is he would
deliver the pies to customers and not a whole lot
of other businesses were doing that. And in fact, he
would go on to say that people actually got annoyed
at him other pizzeria proprietors because he kind of had
(06:53):
cornered the market on delivery, and once one person starts
doing and then everyone's kind of expecting it because it
really is obviously super convenient and it really is no
better food for delivery than the pizza. Uh. And he
was a huge success right out of the gate, right, Yeah,
that's right, he was. He was pretty successful, and he
was smart to adapt his recipe for American palettes. I
(07:14):
love that he I love that he said no one
would like the actual pizza they make in his hometown.
I also love that his name and his nickname rhyme.
So I'm gonna call him Alario Mario because I like
the cad Alario Mario too. He has been I been
really quickly. I think you and I would be uh
fascinated to know what the real recipe for the pizza
(07:37):
was that he thought no one in America could stomach.
I'm pretty sure you and I would would be into it. Yeah,
I was looking it up actually earlier this week. I
was trying to figure to drill down into the specifics
of Croatian pizza in this part of the world. But
the the article where he says that stuff about the
original pizza and adapting it comes from Detroit Free Press,
(08:01):
and in that article on March six ninety three, he
doesn't disclose the original recipe. Just for everybody wondering, let
us know if you are from Fume and you know
the secret of Fume pizza. But back to Alrio Mario,
you're right now. He is quite successful. He is still
(08:21):
in the Army reserves, and so when the Berlin Wall
is going up, this rumor is going around town and
going around the military circles of the US that the
army reserves will be called into service and shipped off
to Germany. So he preemptively sells Fabrini pizza and he
(08:41):
doesn't end up going back to Europe. He does end
up eventually moving to a town called Alpena, and that's
where he restarts his pizza business. Yep, and I gotta
wonder if what he was. I'm sorry, I'm hung up
on this a little bit. Uh it is it is
not out there, so we can only really conjecture, but um,
remember on stuff that it And you know, we had
a pretty deep discussion with our super producer Alexis about
(09:05):
what Detroit pizza is and her, being a native Detroitter,
was not super aware that it had its own kind
of reputation, right. And it is kind of a rectangular,
deep dish pizza. That is, it's got this beautiful cheese
kind of what do you call it in the crown
or whatever around the side, the little raised up little
cheese crispies. Uh. And it's actually topped with Wisconsin cheddar cheese.
(09:30):
It's kind of interesting, um, but not clear as to
whether Fabrini was one of the pioneers of that. All
we know about Detroit style pizza is that it was
created by another Italian man by the name of Gus Guerrera.
I have a guess about what Lario Mario may have
been talking about when he was saying that people in
(09:50):
the US wouldn't enjoy his homestyle pizza crue. This might
not be correct. This is my speculation, folks, but ridiculous histories.
Apparently Croatian pizza has one huge distinction the tomato sauce
goes on the side. It doesn't go on the actual pizza.
You get the pizza bathed in with the ingredients, and
(10:11):
then you get like, you know, a little ramikin of
tomato sauce for yeah, for dipping, I would imagine. And
who doesn't love a good dip, a good dipping sauce.
I love a good dip, but give it, just give
me some cheesy But it's called cheesy bread. That's not pizza, right,
So maybe maybe that was what he was confronting. After
he starts his second business, as he recalls, he says,
(10:35):
when it wasn't too busy, I started making pizza and
I bought a freezer and started freezing them, and people
started buying them from me. So in addition to being
a pizza restaurant, now he's kind of a pizza grocer,
you know what I mean. He's selling frozen pizza to go.
And we have some statements from his family members, including
(10:56):
his son, who told us how this whole process worked.
It and I love that his son's name is Hillary.
I've never heard Hillary as a male name before, but
I quite like it. Uh yeah, and he would He
commented in this article that his father would run around
all over town supplying bars in the areas with these
frozen pizzas along with a little pizza cooker brilliant, so
(11:18):
he could listen to the bar proprietors, could you know,
supply their drunken customers with that good late night you know,
drunk e snacky food right there in the bar. Uh
And it was, you know, one stop shop. So Alario
Mario Mario to his friends, that's what they started calling
him there and Alpina soon was churning these pizzas out,
(11:39):
just you know, dozens of them as a small operation,
but he was getting some notoriety, so much so that
behind corporation approached him to with an offer that he
couldn't refuse. One he couldn't refuse because it was a
really good offer and they didn't threaten his family or
Hillary or someone. This is so neat. They said, hey,
(12:03):
why don't we go big with this, Why don't we
scale it up. Let's manufacture frozen pizza for distribution across
the entire state of Michigan and Ohio. According to Lario Mario,
this factory could produce as many as nine thousand pizzas
a day. So the factory starts production in nineteen sixty six.
(12:26):
Lario Mario is making is slinging these pies left and right.
He's distributing pizza for years. He's got an assembly line.
I never thought of it, but I guess that is
a job people can work in pizza factories. So there
were people. His entire job was to take toppings and
apply them to pizzas on this assembly line. And then
(12:47):
in nineteen seventy two, a year before the pizza funeral,
the U s d A approaches Alario Mario and they say, hey,
we need to talk about those canned mushrooms you're using
on Fabrini pizza. First of all, canned mushrooms do um,
But I get it, you know, he's got to keep
(13:07):
costs down. But it's not a fan of canned mushrooms
in any form. But yeah, they need to have a
word with him about the canned mushrooms because in January
of nineteen seventy three, employees at the United Canning Company
in Ohio, we're doing some quality check on their inventory
that was about to be shipped. When they noticed some
(13:28):
of the cans of mushrooms that they were inspecting had
swollen up that's not a good thing. Swollen cans indicates spoilage.
So they had to run some tests and it turned
out that some of these cans contained Clostridium botulinum, which
is the bacterium that causes botulism, which is no joke. Yeah,
(13:51):
that's correct. We're talking about effects on the body ranging
from muscle weakness, to low blood pressure to unfortunate sinnately,
on some occasions death, so botch is um can be fatal.
So the government realized they had to act quickly. They
went to every grocery store that might be carrying this
product and they removed them from the shelves post haste.
(14:13):
But they knew that wasn't enough. They had to go
further up the supply chain and find businesses that were
using these canned mushrooms and their products that they later
sold to the public. And of course, in chasing that
supply chain, they run into Alario Mario's factory, and they
(14:34):
run into Papa Fabrini's frozen Pizzas he gets the call
from Uncle Sam and as he, as he later recollects,
he knew exactly what was going to happen. He saw
the he saw the pizza sauce slung on the wall
instead of righting on the wall. Hust terrible, No, it's
absolutely appropriate. He literally saw his entire business life, everything
(14:57):
that he had built, flashed before his eyes. Um, and
he just kind of felt this sense of impending doom.
But luckily, again, this guy has proven himself to be
super thrifty and super sharp in terms of like, you know,
being kind of an ideas man. Uh. So he immediately
acted and he stopped the shipments uh and submitted some
(15:20):
of his pizzas for some contamination tests. Which is that
this is actually really interesting something I was not aware
it was a thing at all. Uh. These tests were
pretty low fi, but they were FDA approved. Um. The
slices of pizza in question were fed to a pair
of f d A lab mice who who died instantly.
(15:44):
So yeah, Fabrini decided to round up all of these
pizzas that had the mushrooms as toppings from all the
local restaurants and grocery stores. Um. Thankfully. I mean, this
wasn't quite an operation of scale yet, Like this wouldn't
have been a massive recall. It was relatively you know, manageable, um,
but still you know, quite a few pizzas involved. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
(16:08):
This is what we mean when we say quite a
few pizzas involved. By the time the botulism panics sets in,
Papa Fabrini's pizzas are being produced at a rate of
tens of thousands every week, tens of thousands of pizzas.
He's got twenty two full time employees. They've invested pretty
(16:29):
heavily into the factory. Right, they have sunk cost here.
This scandal could bring his pizza empire low. And this
leads to the day March five, nine seventy three, where
he handles this, uh, this dilemma with a Bernese level
(16:51):
of pr acumen. He didn't technically have to destroy these pizzas.
Let's be clear about that. He did not have to
distr roy them. But after those FDA tests with the mice,
he said, I'm gonna do it anyway. It's the right
thing to do, but I'm gonna make it a thing.
I'm gonna have a little fun with it. So he
(17:12):
gets some people together in a farm in Michigan to
watch him hold a funeral for thirty thousand frozen family
size mushroom pizzas. They're burying these pizzas. The mood is
described as this we didn't write this, but it's lovely.
The mood is described as somber and a little cheesy.
(17:36):
The governor shows up. The governor speaks at the funeral
William G. Milliken, Uh, and he talks about having courage
in the face of tragedy. And then these bulldozers because again,
thirty thousand pizzas, these bulldozers start, I guess ceremoniously respectfully
shoveling these pizzas into an eighteen foot hole. This feels
(17:57):
like something you would see him Fargo, you know what
I mean, the show of the program. No, it really
really does. It's charming and kind of macabre, you know,
at the same time. And again, thirty thousand pizzas is
nothing to sneeze at. But you know, if this had
been a much, much, much larger like global operation, this
could have been you know, millions of pizzas. And uh,
(18:18):
it really did make a splash, even nationally, drawing drawing
television and radio coverage. Uh. The owner of the farm
where they buried these pizzas in that eighteen foot hole
had this to say, I guess by next fall there
won't be anything but the cell of phane. Uh, that's cool,
(18:39):
but it's also you know, that's kind of burying trash
and on his farm. Uh, maybe he didn't think of
it that way, but yeah, they they they used a
pickup trucks. I'm assuming had to have been like garbage
type trucks if they're sliding pizzas out of the trucks
into the grave. Had to have like a ceremonial tilting
of the truck beds or whatever. But maybe they just
(19:00):
pushed him out manually or or used some of those
those what do they call those peels, those pizza things
you stick, Yeah, that's what they're called. Yeah, they're called
I only know this, Ben because I may have told
you I was once a uh that was once not
a bad pizza maker. I used to work of the
Mellow mushroom for for for a few years when I
was in college. And I could toss a I could
(19:20):
toss a pie in the air, do the old flip,
toss a mean pie. I could toss a mean pie,
and so Uh, the pizzas were committed to the earth,
the Michigan Earth and Alario Mario Fabrini does two things
that I think are really classy. First, he does turn
(19:40):
it kind of into a pizza party. He's giving out
free fresh, non baculi is um contaminated pizza slices to
anybody who attends. And then at the very end, when
these thirty thousand mushroom pies are buried, Lario Mario Fabrini
gently lays a two colored flower garland on the grave,
(20:03):
red flowers for the sauce, white flowers for cheese. And
there was a whole posse of important people at this funeral,
which is so weird because you imagine they would be busy,
right the Governor of Michigan probably has other stuff to do.
Chamber of Commerce members are their presidents of banking are there,
(20:24):
and uh, Fabrini said it sort of makes you goose
pimples about America, which means, I guess it means it
gave him chills. And then the governor said, Lario Mario
Fabrini is an example for all of us. Uh. And
then the the least classy people in this story are
(20:46):
the people who tried to fake batuli is um poisoning
for money. At least, according to uh U p I,
at least seventeen people tried to say Fabrini's Eats, Papa
Fabrini's Pizza had given them baculi is um. But uh, nobody,
nobody believed them, mainly because they were lying, and he
(21:09):
had a lot of support from the community, you know,
I mean, he seemed like a stand up guy. A
and B. Ben. This wreath situation, I mean, it gives
me kind of the fields. This is a man who
truly loved pizza. Yes, it's beautiful. And there's another reason
that these uh, these fift these people were not to
(21:29):
be believed, isn't there Ben, Yeah, they were making it up,
that's the thing. Uh. And how do we know they
were making it up? Here's the issue. It turns out
for Bernie, pizzas were not in fact contaminated with baculi
is um at all, like at all? Yeah, false alarm. Oops.
Despite these claims from these garbage people that they had,
(21:53):
they become ill trying to builk this man out of
some settlement money I imagine, perhaps a lifetimes a lie
of free frozen pizzas. Um. Yeah, he he did all
of this stuff. Uh, and and and copped to this
thing that wasn't even real. Uh. In the two weeks
between that recall and the funeral itself, the pizzas were vindicated.
(22:16):
Turns out the mushrooms in the supply chain that that
Fabrini had been part of didn't have botulism at all.
And those dead mice, remember those guys, they apparently had
died for some other reason, not botulism at all. Again,
you think that that that that goes to show what
an imprecise test that was. Uh some other rodent illness
(22:38):
took them. Seems very coincidental that it took both of them. Um,
they and Fabrini, in very good spirits told the Associated Press,
I think it was indigestion. Maybe they didn't like my pizza.
I love this guy. Oh my god, what a sweetie. Yeah,
so he's still having a tough time. Of course, there's
(23:00):
always going to be the fear of bankruptcy when something
goes this far sideways, and we have to understand that
the we're We're at a wonderful time to be pizza customers.
It's much better now for pizza fans in the US
than it was in the nineteen seventies. Back in the
(23:21):
nineteen seventies, there was a pretty small market for this
kind of pizza. Lario Mario Fabrini. The name is so
fun to say. Alario Mario Fabrini says this. He said,
in those days, you have to understand, the space in
the grocery store was not more than five or six
feet for frozen pizza. Today you have hundreds of miles
(23:41):
of pizza in the grocery store. In the old days,
to get space you have to fight for it. And
I'm just I just picked her, putting up his hands
like like a prize fighter when he when he talks
about this. So his sales took a bit of a die,
and in a pretty small market compared to what we
(24:03):
have in he had about a thirty thousand dollar cost
just in terms of materials for the pizza he had
to bury. And then he lost more money trying to
bring new flavors to the grocery aisle and to the
stores to replace mushroom pizza, which obviously people weren't super
into um and it was it was tough because you know,
(24:26):
after the pizza was pulled from the store shelves, there
were a bunch of other pizza makers waiting in the
wings to move into that little five or six foot
spot in the grocery store. So he was having a
tough time. He had to lay people off too. He's
got to lay people off, and you know, it just
goes to show. I don't remember when Chipotle had that
(24:49):
botulism scared, that's what it was. But it was in
the it was in the lettuce. And again it wasn't
because like they were you know, unclean, were like you know,
had its kind of health code violations. It was just
a tainted batch, you know. And and and it's it's
sometimes those things get through and they weathered it pretty well.
(25:09):
That's also a much much larger operation. Um, this was
not that the Papa Fabrini's frozen pizza. Chipotle was not.
And uh, Farrini said that when the pizza was pulled
from the store shelves in the first place, those competitors
swarmed in like like locusts. And then was eight his lunch,
(25:32):
literally his pizza lunch, and Farrini had to call in
his children to work in the factory. Um because he
had to lay off those people. But that just it
wasn't enough to keep the operation going and things just
kind of went downhill from there. Um. One woman, he said,
sent him five dollars to help out, because again, he
was more than just like a figurehead, you know, some
(25:55):
sort of chef boy r D figure Like, he was
a human being. People knew him in the community, and
people wanted to help him out. They didn't want to
see his business fail, but it basically did. Yeah. Oh
and uh, quick clarification there, Chippotle, Uh if it just
in case the Chipotle legal team is tuned in to
(26:16):
today's episode on The Pizza Funeral, it was an e
cole I outbreak. I think that's the one that's but
I believe it was from tainted lettuce though, I think
that's correct. Yeah. Yeah, and this is no ding on
Chippotle because you find yourself as a food manufacturer having
to source so many things, just like a Lario Mario Fabrini,
(26:37):
which the war I say it. It might be my
favorite name we've ever talked about on the show. He
gets here's the thing. There's one other twist. A few
days before the Pizza Funeral, Fabrini sues the creator of
those canned mushrooms for a million dollars and he wins
(26:58):
this lawsuit, but the money wasn't enough to keep the
factory going because according to Fabrini. He says, we didn't
get a million dollars. We got two d fifty grand.
The lawyer took a third of that, so we had
a hundred grand worth of bills just to keep the
company going for five or six years. Nineteen eighties, early
nineteen eighties, they sell off Papa Fabrini's Pizza, and he
(27:21):
says he walks away from this crazy adventure with about
five grand and the new company and the new pizza
recipe failed. After the cell there's a cool epilogue though.
There's a cool note here. After he sold Papa Fabrini's Alario.
Mario Fabrini finally made it to was happily ever after. Remember,
(27:44):
way back when he was in the military, he dreamed
of retiring to San Diego. He actually did it. How
cool is that? That's very cool. San Diego is beautiful
and he deserved it. He really put the work in,
and I'm so glad that he was at least able
to spend his twilight years and comfort and a place
that he had always dreamed of. Yeah. Yeah, and he
(28:04):
still makes pizza at home as of seventeen uh. He
says his favorite toppings are anchovies, pepperoni, green peppers, and
wait for it, mushrooms. Uh. He also he also talks
a little bit of trash about pizza and Italy, which
I thought was so interesting and unexpected because you would
expect the opposite, right, Yeah, that's I'm gonna, I'm gonna okay,
(28:27):
you know, different strokes. But uh, I would argue that
nothing beats a true, good old Sicilian slice. Yeah, yeah,
it's absolutely true. Uh. Fabrini says, in his opinion, most
America the pizza most American seed, is better than what
he gets in Italy because, uh, pizza originated per him
(28:49):
in Italy from leftover dough when parents were making bread,
and then it was flattened out and was used as
a quick snack for children. And perhaps you give him
the last word here. He says, if you go to
Germany and you order from a menu, they don't put
Italian pizza on there. They put American pizza. And he says,
sure it was started by Italians, but we make a
(29:11):
better pizza today. These are fighting words, Alario Mario, I'd
be very careful and we don't want big pie after us,
so we're just being very clear. This is what Alario
Mario Fabrini said, not Ben Nolan Casey, don't don't send
big pizza after us. It is true. We are just
reporting the facts as as always. Uh. But to put
(29:33):
a nice little coda on this, this wasn't the last
pizza funeral that that ever would be. It turns out
that that other type of potential thing that a pizza
funeral could be actually is a thing. At a particular
funeral home called Krause Funeral Homes in the neighborings state
of Wisconsin um and Uh. Mark Krauss, who is the
(29:58):
president of the funeral home, decided that he wanted to
have a little extra comfort to the funeral UH proceedings
in the form of free pizza. UH. He's told USA
today people don't think about funerals until they really need them.
So we asked ourselves, how do we get people to
relax about the idea of thinking about this difficult topic
(30:21):
ahead of time. The answer food. People are relaxed and
open where they're surrounded by food. He said. You think
about everything you do in life, it always centers around food.
And that's what caused Krause Funeral Homes, which have four
locations in Wisconsin, to host what they called pizza and
pre plan parties. So you're showing the benefits of why
(30:44):
you would want to pre plan a funeral, which can
be quite expensive. It makes sense to to be prepared
for that. Uh. And while you're doing that, while you're
talking to the funeral directors and and the rest of
the staff at Krause, you're all splitting a pizza it
together because pizza does make everything better. I mean, that's
(31:04):
unequivocally true. Uh. And again, I'll always associate the idea
of a pizza party with what was it called book
it book? Yeah, book it. It was a scholastic program
I think all three of us experienced, and we were
kids where if you're read a start number of books,
at the end of the year, you got a pizza party.
That was the thing you look forward to all year party. Uh. Yeah,
(31:27):
And I I'm honestly I into the idea of a
pizza funeral, not let's just take it to the next level,
not just the pre plan I would be honored if
at my funeral, Uh, people served like a really nice
spread of various uh maybe Sicilian pies. I am for
normalizing eating snacks and many more situations you know, I
(31:50):
can't remember if I mentioned on this show, but one
of my dreams has always been to be at a
politicians press conference. You know. For some reason, we have
this thing in the U s where whatever a politician
is saying something important, there have to be like a
dozen people standing behind them, not really doing anything. I
want to be one of those guys and like, part
(32:11):
way through this speech, I want to take like a
bag of a bag of potato chips, maybe a pizza now,
or an orange and just like still nodding sombrely, like
snack on it while we're talking about whatever they're talking about.
I'm not really eating, that's just an audio sound effect, folks.
But but you're right, pizza makes everything better. I am
(32:31):
so impressed with the Lario Mario Fabrini, and I gotta
say this is this is such an interesting story, you know,
and it's one like as we approach lunchtime, it's one
that I'm sure the three of us are thinking about constantly.
Uh No, I don't want to think about your funeral,
nor yours, Casey, nor my own, but I do want
(32:54):
to hear what about the weirdest pizza parties? Are fellow
ridiculous historians have been into book. It's still around, by
the way, I shouted them out one time in the
previous episode. They sent me a T shirt. Did I
tell you? I told you that? Right? What? Yeah? I
want to book at T shirt. Hit him up on Twitter.
Tell him Ben, say maybe I well, I need to
mess with Twitter. That's how you get all the free
stuff is tagging people on Twitter. Nobody responds on Instagram.
(33:18):
You get no free stuff for Instagram. Alright, Ben, alright,
challenge accepted, my friends. And this has been a fun episode.
I mean, if you know, because nobody really died, right,
nobody died and there was a funeral, you get all
the benefits because you know, funerals are kind of fun.
It makes me think of Harold and Maude the Lovely
uh how Ashby movie, where Harold goes to funerals, you know,
(33:40):
for fun, just to hang out and watch them. Um.
So there's something a little bit fascinating about funerals. But
it's nice to be able to experience that without having
to be sad about somebody dying. It was just a
bunch of frozen pizzas. Yeah, percent agreed here, Noel, Thank
you as always to our super producer Casey Pegrum cooking
that hot podcast pie Weekend week Out that sounded better
(34:03):
in my head. Also thanks to Alex Williams, who composed
our amazing soundtrack. Huge thanks to research, your extraordinaire Gabe Louisier. Uh,
Christopher Haciots, who will soon be joining us. I think
I've been teasing that one for several weeks. Now we
need to make that happen. There has been talk. We
just gotta get the calendars to line up. Also, of course,
(34:23):
Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quister. Uh, may we may,
May you never dark in our zoom again, sir, But
I'm afraid that that's just not possible. Yeah, we'll wrap
this up just in case he's gonna zoom bomb us again. Uh,
you're you may have a pizza story of your own.
We definitely want to hear it in your you know,
shaking your fist at the guy saying how can I
(34:45):
talk to these guys? Well, good news, folks. You can
find us all over the internet, not just as a show,
but as individuals. That's right. You can find me on
Instagram where I am at how now Noel Brown, and
you can find me on Twitter, where I at Ben
Bullen h s W. You can also see some cooking
misadventures on my Instagram at Ben Boland. You know, what
(35:08):
a ride? What a croatia tomato sauce on the side.
I didn't know that's something you could do with pizza
and have it still be considered pizza. You know again,
I I sort of called shenanigans on that. It is just,
in my humble opinion, cheesy bread. We've got to go
find out for ourselves true. We'll see you next time Fox.
(35:36):
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Uh. The title of today's show,
I think really captivated all three of us from the jump.
So we'll just what if we just say the headline
and then we'll figure out what the heck we're talking about? Uh?
The old Today's episode is called the Great Michigan Pizza Funeral. Now, Ben,
(00:52):
I've certainly heard of a pizza party, but not a
pizza funeral. Yeah. Yeah, same man, same super producer, Casey
pegram Off, Mike, and we are going to put the
spotlight on you for this one. Casey uh said to
what did you say, Casey? Too great taste a good
great together pieces and funerals. Yeah, Casey's got that Monday
(01:14):
morning energy. Yeah in case I mean, it's something that
I think we all thought when we saw this headline. Uh,
is this a funeral that lightened the mood by serving
the mourner's pizza? You know, there's so many questions when
you see this topic, But it turns out that's not
the case at all, And it really is. As I
said to you of Mike, Uh, pretty much exactly what
(01:36):
it sounds like. Yep, that's correct. Uh. This this story
has has lots to unpack. So let's start with food contamination.
At some point, Uh, statistically speaking, most everybody has run
into some food that's gone off, or that's turned or
maybe even has become contaminated with something dangerous like salmonella
(02:00):
kale or listeria in ice cream. This is not a
laughing matter, but it does get us to a very
weird situation in the nineteen seventies. This concern over contaminated
food is what led to the Great Michigan Pizza Funeral.
So let's let's get into it. I like the way
(02:21):
Atlas Obscura describes this knoll when they say, quote, the
story of what became known as the Greek Michigan Pizza
Funeral is one of lost terrible maladies and spilled marinera. Yeah,
for sure, and and more than a little bit of
savvy pr spin from an Italian immigrant or shall I say,
(02:42):
a Fiumian immigrant, but we'll get into what that means
in a second. By the name of Ilario Mario Fabrini
um Ilaria, we'll call him Mario, has his friends called
him we're all friends here. Uh fled fascist Italy for
the United States to start a new life for himself
and um he originally lived in what used to be
(03:06):
its own little state called you May And I'm not
gonna lie. I'm gonna cop to it right away. When
I was first reading this stuff, I read that as Flume,
and I wanted so badly for him to be a
Flumian who hailed from the failed state of Flume, but
it was not to be. It is Fiume was also
a beautiful name. But I really want there to be
(03:27):
a magical place called Flume. But it is now a
part of what is currently Croatia. Uh And and initially
became autonomous in seventeen nineteen, but it was, you know,
kind of under the whims and wiles of different emperors
and kings and kind of got kicked around and lost
and regained freedom multiple times over the course of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yeah. Yeah, And for anybody who's
(03:51):
saying I also want Flume to be a word, shout
out to the Australian musician, DJ and record producer Harley
Edwards Street, also known as Flu. I don't know how
you handle the A or the E and the pronunciation
at the end there. I'm not sure either, but I
think it's also spelled the same as that cool water
ride at six Flags called the log Flume. Uh yeah, yeah,
(04:15):
throwback there. So the story of few May is a
story of ups and downs. It's a roller coaster for
six Flags. For reference, Fight eighteen sixty eight. This was
part of the Kingdom of Hungary asterisk caveat technically because
on the ground, and this happens in so many places
(04:36):
around the world, on the ground, this is a place
where the population is composed of Germans, Hungarians, and Italians,
and they all speak this local dialect that's sort of
a mash up of pot pourri of all the members
native languages. After World War One, in nine few May
(04:59):
is declared an official free state, primarily because the kingmakers
and the militaries and the politicians thought it would be
a good idea to have a buffer between Italy and
what was fast becoming the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. So what
if you may do? When it became sovereign, it doubled
down on becoming a melting pot, and according to Tom Topel,
(05:24):
nationality was defined mostly by the language given person spoke.
This is where Mario comes in. As as we said earlier,
he came to Michigan from few May after World War Two.
He had grown up under the Fascist regime. When he
was six years old, he was indoctrinated, forced to wear
you know, the infamous black shirt. Uh, And he traveled
(05:48):
This is a tragic story. He traveled to Michigan with
his grandfather because his father was killed in World War two. Yes, so,
as you said, he joined the U. S. Army. He
was stationed in San Diego, oh uh, and he really
liked it there. He he ultimately thought that he would
maybe one day retire there he served in the Korean War,
(06:09):
and then after the Korean War, he and his wife
Olga moved to Detroit, where they started a pizza business
called Fabrini Pizza. And they adapted a pizza recipe from there,
you know, home country, and tried to kind of americanize
it a little bit. They described it as the pizza
from my country no one here would eat. Kind of
(06:31):
reminds me of like americanized Chinese food a little bit. Um.
But the thing that he did that was very innovative
and we totally take for granted now is he would
deliver the pies to customers and not a whole lot
of other businesses were doing that. And in fact, he
would go on to say that people actually got annoyed
at him other pizzeria proprietors because he kind of had
(06:53):
cornered the market on delivery, and once one person starts
doing and then everyone's kind of expecting it because it
really is obviously super convenient and it really is no
better food for delivery than the pizza. Uh. And he
was a huge success right out of the gate, right, Yeah,
that's right, he was. He was pretty successful, and he
was smart to adapt his recipe for American palettes. I
(07:14):
love that he I love that he said no one
would like the actual pizza they make in his hometown.
I also love that his name and his nickname rhyme.
So I'm gonna call him Alario Mario because I like
the cad Alario Mario too. He has been I been
really quickly. I think you and I would be uh
fascinated to know what the real recipe for the pizza
(07:37):
was that he thought no one in America could stomach.
I'm pretty sure you and I would would be into it. Yeah,
I was looking it up actually earlier this week. I
was trying to figure to drill down into the specifics
of Croatian pizza in this part of the world. But
the the article where he says that stuff about the
original pizza and adapting it comes from Detroit Free Press,
(08:01):
and in that article on March six ninety three, he
doesn't disclose the original recipe. Just for everybody wondering, let
us know if you are from Fume and you know
the secret of Fume pizza. But back to Alrio Mario,
you're right now. He is quite successful. He is still
(08:21):
in the Army reserves, and so when the Berlin Wall
is going up, this rumor is going around town and
going around the military circles of the US that the
army reserves will be called into service and shipped off
to Germany. So he preemptively sells Fabrini pizza and he
(08:41):
doesn't end up going back to Europe. He does end
up eventually moving to a town called Alpena, and that's
where he restarts his pizza business. Yep, and I gotta
wonder if what he was. I'm sorry, I'm hung up
on this a little bit. Uh it is it is
not out there, so we can only really conjecture, but um,
remember on stuff that it And you know, we had
a pretty deep discussion with our super producer Alexis about
(09:05):
what Detroit pizza is and her, being a native Detroitter,
was not super aware that it had its own kind
of reputation, right. And it is kind of a rectangular,
deep dish pizza. That is, it's got this beautiful cheese
kind of what do you call it in the crown
or whatever around the side, the little raised up little
cheese crispies. Uh. And it's actually topped with Wisconsin cheddar cheese.
(09:30):
It's kind of interesting, um, but not clear as to
whether Fabrini was one of the pioneers of that. All
we know about Detroit style pizza is that it was
created by another Italian man by the name of Gus Guerrera.
I have a guess about what Lario Mario may have
been talking about when he was saying that people in
(09:50):
the US wouldn't enjoy his homestyle pizza crue. This might
not be correct. This is my speculation, folks, but ridiculous histories.
Apparently Croatian pizza has one huge distinction the tomato sauce
goes on the side. It doesn't go on the actual pizza.
You get the pizza bathed in with the ingredients, and
(10:11):
then you get like, you know, a little ramikin of
tomato sauce for yeah, for dipping, I would imagine. And
who doesn't love a good dip, a good dipping sauce.
I love a good dip, but give it, just give
me some cheesy But it's called cheesy bread. That's not pizza, right,
So maybe maybe that was what he was confronting. After
he starts his second business, as he recalls, he says,
(10:35):
when it wasn't too busy, I started making pizza and
I bought a freezer and started freezing them, and people
started buying them from me. So in addition to being
a pizza restaurant, now he's kind of a pizza grocer,
you know what I mean. He's selling frozen pizza to go.
And we have some statements from his family members, including
(10:56):
his son, who told us how this whole process worked.
It and I love that his son's name is Hillary.
I've never heard Hillary as a male name before, but
I quite like it. Uh yeah, and he would He
commented in this article that his father would run around
all over town supplying bars in the areas with these
frozen pizzas along with a little pizza cooker brilliant, so
(11:18):
he could listen to the bar proprietors, could you know,
supply their drunken customers with that good late night you know,
drunk e snacky food right there in the bar. Uh
And it was, you know, one stop shop. So Alario
Mario Mario to his friends, that's what they started calling
him there and Alpina soon was churning these pizzas out,
(11:39):
just you know, dozens of them as a small operation,
but he was getting some notoriety, so much so that
behind corporation approached him to with an offer that he
couldn't refuse. One he couldn't refuse because it was a
really good offer and they didn't threaten his family or
Hillary or someone. This is so neat. They said, hey,
(12:03):
why don't we go big with this, Why don't we
scale it up. Let's manufacture frozen pizza for distribution across
the entire state of Michigan and Ohio. According to Lario Mario,
this factory could produce as many as nine thousand pizzas
a day. So the factory starts production in nineteen sixty six.
(12:26):
Lario Mario is making is slinging these pies left and right.
He's distributing pizza for years. He's got an assembly line.
I never thought of it, but I guess that is
a job people can work in pizza factories. So there
were people. His entire job was to take toppings and
apply them to pizzas on this assembly line. And then
(12:47):
in nineteen seventy two, a year before the pizza funeral,
the U s d A approaches Alario Mario and they say, hey,
we need to talk about those canned mushrooms you're using
on Fabrini pizza. First of all, canned mushrooms do um,
But I get it, you know, he's got to keep
(13:07):
costs down. But it's not a fan of canned mushrooms
in any form. But yeah, they need to have a
word with him about the canned mushrooms because in January
of nineteen seventy three, employees at the United Canning Company
in Ohio, we're doing some quality check on their inventory
that was about to be shipped. When they noticed some
(13:28):
of the cans of mushrooms that they were inspecting had
swollen up that's not a good thing. Swollen cans indicates spoilage.
So they had to run some tests and it turned
out that some of these cans contained Clostridium botulinum, which
is the bacterium that causes botulism, which is no joke. Yeah,
(13:51):
that's correct. We're talking about effects on the body ranging
from muscle weakness, to low blood pressure to unfortunate sinnately,
on some occasions death, so botch is um can be fatal.
So the government realized they had to act quickly. They
went to every grocery store that might be carrying this
product and they removed them from the shelves post haste.
(14:13):
But they knew that wasn't enough. They had to go
further up the supply chain and find businesses that were
using these canned mushrooms and their products that they later
sold to the public. And of course, in chasing that
supply chain, they run into Alario Mario's factory, and they
(14:34):
run into Papa Fabrini's frozen Pizzas he gets the call
from Uncle Sam and as he, as he later recollects,
he knew exactly what was going to happen. He saw
the he saw the pizza sauce slung on the wall
instead of righting on the wall. Hust terrible, No, it's
absolutely appropriate. He literally saw his entire business life, everything
(14:57):
that he had built, flashed before his eyes. Um, and
he just kind of felt this sense of impending doom.
But luckily, again, this guy has proven himself to be
super thrifty and super sharp in terms of like, you know,
being kind of an ideas man. Uh. So he immediately
acted and he stopped the shipments uh and submitted some
(15:20):
of his pizzas for some contamination tests. Which is that
this is actually really interesting something I was not aware
it was a thing at all. Uh. These tests were
pretty low fi, but they were FDA approved. Um. The
slices of pizza in question were fed to a pair
of f d A lab mice who who died instantly.
(15:44):
So yeah, Fabrini decided to round up all of these
pizzas that had the mushrooms as toppings from all the
local restaurants and grocery stores. Um. Thankfully. I mean, this
wasn't quite an operation of scale yet, Like this wouldn't
have been a massive recall. It was relatively you know, manageable, um,
but still you know, quite a few pizzas involved. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
(16:08):
This is what we mean when we say quite a
few pizzas involved. By the time the botulism panics sets in,
Papa Fabrini's pizzas are being produced at a rate of
tens of thousands every week, tens of thousands of pizzas.
He's got twenty two full time employees. They've invested pretty
(16:29):
heavily into the factory. Right, they have sunk cost here.
This scandal could bring his pizza empire low. And this
leads to the day March five, nine seventy three, where
he handles this, uh, this dilemma with a Bernese level
(16:51):
of pr acumen. He didn't technically have to destroy these pizzas.
Let's be clear about that. He did not have to
distr roy them. But after those FDA tests with the mice,
he said, I'm gonna do it anyway. It's the right
thing to do, but I'm gonna make it a thing.
I'm gonna have a little fun with it. So he
(17:12):
gets some people together in a farm in Michigan to
watch him hold a funeral for thirty thousand frozen family
size mushroom pizzas. They're burying these pizzas. The mood is
described as this we didn't write this, but it's lovely.
The mood is described as somber and a little cheesy.
(17:36):
The governor shows up. The governor speaks at the funeral
William G. Milliken, Uh, and he talks about having courage
in the face of tragedy. And then these bulldozers because again,
thirty thousand pizzas, these bulldozers start, I guess ceremoniously respectfully
shoveling these pizzas into an eighteen foot hole. This feels
(17:57):
like something you would see him Fargo, you know what
I mean, the show of the program. No, it really
really does. It's charming and kind of macabre, you know,
at the same time. And again, thirty thousand pizzas is
nothing to sneeze at. But you know, if this had
been a much, much, much larger like global operation, this
could have been you know, millions of pizzas. And uh,
(18:18):
it really did make a splash, even nationally, drawing drawing
television and radio coverage. Uh. The owner of the farm
where they buried these pizzas in that eighteen foot hole
had this to say, I guess by next fall there
won't be anything but the cell of phane. Uh, that's cool,
(18:39):
but it's also you know, that's kind of burying trash
and on his farm. Uh, maybe he didn't think of
it that way, but yeah, they they they used a
pickup trucks. I'm assuming had to have been like garbage
type trucks if they're sliding pizzas out of the trucks
into the grave. Had to have like a ceremonial tilting
of the truck beds or whatever. But maybe they just
(19:00):
pushed him out manually or or used some of those
those what do they call those peels, those pizza things
you stick, Yeah, that's what they're called. Yeah, they're called
I only know this, Ben because I may have told
you I was once a uh that was once not
a bad pizza maker. I used to work of the
Mellow mushroom for for for a few years when I
was in college. And I could toss a I could
(19:20):
toss a pie in the air, do the old flip,
toss a mean pie. I could toss a mean pie,
and so Uh, the pizzas were committed to the earth,
the Michigan Earth and Alario Mario Fabrini does two things
that I think are really classy. First, he does turn
(19:40):
it kind of into a pizza party. He's giving out
free fresh, non baculi is um contaminated pizza slices to
anybody who attends. And then at the very end, when
these thirty thousand mushroom pies are buried, Lario Mario Fabrini
gently lays a two colored flower garland on the grave,
(20:03):
red flowers for the sauce, white flowers for cheese. And
there was a whole posse of important people at this funeral,
which is so weird because you imagine they would be busy,
right the Governor of Michigan probably has other stuff to do.
Chamber of Commerce members are their presidents of banking are there,
(20:24):
and uh, Fabrini said it sort of makes you goose
pimples about America, which means, I guess it means it
gave him chills. And then the governor said, Lario Mario
Fabrini is an example for all of us. Uh. And
then the the least classy people in this story are
(20:46):
the people who tried to fake batuli is um poisoning
for money. At least, according to uh U p I,
at least seventeen people tried to say Fabrini's Eats, Papa
Fabrini's Pizza had given them baculi is um. But uh, nobody,
nobody believed them, mainly because they were lying, and he
(21:09):
had a lot of support from the community, you know,
I mean, he seemed like a stand up guy. A
and B. Ben. This wreath situation, I mean, it gives
me kind of the fields. This is a man who
truly loved pizza. Yes, it's beautiful. And there's another reason
that these uh, these fift these people were not to
(21:29):
be believed, isn't there Ben, Yeah, they were making it up,
that's the thing. Uh. And how do we know they
were making it up? Here's the issue. It turns out
for Bernie, pizzas were not in fact contaminated with baculi
is um at all, like at all? Yeah, false alarm. Oops.
Despite these claims from these garbage people that they had,
(21:53):
they become ill trying to builk this man out of
some settlement money I imagine, perhaps a lifetimes a lie
of free frozen pizzas. Um. Yeah, he he did all
of this stuff. Uh, and and and copped to this
thing that wasn't even real. Uh. In the two weeks
between that recall and the funeral itself, the pizzas were vindicated.
(22:16):
Turns out the mushrooms in the supply chain that that
Fabrini had been part of didn't have botulism at all.
And those dead mice, remember those guys, they apparently had
died for some other reason, not botulism at all. Again,
you think that that that that goes to show what
an imprecise test that was. Uh some other rodent illness
(22:38):
took them. Seems very coincidental that it took both of them. Um,
they and Fabrini, in very good spirits told the Associated Press,
I think it was indigestion. Maybe they didn't like my pizza.
I love this guy. Oh my god, what a sweetie. Yeah,
so he's still having a tough time. Of course, there's
(23:00):
always going to be the fear of bankruptcy when something
goes this far sideways, and we have to understand that
the we're We're at a wonderful time to be pizza customers.
It's much better now for pizza fans in the US
than it was in the nineteen seventies. Back in the
(23:21):
nineteen seventies, there was a pretty small market for this
kind of pizza. Lario Mario Fabrini. The name is so
fun to say. Alario Mario Fabrini says this. He said,
in those days, you have to understand, the space in
the grocery store was not more than five or six
feet for frozen pizza. Today you have hundreds of miles
(23:41):
of pizza in the grocery store. In the old days,
to get space you have to fight for it. And
I'm just I just picked her, putting up his hands
like like a prize fighter when he when he talks
about this. So his sales took a bit of a die,
and in a pretty small market compared to what we
(24:03):
have in he had about a thirty thousand dollar cost
just in terms of materials for the pizza he had
to bury. And then he lost more money trying to
bring new flavors to the grocery aisle and to the
stores to replace mushroom pizza, which obviously people weren't super
into um and it was it was tough because you know,
(24:26):
after the pizza was pulled from the store shelves, there
were a bunch of other pizza makers waiting in the
wings to move into that little five or six foot
spot in the grocery store. So he was having a
tough time. He had to lay people off too. He's
got to lay people off, and you know, it just
goes to show. I don't remember when Chipotle had that
(24:49):
botulism scared, that's what it was. But it was in
the it was in the lettuce. And again it wasn't
because like they were you know, unclean, were like you know,
had its kind of health code violations. It was just
a tainted batch, you know. And and and it's it's
sometimes those things get through and they weathered it pretty well.
(25:09):
That's also a much much larger operation. Um, this was
not that the Papa Fabrini's frozen pizza. Chipotle was not.
And uh, Farrini said that when the pizza was pulled
from the store shelves in the first place, those competitors
swarmed in like like locusts. And then was eight his lunch,
(25:32):
literally his pizza lunch, and Farrini had to call in
his children to work in the factory. Um because he
had to lay off those people. But that just it
wasn't enough to keep the operation going and things just
kind of went downhill from there. Um. One woman, he said,
sent him five dollars to help out, because again, he
was more than just like a figurehead, you know, some
(25:55):
sort of chef boy r D figure Like, he was
a human being. People knew him in the community, and
people wanted to help him out. They didn't want to
see his business fail, but it basically did. Yeah. Oh
and uh, quick clarification there, Chippotle, Uh if it just
in case the Chipotle legal team is tuned in to
(26:16):
today's episode on The Pizza Funeral, it was an e
cole I outbreak. I think that's the one that's but
I believe it was from tainted lettuce though, I think
that's correct. Yeah. Yeah, and this is no ding on
Chippotle because you find yourself as a food manufacturer having
to source so many things, just like a Lario Mario Fabrini,
(26:37):
which the war I say it. It might be my
favorite name we've ever talked about on the show. He
gets here's the thing. There's one other twist. A few
days before the Pizza Funeral, Fabrini sues the creator of
those canned mushrooms for a million dollars and he wins
(26:58):
this lawsuit, but the money wasn't enough to keep the
factory going because according to Fabrini. He says, we didn't
get a million dollars. We got two d fifty grand.
The lawyer took a third of that, so we had
a hundred grand worth of bills just to keep the
company going for five or six years. Nineteen eighties, early
nineteen eighties, they sell off Papa Fabrini's Pizza, and he
(27:21):
says he walks away from this crazy adventure with about
five grand and the new company and the new pizza
recipe failed. After the cell there's a cool epilogue though.
There's a cool note here. After he sold Papa Fabrini's Alario.
Mario Fabrini finally made it to was happily ever after. Remember,
(27:44):
way back when he was in the military, he dreamed
of retiring to San Diego. He actually did it. How
cool is that? That's very cool. San Diego is beautiful
and he deserved it. He really put the work in,
and I'm so glad that he was at least able
to spend his twilight years and comfort and a place
that he had always dreamed of. Yeah. Yeah, and he
(28:04):
still makes pizza at home as of seventeen uh. He
says his favorite toppings are anchovies, pepperoni, green peppers, and
wait for it, mushrooms. Uh. He also he also talks
a little bit of trash about pizza and Italy, which
I thought was so interesting and unexpected because you would
expect the opposite, right, Yeah, that's I'm gonna, I'm gonna okay,
(28:27):
you know, different strokes. But uh, I would argue that
nothing beats a true, good old Sicilian slice. Yeah, yeah,
it's absolutely true. Uh. Fabrini says, in his opinion, most
America the pizza most American seed, is better than what
he gets in Italy because, uh, pizza originated per him
(28:49):
in Italy from leftover dough when parents were making bread,
and then it was flattened out and was used as
a quick snack for children. And perhaps you give him
the last word here. He says, if you go to
Germany and you order from a menu, they don't put
Italian pizza on there. They put American pizza. And he says,
sure it was started by Italians, but we make a
(29:11):
better pizza today. These are fighting words, Alario Mario, I'd
be very careful and we don't want big pie after us,
so we're just being very clear. This is what Alario
Mario Fabrini said, not Ben Nolan Casey, don't don't send
big pizza after us. It is true. We are just
reporting the facts as as always. Uh. But to put
(29:33):
a nice little coda on this, this wasn't the last
pizza funeral that that ever would be. It turns out
that that other type of potential thing that a pizza
funeral could be actually is a thing. At a particular
funeral home called Krause Funeral Homes in the neighborings state
of Wisconsin um and Uh. Mark Krauss, who is the
(29:58):
president of the funeral home, decided that he wanted to
have a little extra comfort to the funeral UH proceedings
in the form of free pizza. UH. He's told USA
today people don't think about funerals until they really need them.
So we asked ourselves, how do we get people to
relax about the idea of thinking about this difficult topic
(30:21):
ahead of time. The answer food. People are relaxed and
open where they're surrounded by food. He said. You think
about everything you do in life, it always centers around food.
And that's what caused Krause Funeral Homes, which have four
locations in Wisconsin, to host what they called pizza and
pre plan parties. So you're showing the benefits of why
(30:44):
you would want to pre plan a funeral, which can
be quite expensive. It makes sense to to be prepared
for that. Uh. And while you're doing that, while you're
talking to the funeral directors and and the rest of
the staff at Krause, you're all splitting a pizza it
together because pizza does make everything better. I mean, that's
(31:04):
unequivocally true. Uh. And again, I'll always associate the idea
of a pizza party with what was it called book
it book? Yeah, book it. It was a scholastic program
I think all three of us experienced, and we were
kids where if you're read a start number of books,
at the end of the year, you got a pizza party.
That was the thing you look forward to all year party. Uh. Yeah,
(31:27):
And I I'm honestly I into the idea of a
pizza funeral, not let's just take it to the next level,
not just the pre plan I would be honored if
at my funeral, Uh, people served like a really nice
spread of various uh maybe Sicilian pies. I am for
normalizing eating snacks and many more situations you know, I
(31:50):
can't remember if I mentioned on this show, but one
of my dreams has always been to be at a
politicians press conference. You know. For some reason, we have
this thing in the U s where whatever a politician
is saying something important, there have to be like a
dozen people standing behind them, not really doing anything. I
want to be one of those guys and like, part
(32:11):
way through this speech, I want to take like a
bag of a bag of potato chips, maybe a pizza now,
or an orange and just like still nodding sombrely, like
snack on it while we're talking about whatever they're talking about.
I'm not really eating, that's just an audio sound effect, folks.
But but you're right, pizza makes everything better. I am
(32:31):
so impressed with the Lario Mario Fabrini, and I gotta
say this is this is such an interesting story, you know,
and it's one like as we approach lunchtime, it's one
that I'm sure the three of us are thinking about constantly.
Uh No, I don't want to think about your funeral,
nor yours, Casey, nor my own, but I do want
(32:54):
to hear what about the weirdest pizza parties? Are fellow
ridiculous historians have been into book. It's still around, by
the way, I shouted them out one time in the
previous episode. They sent me a T shirt. Did I
tell you? I told you that? Right? What? Yeah? I
want to book at T shirt. Hit him up on Twitter.
Tell him Ben, say maybe I well, I need to
mess with Twitter. That's how you get all the free
stuff is tagging people on Twitter. Nobody responds on Instagram.
(33:18):
You get no free stuff for Instagram. Alright, Ben, alright,
challenge accepted, my friends. And this has been a fun episode.
I mean, if you know, because nobody really died, right,
nobody died and there was a funeral, you get all
the benefits because you know, funerals are kind of fun.
It makes me think of Harold and Maude the Lovely
uh how Ashby movie, where Harold goes to funerals, you know,
(33:40):
for fun, just to hang out and watch them. Um.
So there's something a little bit fascinating about funerals. But
it's nice to be able to experience that without having
to be sad about somebody dying. It was just a
bunch of frozen pizzas. Yeah, percent agreed here, Noel, Thank
you as always to our super producer Casey Pegrum cooking
that hot podcast pie Weekend week Out that sounded better
(34:03):
in my head. Also thanks to Alex Williams, who composed
our amazing soundtrack. Huge thanks to research, your extraordinaire Gabe Louisier. Uh,
Christopher Haciots, who will soon be joining us. I think
I've been teasing that one for several weeks. Now we
need to make that happen. There has been talk. We
just gotta get the calendars to line up. Also, of course,
(34:23):
Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quister. Uh, may we may,
May you never dark in our zoom again, sir, But
I'm afraid that that's just not possible. Yeah, we'll wrap
this up just in case he's gonna zoom bomb us again. Uh,
you're you may have a pizza story of your own.
We definitely want to hear it in your you know,
shaking your fist at the guy saying how can I
(34:45):
talk to these guys? Well, good news, folks. You can
find us all over the internet, not just as a show,
but as individuals. That's right. You can find me on
Instagram where I am at how now Noel Brown, and
you can find me on Twitter, where I at Ben
Bullen h s W. You can also see some cooking
misadventures on my Instagram at Ben Boland. You know, what
(35:08):
a ride? What a croatia tomato sauce on the side.
I didn't know that's something you could do with pizza
and have it still be considered pizza. You know again,
I I sort of called shenanigans on that. It is just,
in my humble opinion, cheesy bread. We've got to go
find out for ourselves true. We'll see you next time Fox.
(35:36):
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
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your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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