Brothers, sisters, and folded ones – there are but two grave sins, and the first is written in eleven words: to discard the crust is to deny the body of the slice, as it is written in the Book of Sins, 2:1. Behold the box at meal’s end in a careless house, ringed with abandoned crusts, like a little henge of ingratitude.
And why is this grave, when the pineapple is learning and the microwave itself is forgiven where there is hunger? Because of the grammar. Whoso saith of the crust, this part is beneath me, hath learned a sentence; and the sentence doth not stay upon the plate. He shall say it next of the ends of the loaf, and then of the bones of the broth, and then – mark it – of the hands that made the meal, and the hands that carried it, and the neighbourhoods at the edge of the city, which are the crust of the city, and bear the heat first, as crusts do.
For no hungry soul hath ever discarded a crust; search all the records of all the tables and thou shalt not find one. The discarding of the crust is the signature of plenty that hath forgotten itself. Waste is a wound – in the meal, in the maker, in the earth that grew the wheat – and it is only ever dealt with a full stomach.
But the mending is a meal and not a lash: at thy next slice, eat the crust FIRST, one time, as a pilgrim walketh the boundary of a holy place before entering. Thou shalt find it good – not glorious, for it is not the glory, but good, in the way of foundations and of grandmothers. And thereafter dip it, and let the handle become a spoon, and the meal end twice.
Amen – and pass the pizza, crust and all.