My Adventure in Iraq

As a native New Yorker born in Brooklyn, pizza has always been a part of my life. What could be better than a hot slice of thin-crust pizza with melted cheese that you folded and ate? The best part of the days that I lived in the New York City and Yonkers area was getting a slice of pizza for a dollar. As a kid, it was a thrill to have a roll of quarters and ride your bike to the local pizzeria and spend $2.50 for two slices and a soda, and the rest of the quarters used for video games.

Traditional pizza for New York City was so ingrained in me that when I moved up to Albany, New York, at the age of eight-year-old, I was horrified the first time I went to a Pizza Hut. The first time I went to Pizza Hut, they brought out a rectangular pan pizza, and I asked the waiter what the hell was in front of me. The waitress explained that it was a pizza and that the pepperoni was buried under the cheese. Since I was a self-assured New Yorker who knew pizza, I informed her that she was wrong. Since that day, I have tried and come to love all sorts of pizza from around the country. As a New Yorker, I even tried and liked Chicago-style Deep Dish pizza.

The best pizza I ever had was in Vincenza, Italy, not too far from Venice. I traveled from Germany to visit a friend stationed in Vincenza and found the best pizza place in the downtown area. The pizza went exceptionally well with the small pitcher of wine I ordered.

My love for pizza meant that I would make a mistake when I deployed to Northern Iraq city of Tal’Afar. My main job in Iraq was engaging local leaders to help with reconstruction efforts. To lighten the mood, I would tell the Iraqis about myself, and they were intrigued when I told them I was a New Yorker. My responsibilities included having meals with the local Iraqis, which I grew accustomed to but never became a huge fan of Iraqi food since it was generally bland.

I would tell the Iraqis about my love of pizza, and surprisingly, it was not something they were familiar with as a food item. I told them to imagine the flat-baked bread they made for their meals and top it with a tomato sauce and cheese. I said to them that pizza was baked in an oven and came out hot with melted cheese. I had this conversation with the Iraqis I worked with routinely during the ten months I was in the city before transferring south to the city of Ar Ramadi.

Near the end of my time in Tal’Afar, the Iraqis attempted to get me to try unpasteurized goat milk and yogurt. I had been sick before from Iraqi food, and I was not going to test my luck by trying unpasteurized dairy products. My reluctance to try the milk or yogurt did not deter my Iraqi friends. Before I left Tal’Afar, they wanted to give me a surprise.

When I arrived at the business center located in the castle located in the city center, my Iraqi friends were waiting with massive smiles. They had convinced a local baker to attempt to make a pizza for me. The Iraqi baker spread some tomato paste and goat cheese on top of the traditional flatbread made in the city. I was surprised, shocked, and a bit horrified about what I was about to put in my mouth as they served me their pizza. As I expected, it was awful, but I pretended like it was good so that my Iraqi friends were not offended.

When I moved south to Ar Ramadi, I told no Iraqi I met about my love for pizza. Unfortunately, I told them about my love for seafood, which proved to be a mistake.

I learned to be careful of what I shared about my interests in food in places where such foods are not common. Thankfully, I did not have that problem in Afghanistan since the food there was similar to food I had been exposed to in India.

I will always love pizza, but I will never order a pizza from Northern Iraq again.