The secret history of Roma Pizza
Have you ever had your world rocked?
No, I don’t mean that in the “wink wink, nudge nudge” kind of way. I mean it in the fundamental transcendental gravity shifting life altering forever kind of way.
Well, I have.
Let me tell you how.
There is a secret in Hamilton, Ontario. Something known only by a few outside of Hamilton’s ever-sprawling reach.It might have connections to the mafia. It might not. It is something seen nearly anywhere you go in Hamilton. We are the guardians of this secret source of infinite power. It’s Roma Pizza—and it’s delicious.
This revelation ushered in the New Year, a final moment in the year of realizing things, if you will (thanks Kylie Jenner).
I was at a New Year’s party which boasted all-you-can-eat no name brand salt and vinegar chips, and more alluringly, Roma Pizza. If I’m being completely honest, it was this promise of free soft, tomato-y goodness which really sold my group of friends on this particular New Year’s event.
We came, however, to a very startling realization when we, the Hamilton born and “bread” (forgive the pun), discovered that our out-of-town friends had no idea what Roma Pizza was. They assumed it was your average run-of-the-mill drunk-food pizzeria fare. This is categorically not what Roma Pizza is. It had taken us well into our early 20s to realize that Roma Pizza, which we assumed was a national phenomenon, was the opposite: it is sold only in Hamilton (and at select stores in Burlington and Grimsby).
It was shocking.
In Hamilton, you can walk into any grocery store—and I do mean any grocery store—and find a stand near the deli, stacked high with big white boxes of Roma Bakery’s famous slab pizza.
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Inside this white box is a food item that hardly resembles a pizza. To those unfamiliar with its look and consistency, it probably doesn’t look appetizing in the slightest. Traditionally, it has no cheese, no toppings, and is eaten at room temperature. It’s a culinary mainstay at birthday parties, sports parties, school parties, bake sales, family events, barbecues, and whatever other event you can think of at which people might become a bit peckish. I’m finding it hard to explain just how bizarre it was to find out that Roma Pizza is only a Hamilton thing.
I’m not being ironic or facetious at all; Roma Pizza is an omnipresent feature of Hamilton. None of my friends—who’ve attended universities all over Ontario—had realized this; it’s that common within Hamilton’s borders.
Where would I be without Roma Pizza? I shudder to think.
So many of my dearest childhood memories have Roma Pizza lurking like a benevolent guardian angel in the background. It was an honoured guest at so many of my friends’ birthday parties. It was clutched in our small hands after so many joyful and tragic hockey seasons. Every single bowling ball or laser tag gun in the city probably has tomato sauce residue; every school in Hamilton has probably sold it on pizza day.
I once attended a welcome event for Syrian refugees newly arrived to Hamilton. You know what was there? Roma friggin’ Pizza. It’s just a fact of life.
I don’t really want this piece of writing to turn into an ode to Hamilton, Ontario—as so many of my articles do—but I’m finding it hard not to.
When I moved to Guelph for school, I suppose I should have noticed a distinct lack of white boxes when I first walked into the Edinburgh Road Metro. I think I’m just so used to seeing Roma Pizza in grocery stores that I must have hallucinated a few boxes.
I asked The Ontarion staff if they had ever heard of, or tried, Roma Pizza, and only one of my coworkers had. Of course, he’d only tried it because two of his roommates are from Hamilton and had brought some back after a weekend at home.
I think Roma Pizza is just an extended metaphor for Hamilton, and that’s why I’m more than a little defensive about it. It’s a little weird, sort of unfamiliar, and unlike the norm. It might have a potentially seedy history, but more likely, it’s the story of a successful family business started in the ’50s in an ever-commercializing world.
You might not like it when someone tries to describe it to you. You might think it gross or in bad taste, but if you try it, you’re in for the surprise of a lifetime.
So much of Hamilton seems strange or unappetizing at first. I’ve had to deal with a few weird classist comments after I had disclosed my hometown. I had a roommate who referred to it as “Smelly Town,” but had only ever passed it on one of the 400 series.
So, go on. Call it “Smelly Town.” Call it “not real pizza.” You don’t have to try it and it’s not for everyone, but I like it. It’s a part of my childhood, and as such, I am inexplicably fond of the strange slab pizza that could.
Photo by Mariah Bridgeman/The Ontarion