The weekend is finally here, and I’m more excited about it than usual because this Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday! Who cares if the half-time performer is Bruno Mars? Who cares if it’s going to be freezing at the MetLife Stadium? Who actually cares if the Seahawks or the Broncos win? Not me, because I don’t even like football. But I love Super Bowl Sunday, because I love food — namely, pizza.
Pizza hits one of its highest sale days on Super Bowl Sunday, according to pizza.com. Last year Dominos delivered enough pizzas to stretch across more than 5,000 football fields. This year alone the company is expecting to deliver more than 11 million pizzas Sunday.
Pizza has been around since about 600 B.C. — a long time. There’s some debate about its exact place of origin, but Lombardi’s, the first documented pizzeria in the United States, opened in New York City in 1905, and it’s still open. Because people love pizza.
“But what’s so great about pizza?” you may ask. And if that’s the case, I don’t think we can be friends. But I’ll tell you what’s great about pizza: It’s versatile, it’s practical and it’s delicious.
Think about the number of Super Bowl parties you’ve been to, the number of people who have been there with you and the different preferences each person has. Now think about hard it must be for any host to accommodate so many palates.
With pizza, the possibilities are endless. There’s deep dish, thin crust, stuffed crust, hand tossed, brick oven, coal fired — you get the picture. And those are just styles. Toppings offer an entirely different realm of possibilities. From meat lover to vegetarian, I bet you can think of at least ten different topping combinations. Even if you stick to plain ol’ cheese, Papa John alone offers about five different kinds to choose from.
I can’t think of any other foods that have as many customization options as pizza, and that’s just one perk.
With get-togethers as big as the ones happening on Superbowl Sunday, there’s one thing that’s always on everyone’s mind — pizza. Just kidding. I’m talking about money, which brings me to pizza. It’s so affordable. One large pizza can feed at least eight people if everyone eats just one slice.
Who am I kidding? It’s kind of unrealistic to assume rowdy football viewers will satisfy their hunger with just a slice each, think about stress eating, but that’s no reason to assume getting pizza for the game will break the bank. There’s always a pizza sale somewhere. From pizza chains to frozen pizzas, sales are big for Super Bowl Sunday.
DiGiorno is already offering buy-two-get-one-free coupons online for the big day. Even if you’re not planning on watching the game, what college student won’t benefit from stocking up on frozen pizzas?
Let’s say you are watching the Super Bowl, though, because that’s the basis of my entire column this week. Let’s say you’re really invested in the game, one of your roommates is from Seattle and the other one is from Denver. You’re scared of what would happen if you left the room, so you can’t be bothered to get yourself anything to eat while it’s on, not even during commercials. Good thing Bruno Mars is performing, because none of you like that guy or his music, which means half time is the perfect time to get pizza, something you all agree on.
In the words of a wise tweet by @DiGiornoPizza “<3 -- is this symbol a sideways heart or a sideways piece of pizza? same thing.”
[Marjorie Nunez is a UF journalism senior. Her columns appear on Fridays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 1/31/2014 under the headline "Celebrate the real star of the Super Bowl: pizza"]
