Panormous!

I promise to get off the food-related posts as soon as I recover from the body blow of the Pizza Hut Panormous we just put out of its misery. Now my afternoon is shot through with a de-motivating slug of indigestible processed wheat, cheese and mechanically-recollected meat byproduct (aka 'pork topping') and I will get nothing done.

Though Pizza Hut says that this is their 'BIGGEST Pan Pizza Ever!,' we've been down this road before. You youngsters may not recall the Pizza wars of 1993 when Dominos, Pizza Hut and the no-longer relevant Little Caesars squared off in an arms race of escalating pizza megatonnage at low, low prices, but they resulted in such epic creations as Pizza Hut's Bigfoot Pizza (which, at 2 square feet, may be bigger; and yes that is Haley Joel Osment.):



And let's not forget Little Caesar's Big! Big! Cheese Pizza and Bucket of Spaghetti:



Now with the economic downturn creating another ripe environment for preposterous food deals, we're seeing indeed that what is old is new again, and the pizza chains are back at it. Perhaps it was this unexpected chance to revisit my youth that made the Panormous so captivating and prompted today's online order.

As I was eating, I wondered what a terrible job it must be to work in product for Pizza Hut, continually confronted with the sisyphean task of making pizza new and exciting with recycled contrivances like dippable crust, cheese-stuffing and sheer size. At the end of the day its flour, cheese and tomato sauce. Where's the creativity in that?

But then, here I am, the ghost of Panormous past still wafts through the office, that flour, cheese and tomato sauce was consumed and enjoyed with abandon and I'm exactly as satisfied as I anticpated being.