A Whole Pie, or Just a Piece

The oven sat at the back of the shop, built from brick and fed with coal. A badger baker worked the long paddle in and out of it without pausing. A coal oven runs much hotter than a home oven, hot enough to cook a crust in just a few minutes.

The shop opened in nineteen oh five in a neighborhood full of new arrivals from Italy. Most earned too little to spend a whole day's pay on one round pie. So the baker began cutting the pies into pieces and selling them one at a time, wrapped in paper. The idea caught on so well that most people now picture one slice before they picture the whole pie.

Little about the method has changed. The dough still rests overnight. The sauce still goes on cold. The cheese still melts in patches, not one smooth layer, because a coal fire is hotter in some spots than others.

A line of animals waited at the counter with coins ready, unhurried. Polly sat on the window ledge and watched one slice after another disappear, folded once down the middle.