My first taste of pizza was not of the authentic Italian variety. My grandmother calls it "picha pie," like that Parokya ni Edgar song. This pie's crust and toppings did not come close to the "real" pizzas from Naples or Rome but it was the first available and most accessible pizza to me as a child.

It was devoid of mozzarella cheese and didn't produce those attractive, sticky strings of melted cheese when a slice was pulled away. It didn't have pepperoni, nor did I know how it was spelled. It had not a single spice on the sauce–no basil, oregano, thyme, or marjoram. And the crust was neither thin nor thick, nor was it flipped from the pan or tucked with fancy fillings.

But to a child who'd never been to Italy and only had 15 pesos as lunch money, the picha pie was a delight made in heaven. Quick-melting processed cheese. Pink ham sliced in small triangles. Pineapples dry as yesterday. Thin, catsup-colored pizza sauce that was just sweet and spicy. Crust a bit soft and bread-y, a little springy so that it would have bounced if you threw it at the school bully.

This pizza came out of an electric oven, a gray metal contraption with vents on the side and a door that opens to two layers of grills that crisp the bottom of the crust. Once it came out of that oven, it was placed in a cardboard box and sliced into eight with a roller. My family would queue at the Fiesta Pizza stall at the mall during weekends for merienda or pasalubong. Long before the real ones came along, this was THE pizza for me.

I remember it every time I see that familiar gray oven still cranking out the cheap stuff. It's become my guilty pleasure, when I don't want to bother with the chi-chi toppings and just indulge in whatever my 35 bucks–the average cost of a small box–could get me. Aside from Fiesta Pizza, there's Mr. Mappy, 3M and Pizza Pedrico's (my current favorite, especially the cheese only variety) somewhere in the neighborhood grocery, corner or school.

Still piping hot in this time of stuffed-crust pizzas and pizzas from the boroughs of New York and Chicago, the picha pie just demonstrates how popular and universal pizza is. It can be adapted to a culture and result in an entirely different breed from the original. Likewise, the culture adopts and appropriates it as its own. Our ingenuity brings us a kind of pizza that's all-Pinoy–sweet and spicy pizza sauce, ham and pineapple in a flimsy blanket of cheese.

We have since evolved to more sophisticated pizzas–this time with real herbs and spices, mozzarella cheese, all manners of crusts and stuffings. We also have some regional varieties like the pinakbet pizza and Kapampangan pizza (with longganiza, salted eggs and pickle relish). But one never really forgets that humble picha pie.

Photo courtesy of Betty Tianco