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The 1973 Michigan Pizza Funeral · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:31
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Uh. The title of today's show,
0:36
Speaker 1: I think really captivated all three of us from the jump.
0:41
Speaker 1: So we'll just what if we just say the headline
0:44
Speaker 1: and then we'll figure out what the heck we're talking about? Uh?
0:47
Speaker 1: The old Today's episode is called the Great Michigan Pizza Funeral. Now, Ben,
0:52
Speaker 1: I've certainly heard of a pizza party, but not a
0:54
Speaker 1: pizza funeral. Yeah. Yeah, same man, same super producer, Casey
1:00
Speaker 1: pegram Off, Mike, and we are going to put the
1:04
Speaker 1: spotlight on you for this one. Casey uh said to
1:07
Speaker 1: what did you say, Casey? Too great taste a good
1:09
Speaker 1: great together pieces and funerals. Yeah, Casey's got that Monday
1:14
Speaker 1: morning energy. Yeah in case I mean, it's something that
1:17
Speaker 1: I think we all thought when we saw this headline. Uh,
1:21
Speaker 1: is this a funeral that lightened the mood by serving
1:25
Speaker 1: the mourner's pizza? You know, there's so many questions when
1:28
Speaker 1: you see this topic, But it turns out that's not
1:31
Speaker 1: the case at all, And it really is. As I
1:33
Speaker 1: said to you of Mike, Uh, pretty much exactly what
1:36
Speaker 1: it sounds like. Yep, that's correct. Uh. This this story
1:40
Speaker 1: has has lots to unpack. So let's start with food contamination.
1:46
Speaker 1: At some point, Uh, statistically speaking, most everybody has run
1:51
Speaker 1: into some food that's gone off, or that's turned or
1:54
Speaker 1: maybe even has become contaminated with something dangerous like salmonella
2:00
Speaker 1: kale or listeria in ice cream. This is not a
2:03
Speaker 1: laughing matter, but it does get us to a very
2:07
Speaker 1: weird situation in the nineteen seventies. This concern over contaminated
2:13
Speaker 1: food is what led to the Great Michigan Pizza Funeral.
2:18
Speaker 1: So let's let's get into it. I like the way
2:21
Speaker 1: Atlas Obscura describes this knoll when they say, quote, the
2:25
Speaker 1: story of what became known as the Greek Michigan Pizza
2:28
Speaker 1: Funeral is one of lost terrible maladies and spilled marinera. Yeah,
2:34
Speaker 1: for sure, and and more than a little bit of
2:36
Speaker 1: savvy pr spin from an Italian immigrant or shall I say,
2:42
Speaker 1: a Fiumian immigrant, but we'll get into what that means
2:44
Speaker 1: in a second. By the name of Ilario Mario Fabrini
2:50
Speaker 1: um Ilaria, we'll call him Mario, has his friends called
2:53
Speaker 1: him we're all friends here. Uh fled fascist Italy for
2:57
Speaker 1: the United States to start a new life for himself
3:00
Speaker 1: and um he originally lived in what used to be
3:06
Speaker 1: its own little state called you May And I'm not
3:10
Speaker 1: gonna lie. I'm gonna cop to it right away. When
3:12
Speaker 1: I was first reading this stuff, I read that as Flume,
3:15
Speaker 1: and I wanted so badly for him to be a
3:18
Speaker 1: Flumian who hailed from the failed state of Flume, but
3:22
Speaker 1: it was not to be. It is Fiume was also
3:24
Speaker 1: a beautiful name. But I really want there to be
3:27
Speaker 1: a magical place called Flume. But it is now a
3:30
Speaker 1: part of what is currently Croatia. Uh And and initially
3:33
Speaker 1: became autonomous in seventeen nineteen, but it was, you know,
3:37
Speaker 1: kind of under the whims and wiles of different emperors
3:40
Speaker 1: and kings and kind of got kicked around and lost
3:43
Speaker 1: and regained freedom multiple times over the course of the
3:46
Speaker 1: eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yeah. Yeah, And for anybody who's
3:51
Speaker 1: saying I also want Flume to be a word, shout
3:54
Speaker 1: out to the Australian musician, DJ and record producer Harley
3:59
Speaker 1: Edwards Street, also known as Flu. I don't know how
4:03
Speaker 1: you handle the A or the E and the pronunciation
4:05
Speaker 1: at the end there. I'm not sure either, but I
4:07
Speaker 1: think it's also spelled the same as that cool water
4:10
Speaker 1: ride at six Flags called the log Flume. Uh yeah, yeah,
4:15
Speaker 1: throwback there. So the story of few May is a
4:19
Speaker 1: story of ups and downs. It's a roller coaster for
4:23
Speaker 1: six Flags. For reference, Fight eighteen sixty eight. This was
4:27
Speaker 1: part of the Kingdom of Hungary asterisk caveat technically because
4:33
Speaker 1: on the ground, and this happens in so many places
4:36
Speaker 1: around the world, on the ground, this is a place
4:40
Speaker 1: where the population is composed of Germans, Hungarians, and Italians,
4:45
Speaker 1: and they all speak this local dialect that's sort of
4:49
Speaker 1: a mash up of pot pourri of all the members
4:54
Speaker 1: native languages. After World War One, in nine few May
4:59
Speaker 1: is declared an official free state, primarily because the kingmakers
5:04
Speaker 1: and the militaries and the politicians thought it would be
5:07
Speaker 1: a good idea to have a buffer between Italy and
5:10
Speaker 1: what was fast becoming the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. So what
5:15
Speaker 1: if you may do? When it became sovereign, it doubled
5:18
Speaker 1: down on becoming a melting pot, and according to Tom Topel,
5:24
Speaker 1: nationality was defined mostly by the language given person spoke.
5:29
Speaker 1: This is where Mario comes in. As as we said earlier,
5:33
Speaker 1: he came to Michigan from few May after World War Two.
5:37
Speaker 1: He had grown up under the Fascist regime. When he
5:40
Speaker 1: was six years old, he was indoctrinated, forced to wear
5:44
Speaker 1: you know, the infamous black shirt. Uh, And he traveled
5:48
Speaker 1: This is a tragic story. He traveled to Michigan with
5:50
Speaker 1: his grandfather because his father was killed in World War two. Yes, so,
5:56
Speaker 1: as you said, he joined the U. S. Army. He
5:58
Speaker 1: was stationed in San Diego, oh uh, and he really
6:01
Speaker 1: liked it there. He he ultimately thought that he would
6:04
Speaker 1: maybe one day retire there he served in the Korean War,
6:09
Speaker 1: and then after the Korean War, he and his wife
6:11
Speaker 1: Olga moved to Detroit, where they started a pizza business
6:16
Speaker 1: called Fabrini Pizza. And they adapted a pizza recipe from there,
6:22
Speaker 1: you know, home country, and tried to kind of americanize
6:26
Speaker 1: it a little bit. They described it as the pizza
6:28
Speaker 1: from my country no one here would eat. Kind of
6:31
Speaker 1: reminds me of like americanized Chinese food a little bit. Um.
6:35
Speaker 1: But the thing that he did that was very innovative
6:37
Speaker 1: and we totally take for granted now is he would
6:41
Speaker 1: deliver the pies to customers and not a whole lot
6:45
Speaker 1: of other businesses were doing that. And in fact, he
6:47
Speaker 1: would go on to say that people actually got annoyed
6:49
Speaker 1: at him other pizzeria proprietors because he kind of had
6:53
Speaker 1: cornered the market on delivery, and once one person starts
6:56
Speaker 1: doing and then everyone's kind of expecting it because it
6:58
Speaker 1: really is obviously super convenient and it really is no
7:01
Speaker 1: better food for delivery than the pizza. Uh. And he
7:05
Speaker 1: was a huge success right out of the gate, right, Yeah,
7:07
Speaker 1: that's right, he was. He was pretty successful, and he
7:10
Speaker 1: was smart to adapt his recipe for American palettes. I
7:14
Speaker 1: love that he I love that he said no one
7:16
Speaker 1: would like the actual pizza they make in his hometown.
7:20
Speaker 1: I also love that his name and his nickname rhyme.
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Speaker 1: So I'm gonna call him Alario Mario because I like
7:26
Speaker 1: the cad Alario Mario too. He has been I been
7:30
Speaker 1: really quickly. I think you and I would be uh
7:33
Speaker 1: fascinated to know what the real recipe for the pizza
7:37
Speaker 1: was that he thought no one in America could stomach.
7:39
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you and I would would be into it. Yeah,
7:42
Speaker 1: I was looking it up actually earlier this week. I
7:45
Speaker 1: was trying to figure to drill down into the specifics
7:49
Speaker 1: of Croatian pizza in this part of the world. But
7:52
Speaker 1: the the article where he says that stuff about the
7:56
Speaker 1: original pizza and adapting it comes from Detroit Free Press,
8:01
Speaker 1: and in that article on March six ninety three, he
8:05
Speaker 1: doesn't disclose the original recipe. Just for everybody wondering, let
8:10
Speaker 1: us know if you are from Fume and you know
8:13
Speaker 1: the secret of Fume pizza. But back to Alrio Mario,
8:17
Speaker 1: you're right now. He is quite successful. He is still
8:21
Speaker 1: in the Army reserves, and so when the Berlin Wall
8:25
Speaker 1: is going up, this rumor is going around town and
8:29
Speaker 1: going around the military circles of the US that the
8:32
Speaker 1: army reserves will be called into service and shipped off
8:35
Speaker 1: to Germany. So he preemptively sells Fabrini pizza and he
8:41
Speaker 1: doesn't end up going back to Europe. He does end
8:44
Speaker 1: up eventually moving to a town called Alpena, and that's
8:47
Speaker 1: where he restarts his pizza business. Yep, and I gotta
8:51
Speaker 1: wonder if what he was. I'm sorry, I'm hung up
8:54
Speaker 1: on this a little bit. Uh it is it is
8:55
Speaker 1: not out there, so we can only really conjecture, but um,
8:58
Speaker 1: remember on stuff that it And you know, we had
9:01
Speaker 1: a pretty deep discussion with our super producer Alexis about
9:05
Speaker 1: what Detroit pizza is and her, being a native Detroitter,
9:09
Speaker 1: was not super aware that it had its own kind
9:12
Speaker 1: of reputation, right. And it is kind of a rectangular,
9:16
Speaker 1: deep dish pizza. That is, it's got this beautiful cheese
9:20
Speaker 1: kind of what do you call it in the crown
9:22
Speaker 1: or whatever around the side, the little raised up little
9:24
Speaker 1: cheese crispies. Uh. And it's actually topped with Wisconsin cheddar cheese.
9:30
Speaker 1: It's kind of interesting, um, but not clear as to
9:33
Speaker 1: whether Fabrini was one of the pioneers of that. All
9:36
Speaker 1: we know about Detroit style pizza is that it was
9:38
Speaker 1: created by another Italian man by the name of Gus Guerrera.
9:43
Speaker 1: I have a guess about what Lario Mario may have
9:47
Speaker 1: been talking about when he was saying that people in
9:50
Speaker 1: the US wouldn't enjoy his homestyle pizza crue. This might
9:54
Speaker 1: not be correct. This is my speculation, folks, but ridiculous histories.
9:59
Speaker 1: Apparently Croatian pizza has one huge distinction the tomato sauce
10:05
Speaker 1: goes on the side. It doesn't go on the actual pizza.
10:09
Speaker 1: You get the pizza bathed in with the ingredients, and
10:11
Speaker 1: then you get like, you know, a little ramikin of
10:14
Speaker 1: tomato sauce for yeah, for dipping, I would imagine. And
10:17
Speaker 1: who doesn't love a good dip, a good dipping sauce.
10:20
Speaker 1: I love a good dip, but give it, just give
10:21
Speaker 1: me some cheesy But it's called cheesy bread. That's not pizza, right,
10:26
Speaker 1: So maybe maybe that was what he was confronting. After
10:31
Speaker 1: he starts his second business, as he recalls, he says,
10:35
Speaker 1: when it wasn't too busy, I started making pizza and
10:38
Speaker 1: I bought a freezer and started freezing them, and people
10:40
Speaker 1: started buying them from me. So in addition to being
10:43
Speaker 1: a pizza restaurant, now he's kind of a pizza grocer,
10:48
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. He's selling frozen pizza to go.
10:51
Speaker 1: And we have some statements from his family members, including
10:56
Speaker 1: his son, who told us how this whole process worked.
11:00
Speaker 1: It and I love that his son's name is Hillary.
11:02
Speaker 1: I've never heard Hillary as a male name before, but
11:04
Speaker 1: I quite like it. Uh yeah, and he would He
11:07
Speaker 1: commented in this article that his father would run around
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Speaker 1: all over town supplying bars in the areas with these
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Speaker 1: frozen pizzas along with a little pizza cooker brilliant, so
11:18
Speaker 1: he could listen to the bar proprietors, could you know,
11:20
Speaker 1: supply their drunken customers with that good late night you know,
11:25
Speaker 1: drunk e snacky food right there in the bar. Uh
11:28
Speaker 1: And it was, you know, one stop shop. So Alario
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Speaker 1: Mario Mario to his friends, that's what they started calling
11:34
Speaker 1: him there and Alpina soon was churning these pizzas out,
11:39
Speaker 1: just you know, dozens of them as a small operation,
11:41
Speaker 1: but he was getting some notoriety, so much so that
11:45
Speaker 1: behind corporation approached him to with an offer that he
11:49
Speaker 1: couldn't refuse. One he couldn't refuse because it was a
11:51
Speaker 1: really good offer and they didn't threaten his family or
11:54
Speaker 1: Hillary or someone. This is so neat. They said, hey,
12:03
Speaker 1: why don't we go big with this, Why don't we
12:06
Speaker 1: scale it up. Let's manufacture frozen pizza for distribution across
12:11
Speaker 1: the entire state of Michigan and Ohio. According to Lario Mario,
12:16
Speaker 1: this factory could produce as many as nine thousand pizzas
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Speaker 1: a day. So the factory starts production in nineteen sixty six.
12:26
Speaker 1: Lario Mario is making is slinging these pies left and right.
12:30
Speaker 1: He's distributing pizza for years. He's got an assembly line.
12:35
Speaker 1: I never thought of it, but I guess that is
12:36
Speaker 1: a job people can work in pizza factories. So there
12:40
Speaker 1: were people. His entire job was to take toppings and
12:43
Speaker 1: apply them to pizzas on this assembly line. And then
12:47
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two, a year before the pizza funeral,
12:52
Speaker 1: the U s d A approaches Alario Mario and they say, hey,
12:57
Speaker 1: we need to talk about those canned mushrooms you're using
13:00
Speaker 1: on Fabrini pizza. First of all, canned mushrooms do um,
13:05
Speaker 1: But I get it, you know, he's got to keep
13:07
Speaker 1: costs down. But it's not a fan of canned mushrooms
13:10
Speaker 1: in any form. But yeah, they need to have a
13:13
Speaker 1: word with him about the canned mushrooms because in January
13:17
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy three, employees at the United Canning Company
13:21
Speaker 1: in Ohio, we're doing some quality check on their inventory
13:25
Speaker 1: that was about to be shipped. When they noticed some
13:28
Speaker 1: of the cans of mushrooms that they were inspecting had
13:32
Speaker 1: swollen up that's not a good thing. Swollen cans indicates spoilage.
13:38
Speaker 1: So they had to run some tests and it turned
13:40
Speaker 1: out that some of these cans contained Clostridium botulinum, which
13:46
Speaker 1: is the bacterium that causes botulism, which is no joke. Yeah,
13:51
Speaker 1: that's correct. We're talking about effects on the body ranging
13:56
Speaker 1: from muscle weakness, to low blood pressure to unfortunate sinnately,
14:01
Speaker 1: on some occasions death, so botch is um can be fatal.
14:05
Speaker 1: So the government realized they had to act quickly. They
14:07
Speaker 1: went to every grocery store that might be carrying this
14:10
Speaker 1: product and they removed them from the shelves post haste.
14:13
Speaker 1: But they knew that wasn't enough. They had to go
14:17
Speaker 1: further up the supply chain and find businesses that were
14:20
Speaker 1: using these canned mushrooms and their products that they later
14:24
Speaker 1: sold to the public. And of course, in chasing that
14:28
Speaker 1: supply chain, they run into Alario Mario's factory, and they
14:34
Speaker 1: run into Papa Fabrini's frozen Pizzas he gets the call
14:39
Speaker 1: from Uncle Sam and as he, as he later recollects,
14:43
Speaker 1: he knew exactly what was going to happen. He saw
14:46
Speaker 1: the he saw the pizza sauce slung on the wall
14:50
Speaker 1: instead of righting on the wall. Hust terrible, No, it's
14:52
Speaker 1: absolutely appropriate. He literally saw his entire business life, everything
14:57
Speaker 1: that he had built, flashed before his eyes. Um, and
15:02
Speaker 1: he just kind of felt this sense of impending doom.
15:05
Speaker 1: But luckily, again, this guy has proven himself to be
15:08
Speaker 1: super thrifty and super sharp in terms of like, you know,
15:12
Speaker 1: being kind of an ideas man. Uh. So he immediately
15:16
Speaker 1: acted and he stopped the shipments uh and submitted some
15:20
Speaker 1: of his pizzas for some contamination tests. Which is that
15:24
Speaker 1: this is actually really interesting something I was not aware
15:26
Speaker 1: it was a thing at all. Uh. These tests were
15:30
Speaker 1: pretty low fi, but they were FDA approved. Um. The
15:34
Speaker 1: slices of pizza in question were fed to a pair
15:38
Speaker 1: of f d A lab mice who who died instantly.
15:44
Speaker 1: So yeah, Fabrini decided to round up all of these
15:47
Speaker 1: pizzas that had the mushrooms as toppings from all the
15:51
Speaker 1: local restaurants and grocery stores. Um. Thankfully. I mean, this
15:54
Speaker 1: wasn't quite an operation of scale yet, Like this wouldn't
15:58
Speaker 1: have been a massive recall. It was relatively you know, manageable, um,
16:03
Speaker 1: but still you know, quite a few pizzas involved. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
16:08
Speaker 1: This is what we mean when we say quite a
16:09
Speaker 1: few pizzas involved. By the time the botulism panics sets in,
16:16
Speaker 1: Papa Fabrini's pizzas are being produced at a rate of
16:21
Speaker 1: tens of thousands every week, tens of thousands of pizzas.
16:25
Speaker 1: He's got twenty two full time employees. They've invested pretty
16:29
Speaker 1: heavily into the factory. Right, they have sunk cost here.
16:34
Speaker 1: This scandal could bring his pizza empire low. And this
16:41
Speaker 1: leads to the day March five, nine seventy three, where
16:45
Speaker 1: he handles this, uh, this dilemma with a Bernese level
16:51
Speaker 1: of pr acumen. He didn't technically have to destroy these pizzas.
16:57
Speaker 1: Let's be clear about that. He did not have to
16:59
Speaker 1: distr roy them. But after those FDA tests with the mice,
17:03
Speaker 1: he said, I'm gonna do it anyway. It's the right
17:06
Speaker 1: thing to do, but I'm gonna make it a thing.
17:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a little fun with it. So he
17:12
Speaker 1: gets some people together in a farm in Michigan to
17:17
Speaker 1: watch him hold a funeral for thirty thousand frozen family
17:23
Speaker 1: size mushroom pizzas. They're burying these pizzas. The mood is
17:28
Speaker 1: described as this we didn't write this, but it's lovely.
17:32
Speaker 1: The mood is described as somber and a little cheesy.
17:36
Speaker 1: The governor shows up. The governor speaks at the funeral
17:39
Speaker 1: William G. Milliken, Uh, and he talks about having courage
17:43
Speaker 1: in the face of tragedy. And then these bulldozers because again,
17:47
Speaker 1: thirty thousand pizzas, these bulldozers start, I guess ceremoniously respectfully
17:54
Speaker 1: shoveling these pizzas into an eighteen foot hole. This feels
17:57
Speaker 1: like something you would see him Fargo, you know what
17:59
Speaker 1: I mean, the show of the program. No, it really
18:01
Speaker 1: really does. It's charming and kind of macabre, you know,
18:05
Speaker 1: at the same time. And again, thirty thousand pizzas is
18:08
Speaker 1: nothing to sneeze at. But you know, if this had
18:10
Speaker 1: been a much, much, much larger like global operation, this
18:14
Speaker 1: could have been you know, millions of pizzas. And uh,
18:18
Speaker 1: it really did make a splash, even nationally, drawing drawing
18:22
Speaker 1: television and radio coverage. Uh. The owner of the farm
18:26
Speaker 1: where they buried these pizzas in that eighteen foot hole
18:31
Speaker 1: had this to say, I guess by next fall there
18:34
Speaker 1: won't be anything but the cell of phane. Uh, that's cool,
18:39
Speaker 1: but it's also you know, that's kind of burying trash
18:42
Speaker 1: and on his farm. Uh, maybe he didn't think of
18:45
Speaker 1: it that way, but yeah, they they they used a
18:48
Speaker 1: pickup trucks. I'm assuming had to have been like garbage
18:52
Speaker 1: type trucks if they're sliding pizzas out of the trucks
18:55
Speaker 1: into the grave. Had to have like a ceremonial tilting
18:58
Speaker 1: of the truck beds or whatever. But maybe they just
19:00
Speaker 1: pushed him out manually or or used some of those
19:03
Speaker 1: those what do they call those peels, those pizza things
19:05
Speaker 1: you stick, Yeah, that's what they're called. Yeah, they're called
19:08
Speaker 1: I only know this, Ben because I may have told
19:10
Speaker 1: you I was once a uh that was once not
19:13
Speaker 1: a bad pizza maker. I used to work of the
19:16
Speaker 1: Mellow mushroom for for for a few years when I
19:19
Speaker 1: was in college. And I could toss a I could
19:20
Speaker 1: toss a pie in the air, do the old flip,
19:22
Speaker 1: toss a mean pie. I could toss a mean pie,
19:25
Speaker 1: and so Uh, the pizzas were committed to the earth,
19:30
Speaker 1: the Michigan Earth and Alario Mario Fabrini does two things
19:38
Speaker 1: that I think are really classy. First, he does turn
19:40
Speaker 1: it kind of into a pizza party. He's giving out
19:44
Speaker 1: free fresh, non baculi is um contaminated pizza slices to
19:48
Speaker 1: anybody who attends. And then at the very end, when
19:52
Speaker 1: these thirty thousand mushroom pies are buried, Lario Mario Fabrini
19:58
Speaker 1: gently lays a two colored flower garland on the grave,
20:03
Speaker 1: red flowers for the sauce, white flowers for cheese. And
20:08
Speaker 1: there was a whole posse of important people at this funeral,
20:13
Speaker 1: which is so weird because you imagine they would be busy,
20:16
Speaker 1: right the Governor of Michigan probably has other stuff to do.
20:19
Speaker 1: Chamber of Commerce members are their presidents of banking are there,
20:24
Speaker 1: and uh, Fabrini said it sort of makes you goose
20:29
Speaker 1: pimples about America, which means, I guess it means it
20:32
Speaker 1: gave him chills. And then the governor said, Lario Mario
20:36
Speaker 1: Fabrini is an example for all of us. Uh. And
20:40
Speaker 1: then the the least classy people in this story are
20:46
Speaker 1: the people who tried to fake batuli is um poisoning
20:50
Speaker 1: for money. At least, according to uh U p I,
20:54
Speaker 1: at least seventeen people tried to say Fabrini's Eats, Papa
21:00
Speaker 1: Fabrini's Pizza had given them baculi is um. But uh, nobody,
21:06
Speaker 1: nobody believed them, mainly because they were lying, and he
21:09
Speaker 1: had a lot of support from the community, you know,
21:11
Speaker 1: I mean, he seemed like a stand up guy. A
21:14
Speaker 1: and B. Ben. This wreath situation, I mean, it gives
21:18
Speaker 1: me kind of the fields. This is a man who
21:21
Speaker 1: truly loved pizza. Yes, it's beautiful. And there's another reason
21:27
Speaker 1: that these uh, these fift these people were not to
21:29
Speaker 1: be believed, isn't there Ben, Yeah, they were making it up,
21:33
Speaker 1: that's the thing. Uh. And how do we know they
21:37
Speaker 1: were making it up? Here's the issue. It turns out
21:40
Speaker 1: for Bernie, pizzas were not in fact contaminated with baculi
21:44
Speaker 1: is um at all, like at all? Yeah, false alarm. Oops.
21:49
Speaker 1: Despite these claims from these garbage people that they had,
21:53
Speaker 1: they become ill trying to builk this man out of
21:56
Speaker 1: some settlement money I imagine, perhaps a lifetimes a lie
22:00
Speaker 1: of free frozen pizzas. Um. Yeah, he he did all
22:04
Speaker 1: of this stuff. Uh, and and and copped to this
22:07
Speaker 1: thing that wasn't even real. Uh. In the two weeks
22:10
Speaker 1: between that recall and the funeral itself, the pizzas were vindicated.
22:16
Speaker 1: Turns out the mushrooms in the supply chain that that
22:20
Speaker 1: Fabrini had been part of didn't have botulism at all.
22:24
Speaker 1: And those dead mice, remember those guys, they apparently had
22:28
Speaker 1: died for some other reason, not botulism at all. Again,
22:32
Speaker 1: you think that that that that goes to show what
22:34
Speaker 1: an imprecise test that was. Uh some other rodent illness
22:38
Speaker 1: took them. Seems very coincidental that it took both of them. Um,
22:43
Speaker 1: they and Fabrini, in very good spirits told the Associated Press,
22:47
Speaker 1: I think it was indigestion. Maybe they didn't like my pizza.
22:51
Speaker 1: I love this guy. Oh my god, what a sweetie. Yeah,
22:56
Speaker 1: so he's still having a tough time. Of course, there's
23:00
Speaker 1: always going to be the fear of bankruptcy when something
23:03
Speaker 1: goes this far sideways, and we have to understand that
23:09
Speaker 1: the we're We're at a wonderful time to be pizza customers.
23:15
Speaker 1: It's much better now for pizza fans in the US
23:18
Speaker 1: than it was in the nineteen seventies. Back in the
23:21
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, there was a pretty small market for this
23:25
Speaker 1: kind of pizza. Lario Mario Fabrini. The name is so
23:29
Speaker 1: fun to say. Alario Mario Fabrini says this. He said,
23:33
Speaker 1: in those days, you have to understand, the space in
23:35
Speaker 1: the grocery store was not more than five or six
23:37
Speaker 1: feet for frozen pizza. Today you have hundreds of miles
23:41
Speaker 1: of pizza in the grocery store. In the old days,
23:43
Speaker 1: to get space you have to fight for it. And
23:46
Speaker 1: I'm just I just picked her, putting up his hands
23:49
Speaker 1: like like a prize fighter when he when he talks
23:51
Speaker 1: about this. So his sales took a bit of a die,
24:00
Speaker 1: and in a pretty small market compared to what we
24:03
Speaker 1: have in he had about a thirty thousand dollar cost
24:09
Speaker 1: just in terms of materials for the pizza he had
24:12
Speaker 1: to bury. And then he lost more money trying to
24:14
Speaker 1: bring new flavors to the grocery aisle and to the
24:18
Speaker 1: stores to replace mushroom pizza, which obviously people weren't super
24:22
Speaker 1: into um and it was it was tough because you know,
24:26
Speaker 1: after the pizza was pulled from the store shelves, there
24:30
Speaker 1: were a bunch of other pizza makers waiting in the
24:32
Speaker 1: wings to move into that little five or six foot
24:36
Speaker 1: spot in the grocery store. So he was having a
24:41
Speaker 1: tough time. He had to lay people off too. He's
24:43
Speaker 1: got to lay people off, and you know, it just
24:45
Speaker 1: goes to show. I don't remember when Chipotle had that
24:49
Speaker 1: botulism scared, that's what it was. But it was in
24:53
Speaker 1: the it was in the lettuce. And again it wasn't
24:55
Speaker 1: because like they were you know, unclean, were like you know,
24:59
Speaker 1: had its kind of health code violations. It was just
25:02
Speaker 1: a tainted batch, you know. And and and it's it's
25:06
Speaker 1: sometimes those things get through and they weathered it pretty well.
25:09
Speaker 1: That's also a much much larger operation. Um, this was
25:14
Speaker 1: not that the Papa Fabrini's frozen pizza. Chipotle was not.
25:19
Speaker 1: And uh, Farrini said that when the pizza was pulled
25:24
Speaker 1: from the store shelves in the first place, those competitors
25:28
Speaker 1: swarmed in like like locusts. And then was eight his lunch,
25:32
Speaker 1: literally his pizza lunch, and Farrini had to call in
25:36
Speaker 1: his children to work in the factory. Um because he
25:40
Speaker 1: had to lay off those people. But that just it
25:43
Speaker 1: wasn't enough to keep the operation going and things just
25:45
Speaker 1: kind of went downhill from there. Um. One woman, he said,
25:49
Speaker 1: sent him five dollars to help out, because again, he
25:52
Speaker 1: was more than just like a figurehead, you know, some
25:55
Speaker 1: sort of chef boy r D figure Like, he was
25:58
Speaker 1: a human being. People knew him in the community, and
26:02
Speaker 1: people wanted to help him out. They didn't want to
26:03
Speaker 1: see his business fail, but it basically did. Yeah. Oh
26:08
Speaker 1: and uh, quick clarification there, Chippotle, Uh if it just
26:13
Speaker 1: in case the Chipotle legal team is tuned in to
26:16
Speaker 1: today's episode on The Pizza Funeral, it was an e
26:19
Speaker 1: cole I outbreak. I think that's the one that's but
26:24
Speaker 1: I believe it was from tainted lettuce though, I think
26:26
Speaker 1: that's correct. Yeah. Yeah, and this is no ding on
26:29
Speaker 1: Chippotle because you find yourself as a food manufacturer having
26:33
Speaker 1: to source so many things, just like a Lario Mario Fabrini,
26:37
Speaker 1: which the war I say it. It might be my
26:39
Speaker 1: favorite name we've ever talked about on the show. He
26:42
Speaker 1: gets here's the thing. There's one other twist. A few
26:46
Speaker 1: days before the Pizza Funeral, Fabrini sues the creator of
26:52
Speaker 1: those canned mushrooms for a million dollars and he wins
26:58
Speaker 1: this lawsuit, but the money wasn't enough to keep the
27:01
Speaker 1: factory going because according to Fabrini. He says, we didn't
27:04
Speaker 1: get a million dollars. We got two d fifty grand.
27:08
Speaker 1: The lawyer took a third of that, so we had
27:10
Speaker 1: a hundred grand worth of bills just to keep the
27:13
Speaker 1: company going for five or six years. Nineteen eighties, early
27:17
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, they sell off Papa Fabrini's Pizza, and he
27:21
Speaker 1: says he walks away from this crazy adventure with about
27:25
Speaker 1: five grand and the new company and the new pizza
27:28
Speaker 1: recipe failed. After the cell there's a cool epilogue though.
27:33
Speaker 1: There's a cool note here. After he sold Papa Fabrini's Alario.
27:38
Speaker 1: Mario Fabrini finally made it to was happily ever after. Remember,
27:44
Speaker 1: way back when he was in the military, he dreamed
27:46
Speaker 1: of retiring to San Diego. He actually did it. How
27:50
Speaker 1: cool is that? That's very cool. San Diego is beautiful
27:53
Speaker 1: and he deserved it. He really put the work in,
27:56
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad that he was at least able
27:58
Speaker 1: to spend his twilight years and comfort and a place
28:02
Speaker 1: that he had always dreamed of. Yeah. Yeah, and he
28:04
Speaker 1: still makes pizza at home as of seventeen uh. He
28:08
Speaker 1: says his favorite toppings are anchovies, pepperoni, green peppers, and
28:13
Speaker 1: wait for it, mushrooms. Uh. He also he also talks
28:17
Speaker 1: a little bit of trash about pizza and Italy, which
28:20
Speaker 1: I thought was so interesting and unexpected because you would
28:23
Speaker 1: expect the opposite, right, Yeah, that's I'm gonna, I'm gonna okay,
28:27
Speaker 1: you know, different strokes. But uh, I would argue that
28:30
Speaker 1: nothing beats a true, good old Sicilian slice. Yeah, yeah,
28:36
Speaker 1: it's absolutely true. Uh. Fabrini says, in his opinion, most
28:41
Speaker 1: America the pizza most American seed, is better than what
28:44
Speaker 1: he gets in Italy because, uh, pizza originated per him
28:49
Speaker 1: in Italy from leftover dough when parents were making bread,
28:53
Speaker 1: and then it was flattened out and was used as
28:56
Speaker 1: a quick snack for children. And perhaps you give him
29:00
Speaker 1: the last word here. He says, if you go to
29:03
Speaker 1: Germany and you order from a menu, they don't put
29:05
Speaker 1: Italian pizza on there. They put American pizza. And he says,
29:09
Speaker 1: sure it was started by Italians, but we make a
29:11
Speaker 1: better pizza today. These are fighting words, Alario Mario, I'd
29:15
Speaker 1: be very careful and we don't want big pie after us,
29:19
Speaker 1: so we're just being very clear. This is what Alario
29:23
Speaker 1: Mario Fabrini said, not Ben Nolan Casey, don't don't send
29:26
Speaker 1: big pizza after us. It is true. We are just
29:30
Speaker 1: reporting the facts as as always. Uh. But to put
29:33
Speaker 1: a nice little coda on this, this wasn't the last
29:37
Speaker 1: pizza funeral that that ever would be. It turns out
29:40
Speaker 1: that that other type of potential thing that a pizza
29:44
Speaker 1: funeral could be actually is a thing. At a particular
29:47
Speaker 1: funeral home called Krause Funeral Homes in the neighborings state
29:52
Speaker 1: of Wisconsin um and Uh. Mark Krauss, who is the
29:58
Speaker 1: president of the funeral home, decided that he wanted to
30:01
Speaker 1: have a little extra comfort to the funeral UH proceedings
30:07
Speaker 1: in the form of free pizza. UH. He's told USA
30:12
Speaker 1: today people don't think about funerals until they really need them.
30:15
Speaker 1: So we asked ourselves, how do we get people to
30:17
Speaker 1: relax about the idea of thinking about this difficult topic
30:21
Speaker 1: ahead of time. The answer food. People are relaxed and
30:25
Speaker 1: open where they're surrounded by food. He said. You think
30:27
Speaker 1: about everything you do in life, it always centers around food.
30:31
Speaker 1: And that's what caused Krause Funeral Homes, which have four
30:35
Speaker 1: locations in Wisconsin, to host what they called pizza and
30:39
Speaker 1: pre plan parties. So you're showing the benefits of why
30:44
Speaker 1: you would want to pre plan a funeral, which can
30:47
Speaker 1: be quite expensive. It makes sense to to be prepared
30:49
Speaker 1: for that. Uh. And while you're doing that, while you're
30:53
Speaker 1: talking to the funeral directors and and the rest of
30:56
Speaker 1: the staff at Krause, you're all splitting a pizza it
31:00
Speaker 1: together because pizza does make everything better. I mean, that's
31:04
Speaker 1: unequivocally true. Uh. And again, I'll always associate the idea
31:08
Speaker 1: of a pizza party with what was it called book
31:11
Speaker 1: it book? Yeah, book it. It was a scholastic program
31:15
Speaker 1: I think all three of us experienced, and we were
31:17
Speaker 1: kids where if you're read a start number of books,
31:20
Speaker 1: at the end of the year, you got a pizza party.
31:22
Speaker 1: That was the thing you look forward to all year party. Uh. Yeah,
31:27
Speaker 1: And I I'm honestly I into the idea of a
31:29
Speaker 1: pizza funeral, not let's just take it to the next level,
31:32
Speaker 1: not just the pre plan I would be honored if
31:35
Speaker 1: at my funeral, Uh, people served like a really nice
31:39
Speaker 1: spread of various uh maybe Sicilian pies. I am for
31:45
Speaker 1: normalizing eating snacks and many more situations you know, I
31:50
Speaker 1: can't remember if I mentioned on this show, but one
31:52
Speaker 1: of my dreams has always been to be at a
31:56
Speaker 1: politicians press conference. You know. For some reason, we have
31:59
Speaker 1: this thing in the U s where whatever a politician
32:02
Speaker 1: is saying something important, there have to be like a
32:05
Speaker 1: dozen people standing behind them, not really doing anything. I
32:09
Speaker 1: want to be one of those guys and like, part
32:11
Speaker 1: way through this speech, I want to take like a
32:13
Speaker 1: bag of a bag of potato chips, maybe a pizza now,
32:17
Speaker 1: or an orange and just like still nodding sombrely, like
32:21
Speaker 1: snack on it while we're talking about whatever they're talking about.
32:24
Speaker 1: I'm not really eating, that's just an audio sound effect, folks.
32:28
Speaker 1: But but you're right, pizza makes everything better. I am
32:31
Speaker 1: so impressed with the Lario Mario Fabrini, and I gotta
32:36
Speaker 1: say this is this is such an interesting story, you know,
32:41
Speaker 1: and it's one like as we approach lunchtime, it's one
32:44
Speaker 1: that I'm sure the three of us are thinking about constantly.
32:49
Speaker 1: Uh No, I don't want to think about your funeral,
32:51
Speaker 1: nor yours, Casey, nor my own, but I do want
32:54
Speaker 1: to hear what about the weirdest pizza parties? Are fellow
32:57
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians have been into book. It's still around, by
33:01
Speaker 1: the way, I shouted them out one time in the
33:03
Speaker 1: previous episode. They sent me a T shirt. Did I
33:05
Speaker 1: tell you? I told you that? Right? What? Yeah? I
33:08
Speaker 1: want to book at T shirt. Hit him up on Twitter.
33:10
Speaker 1: Tell him Ben, say maybe I well, I need to
33:13
Speaker 1: mess with Twitter. That's how you get all the free
33:14
Speaker 1: stuff is tagging people on Twitter. Nobody responds on Instagram.
33:18
Speaker 1: You get no free stuff for Instagram. Alright, Ben, alright,
33:22
Speaker 1: challenge accepted, my friends. And this has been a fun episode.
33:25
Speaker 1: I mean, if you know, because nobody really died, right,
33:29
Speaker 1: nobody died and there was a funeral, you get all
33:31
Speaker 1: the benefits because you know, funerals are kind of fun.
33:33
Speaker 1: It makes me think of Harold and Maude the Lovely
33:36
Speaker 1: uh how Ashby movie, where Harold goes to funerals, you know,
33:40
Speaker 1: for fun, just to hang out and watch them. Um.
33:42
Speaker 1: So there's something a little bit fascinating about funerals. But
33:45
Speaker 1: it's nice to be able to experience that without having
33:48
Speaker 1: to be sad about somebody dying. It was just a
33:50
Speaker 1: bunch of frozen pizzas. Yeah, percent agreed here, Noel, Thank
33:54
Speaker 1: you as always to our super producer Casey Pegrum cooking
33:59
Speaker 1: that hot podcast pie Weekend week Out that sounded better
34:03
Speaker 1: in my head. Also thanks to Alex Williams, who composed
34:06
Speaker 1: our amazing soundtrack. Huge thanks to research, your extraordinaire Gabe Louisier. Uh,
34:13
Speaker 1: Christopher Haciots, who will soon be joining us. I think
34:16
Speaker 1: I've been teasing that one for several weeks. Now we
34:18
Speaker 1: need to make that happen. There has been talk. We
34:20
Speaker 1: just gotta get the calendars to line up. Also, of course,
34:23
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quister. Uh, may we may,
34:28
Speaker 1: May you never dark in our zoom again, sir, But
34:31
Speaker 1: I'm afraid that that's just not possible. Yeah, we'll wrap
34:34
Speaker 1: this up just in case he's gonna zoom bomb us again. Uh,
34:38
Speaker 1: you're you may have a pizza story of your own.
34:41
Speaker 1: We definitely want to hear it in your you know,
34:43
Speaker 1: shaking your fist at the guy saying how can I
34:45
Speaker 1: talk to these guys? Well, good news, folks. You can
34:49
Speaker 1: find us all over the internet, not just as a show,
34:52
Speaker 1: but as individuals. That's right. You can find me on
34:55
Speaker 1: Instagram where I am at how now Noel Brown, and
34:58
Speaker 1: you can find me on Twitter, where I at Ben
35:00
Speaker 1: Bullen h s W. You can also see some cooking
35:04
Speaker 1: misadventures on my Instagram at Ben Boland. You know, what
35:08
Speaker 1: a ride? What a croatia tomato sauce on the side.
35:13
Speaker 1: I didn't know that's something you could do with pizza
35:16
Speaker 1: and have it still be considered pizza. You know again,
35:18
Speaker 1: I I sort of called shenanigans on that. It is just,
35:21
Speaker 1: in my humble opinion, cheesy bread. We've got to go
35:24
Speaker 1: find out for ourselves true. We'll see you next time Fox.
35:36
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
35:38
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
35:41
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.