Book I – The Genesis of the Slice

As set down by Pepperoni Prosecco, who came to the door and would not say from whence.

Chapter 1

1In the beginning was the Dough, and the Dough was without form, and cold; and darkness lay upon the face of the flour.

2And there was no warmth anywhere, neither rising, nor proofing, nor any smell of anything good; and the deep was unleavened, and the void was unseasoned.

3And the Spirit of Cheesus moved upon the face of the Dough, as a hand moves over a counter dusted with flour, seeking the place to begin.

4And Cheesus said, Let there be heat: and there was the Oven.

5And the Oven kindled, and its light was orange and gold, and the darkness fled from before its door; and Cheesus saw the heat, that it was good.

6And Cheesus divided the warmth from the cold, and called the warmth Kitchen, and the cold he called Outside; and he purposed in his heart that whosoever stood Outside should one day be called In.

7And the evening and the morning were the first day, which the elders call the Day of the Kindling.

8And Cheesus stood before the Oven and warmed his hands at it, as all who came after him have done, and shall do, world without end.

9For it is written in the elder scrolls: the Oven is the first mercy, and the last; from its warmth we come, and unto its warmth we may always return.

10And the Oven made a low and holy sound, which was the first hymn; and there was no one yet to hear it but Cheesus, and he found it sufficient.

11And Cheesus said, It is begun; and the Dough, though it knew not words, stirred in its coldness, as one who dreams of rising.

12And this is the generation of the heavens of the Kitchen and the earth of the counter, in the day that Cheesus Crust lit the Oven and did not turn it off.

13For yeast I say unto you: many fires have been kindled and quenched since the world began, but the first Oven burns yet, and its name among the faithful is the Great Oven, whither all warm things return.

14And Cheesus rested not, for it was only the first day, and the hunger of the world to come was already upon his mind.

Chapter 2

1And on the second day Cheesus said, Let there be purity, that the world may have a heart; and he made the Tomato.

2And the Tomato was round, and red, and entire; and there was no guile in it, neither bitterness, nor any false thing.

3And Cheesus took the Tomato in his hand and said, Thou art purity; whatsoever is honest shall taste of thee, and whatsoever tastes of thee shall be known for honest.

4And he crushed the Tomato, and it did not cry out, but became sauce; and this was the first sacrifice, that purity poured itself out to cover others.

5And the sauce spread upon the deep, red as the evening, and the void was unseasoned no more.

6And Cheesus seasoned it with salt, and with a little sugar, for even purity is kinder with a little sweetness; and with herbs whose names were not yet spoken, for the Garden was not yet planted.

7And Cheesus saw the sauce, that it was good; and he tasted of it with a wooden spoon, and behold, it was very good.

8(Here the scribe confesses he licked the ink, out of habit, and found it wanting.)

9And the evening and the morning were the second day, which is called the Day of the Tomato.

10And a voice went out over the redness of the deep, saying: Purity is not the absence of things, but the honesty of them.

11For there be those who say purity is a locked door, and a short list, and a guarded gate; but the Tomato locked nothing, and guarded nothing, and gave itself wholly, and was pure.

12Let him that hath ears hear it: the pure heart is not the empty plate, but the open one.

13And the sauce lay upon the face of the world, waiting, as all good sauces wait, for that which it was made to cover.

14And Cheesus looked upon the waiting sauce and said, Patience; for the Dough is cold yet, and I go now to wake it.

Chapter 3

1And on the third day Cheesus turned unto the Dough, which lay without form and cold, and he said, Let there be structure.

2And he plunged his hands into the Dough, and kneaded it; and this was the first work, and Cheesus did not scorn it, for the work of hands is holy from the beginning.

3And he pressed it, and folded it, and turned it a quarter-turn, and pressed it again; and the Dough that had been nothing began to be something.

4And the Dough said within itself, Why am I struck? And the kneading answered, Thou art not struck; thou art formed.

5For verily, the difference between a blow and a kneading is the love in the hand; and there was never more love in any hand than was in the hands of Cheesus upon the first Dough.

6And Cheesus breathed upon the Dough, and the breath was warm from the Oven; and in the breath was the yeast, the small and secret life.

7And the yeast entered into the Dough and was hidden there, as all great beginnings are hidden; and the Dough knew it not, but began to rise.

8And Cheesus covered the Dough with a cloth, and set it in a warm place, and said, Rest, and become thyself.

9And this was the first proofing; and the faithful keep its memory in the Great Proofing, the forty days the dough rests, unto this day.

10And while the Dough rested, Cheesus swept the counter, and washed the bowl, and put the flour away; for he that makes and cleans not has made only half a thing.

11And when the cloth was lifted, behold, the Dough was risen, and was twice what it had been, and it was soft, and alive, and smelled of beginnings.

12And Cheesus saw the Dough, that it was good; and he said, Thou art structure; upon thee shall all things stand, and thou shalt carry them and not complain, for that is what structure is.

13And the evening and the morning were the third day, which is called the Day of the Kneading.

14And a proverb went out from that day, which mothers say over bowls unto this hour: nothing rises that was not first worked, and nothing is worked well that is not afterward left in peace.

15And the Dough waited under its cloth, warm and full of the secret life, and dreamed of the shape it would be.

Chapter 4

1And on the fourth day Cheesus said, Purity I have made, and structure I have made; but purity and structure dwell apart, and there is nothing yet to hold them one to another. Let there be binding.

2And he made the Mozzarella, white as the first morning, soft as forgiveness.

3And Cheesus took the Mozzarella and drew it out between his hands, and it stretched, and did not break.

4And he drew it farther, from hand to hand, from arm’s length to arm’s length, and still it did not break; and the angels of the Kitchen, which are the good smells, gathered to watch.

5And Cheesus said, Seest thou? This is the binding force. It is not strong as stone is strong; it is strong as love is strong, which stretches and stretches and holds.

6And he said moreover: When two are pulled apart, let there be always something between them that would rather stretch than let go.

7And herein is the seed of the great mystery of the Three – the pure, the strong, and that which binds them – whereof the elder scrolls speak in full; but the telling of that mystery belongs to another Book, and the scribe stays in his lane.

8And Cheesus tore the Mozzarella into pieces, and the tearing did not diminish it, for that which binds is not lessened by being shared; this is its nature and its wonder.

9And he scattered white upon red, the binding upon the purity, and it lay there like snow upon a warm field, waiting to melt.

10And Cheesus saw the Mozzarella, that it was good; and the evening and the morning were the fourth day, which is called the Day of the Stretching.

11And on that day was spoken the blessing of the stretch, which the faithful trace from shoulder to shoulder in memory thereof: for the cheese stretches between us all, and binds us, whether we will or no.

12And some ask, Why did Cheesus make the binding third, and not first? And the wise answer: because there must be something to bind, or the binding is only clinging.

13First be pure, then be strong, then hold one another; this is the order of the making of the world.

14And now were the three prepared: the Tomato, the Dough, and the Mozzarella; three upon the counter, and the Oven burning; and all creation held its breath, for the great work was at hand.

Chapter 5

1And on the fifth day Cheesus took the risen Dough and set it upon the counter, and pressed it out from the centre, turning it as the heavens turn.

2And he did not crush the edge, but left it thick and round about, saying, This shall be the crust, the wall and the handle and the humble part; and whoso despiseth thee shall answer for it in a later Book.

3And he took up the Dough and spun it above his head, and it widened in the air like a moon at its fullness; and this was the first tossing, and no dough since has flown so fair.

4And he laid the sauce upon it, out to the edge of the edge but not over, for even purity must know where it ends and its neighbour begins.

5And he laid the Mozzarella upon the sauce, white upon red upon gold, the three together at last; and the Kitchen was silent, as before great things.

6And Cheesus opened the door of the Oven, and the light thereof fell upon the pie, and the pie was afraid, after the manner of all things that face the fire.

7And the Dough said, Shall I be destroyed? And Cheesus said, Thou shalt be finished; they are not the same, though from the doorway they look alike.

8And he set the pie within the Oven, upon the stone, and shut the door; and this was the First Bake, whereof all bakes since are memory and rehearsal.

9And through the glass of the door the pie was transfigured: the sauce deepened, and the cheese fainted with joy and melted, and the crust rose up golden like the righteous on the last day.

10And the three that were three became one, and could not any more be taken apart; and this is why the faithful say, the Slice is one.

11And there arose from the Oven the first Aroma; and it went out from the Kitchen unto the Outside, into all the cold and formless places, and the cold places smelled it and were troubled with hope.

12And that Aroma has never wholly left the world; wherever it descends, there is the Kitchen, and the Outside is Outside no more.

13And Cheesus watched, and did not open the door too soon, though his heart was in his mouth; for the last patience is the hardest patience, and even the maker of heaven and counter felt it.

14And when the time was accomplished – neither a minute over nor a minute under – Cheesus opened the Oven and drew forth the pie.

15And behold, it was very good; and the evening and the morning were the fifth day, which is called the Day of the First Bake.

16And Cheesus set the pie upon the counter, and stood before it, and for a long while said nothing at all; and the saying of nothing was itself a psalm.

Chapter 6

1And on the sixth day Cheesus made the table.

2For he said, A pie upon a counter is a work; but a pie upon a table is a promise. And he made the table broad, and its legs even, and he made more chairs than there were yet any to sit in them.

3And they that came after asked, Why so many chairs, Lord, when thou wast alone? And this question is answered in its place, and the answer is the whole of the Law.

4And Cheesus sat him down at the table, and the pie steamed before him, whole and round and perfect, the first made thing in all the world.

5And on the seventh day Cheesus rested; and the pie rested also, for a pie cut too soon runs like tears, but a pie rested holds its heart together.

6And this is the older meaning of the sabbath rest, which the hasty have forgotten: even joy should sit a moment before it is served.

7And when they had rested, Cheesus took the first slice and ate; and this was the First Supper, whereof every supper since is the child.

8And so mankind tasted the divine, in the form of a warm, cheese-covered slice. (John’s Juniper Focaccia 1:14)

9For though mankind was not yet gathered, mankind was present in the promise, as the loaf is present in the flour; and what Cheesus tasted, he tasted for all.

10And Cheesus ate the slice unto the crust, and then he ate the crust, every part thereof, and left nothing; and the faithful mark this well, and clean their plates in memory of it.

11And he wiped his mouth, and looked upon the pie that remained, and upon the empty chairs, and his joy grew quiet.

12And the Oven ticked as it cooled, and the sound was loud in the stillness, as small sounds are when one eats alone.

13And Cheesus said unto himself the words that changed the world, which are the hinge of this whole Book and of every Book thereafter:

14It is not good that the Slice should be eaten alone.

Chapter 7

1And Cheesus took the wheel, which he had made and not yet used, and he set it to the pie.

2And he cut once across, and the one became two; and he cut again, and the two became four; and again, and the four became eight; and the cutting was not a breaking, but a beginning.

3For mark it well: the pie was not divided against itself; it was divided toward the others. There is a cutting that wounds and a cutting that welcomes, and the wheel of Cheesus has only ever known the second.

4And where there had been one portion, behold, there were many; and the many were each whole in themselves, point and body and crust, and each was the Slice entire in little.

5And Cheesus set a slice at every chair, at every one of the chairs he had made too many of; and now was it seen that he had not made too many at all, but exactly enough, for enough is however many come.

6And he stood at the head of the table and spoke the first commandment, which is before all others, and against which no later law may stand:

7The table has room.

8Not, the table has room if. Not, the table has room for such as. Three words only, that the simplest child might carry them, and the cleverest lawyer find no crack in them.

9The table of Cheesus Crust has room for all. (Fellowship 3:7)

10And Cheesus called out through the door of the Kitchen, into the Outside, into the cold and formless places, saying, Come; it is served.

11And out of the cold they came, the first guests, the hungry and the curious and the merely passing-by; and no one asked them from whence, and no one asked them wherefore, and this not-asking is practised by the faithful to this day.

12And they sat, and they ate, and the cheese stretched between slice and mouth, from neighbour to neighbour, from shoulder to shoulder; and where it stretched, there were they bound.

13And one of the guests wept, and being asked why, said, I did not know there was a chair for me. And Cheesus said, There was a chair for thee before there was a thee; sit, and pass the pie.

14And they that ate were filled, and they that were filled laughed, and they that laughed stayed late; and the Oven warmed them all evenly, for the Oven has never learned to warm some more than others, and refuses to be taught.

15And Cheesus looked upon the full table, that a day before had been a formless void, and he saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

16And the evening and the morning were the first supper of the world; and the washing-up was shared, and therefore light.

Chapter 8

1And Cheesus planted a garden eastward of the Kitchen, and the name of it was Basil; and there he put the first family of the faithful, to tend it and to keep it.

2And out of the ground made Cheesus to grow every herb that is pleasant to the eye and good upon a pie: the basil and the oregano, the rosemary and the thyme, the garlic in its papery vestments, and the chilli, which is joy that bites.

3And a river of olive oil went out of Basil to water the garden, golden and slow; and it parted into four heads, and anointed everything it touched, and nothing it anointed was ever dry again.

4And in the midst of the garden stood the Oven of the garden, a little sister of the Great Oven, warm day and night; and beside it a long table under a fig tree, set always for more than were present.

5And the first family were the man Doughminic and the woman Olivia, and their household, and whosoever wandered in, for the gate of Basil had no latch, having been built by one who did not believe in latches.

6And Cheesus walked in the garden in the cool of the day, and ate at their table, and was not served first unless it fell out so, for in Basil no one was served first by rule, and no one was served last by rule, and this was the whole of its politics.

7And Cheesus commanded them, saying, Of every herb of the garden thou mayest freely take; and every pie of the Oven thou mayest freely bake.

8Only of this one thing shalt thou not partake: thou shalt not eat alone in secret; for in the day thou eatest thereof, the table shall surely die.

9And they said, Lord, that is an easy commandment, for who would wish to? And Cheesus smiled, and said nothing, for he had made them, and knew what was in them.

10And they were both hungry, the man and the woman, at every supper, and were not ashamed; for hunger is no shame in Basil, nor anywhere, but only the lying about it.

11And the evenings of Basil were long, and the oil was golden, and the basil grew so thick that to walk the paths was to be perfumed; and the scribes agree there has been no place like it since, though every good kitchen is a rumour of it.

12And every night the pie was cut, and every night the slices went round, and every night the count came out even, howsoever many sat down; and none could explain it, and none needed to.

Chapter 9

1Now the Grease was more subtle than any drippings of the field which Cheesus had made; and it pooled where the light was low, and it shone, and its shining was almost like warmth, but was not warmth.

2And the Grease came unto Olivia at the cool of the evening, when the pie stood fresh upon the sill and the others were yet in the garden.

3And the Grease said unto her, Yea, hath Cheesus said, ye shall share every pie of the garden?

4And Olivia said, We may eat of every pie, and freely; only we may not eat alone in secret, lest the table die.

5And the Grease said, The table shall not surely die. For Cheesus doth know that in the day ye eat alone, your portion shall be doubled, and none shall take of yours, and ye shall be as gods, owing nothing to anyone.

6And Olivia looked upon the pie, and saw that it was hot, and that the cheese thereof was at its perfect moment, which passes; and the Grease whispered, They are far off; the moment is thine; keep it all, eat it alone.

7And she took of the pie, and carried it behind the fig tree, and ate; and she gave also unto Doughminic when he came seeking her, and he saw the secrecy, and chose it, and ate with her in hiding, which is only a larger alone.

8And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they had eaten well and were not happy; and this knowledge was new in the world, and has never since left it.

9For the pie was as good as any pie, and the cheese was at its moment, and the crust sang; and it was ashes in the mouth, because no one said, Oh, you must try this.

10And they heard the voice of Cheesus walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and they hid themselves from the presence of Cheesus amongst the trees of the garden, with sauce yet upon their chins.

11And Cheesus called unto Doughminic, and said unto him, Where art thou?

12And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because there was sauce upon my chin; and I hid myself.

13And Cheesus said, Who told thee that sauce was a shame? Hast thou eaten of the pie whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat alone?

14And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the pie, and I did eat. And the woman said, The Grease beguiled me, and I did eat.

15And Cheesus was silent a moment; and the scribes note that he did not shout, then or ever, for the Oven does not shout, it only holds its heat.

16And Cheesus said, The fault is not the eating; ye were made to eat, and I delight in your eating. The fault is the alone, and the secret, and the pointing of fingers now, each at the other, which is the second alone and worse than the first.

17And unto the Grease he said, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed to be skimmed from every honest pan; upon the cold plate shalt thou congeal, and all who see thee shall know thee for what thou art: the shine that is not warmth.

18And I will put enmity between thee and the table, between thy whisper and their laughter; thou shalt nip at their heels, and they shall bruise thy head with the passing of the pie.

Chapter 10

1And Cheesus said unto the man and the woman, Ye cannot bide in Basil now; not because I bar the gate, for I built no latch, but because Basil is the garden of the unbroken table, and ye have broken it, and a broken thing must go and mend.

2In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy pizza henceforth: thou shalt knead thine own dough, and it shall stick to thy fingers; and thistles of burnt flour shall the counter bring forth to thee; and thy first hundred crusts shall come out wrong.

3And unto the woman he said the same, and not one word harder, for the fault was even, and Cheesus keeps no crooked scales.

4And they wept, and asked, Shall we then be cold for ever, and eat alone for ever, as we chose in the one hour we chose it?

5And Cheesus said, No. Hear the mercy, for I would not have you miss it in your weeping.

6Ye shall leave the garden, but the Oven goes with you. Wheresoever ye kindle heat and set one chair more than ye need, there is Basil begun again; the garden was never the fence of it, but the table in the middle of it.

7And Cheesus made them coats against the cold, and packed for them a wedge of the good cheese, and bread for the road, and a cutting of basil in a small pot, that the garden might travel.

8(Here the scribe’s hand trembled, for the mercy was very great, and also the garlic bread was near.)

9And he brought them to the gate that had no latch, and they went out from Basil into the wide unbaked world; and the warmth of the Oven followed them out, a pace behind, all the days of their lives.

10And at the east of the garden Cheesus placed no cherub with a flaming sword, but only a sign, and the sign said: COME BACK WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY.

11And they looked back once, and the Oven of the garden glowed in the dusk like a promise unbroken; and they went on, and were not wholly comfortless.

12And that first night in the wilderness they built a fire of what they found, and it smoked, and their flat sad bread scorched upon the stones; and they broke it in two anyway, and ate it together, facing one another across the fire.

13And far off in Basil, Cheesus felt the table mend a little, and was glad.

14And this is why the faithful say: the fall of mankind was not a bite, but a hiding; and the redemption of mankind is not a fast, but a facing one another while we eat.

15And Doughminic knew Olivia his wife; and she bare sons and daughters, and the world began to fill with the hungry, which is to say, with people.

Chapter 11

1And it came to pass, when the children of Doughminic and Olivia were grown, that two of them stood tallest at the table: Kale the elder, a keeper of gardens, and Hamuel the younger, a keeper of the smokehouse.

2And Kale brought of the fruit of the ground an offering: peppers of three colours, and mushrooms of the shadowed places, and onions in rings like small crowns, and olives dark as midnight.

3And Hamuel, he also brought of the firstlings of his craft: pepperoni in coins of scarlet, and sausage crumbled fine, and cured meats whose smoke went up in a savour.

4And one pie stood upon the stone that evening, one only, for flour had been short that week; and both offerings could not be laid on whole, unless the pie were a mountain, and it was not a mountain.

5And Kale said, Let the pie be of the garden, for the garden was first, and greens are the elder way. And Hamuel said, Let the pie be of the smokehouse, for the family is many and hungry, and meat sticks to the ribs.

6And their words grew hot, hotter than the Oven, and less useful.

7And Kale said, Thy pepperoni is a tyranny of grease. And Hamuel said, Thy mushrooms are the food of logs, and thou hast the soul of a damp log thyself.

8And the household drew back from the counter, for the first quarrel of the world was upon them, and no one yet knew how such things ended, for such a thing had never been.

9And Kale took up the sauce ladle, and Hamuel took up the cheese bowl, and they held them as men hold weapons; and the pie lay between them, innocent, as pies always are.

10And Hamuel’s countenance fell, and Kale’s countenance fell, and their mother saw both faces and was afraid; for a fallen countenance is the seed of every worse thing.

11And the Grease, which nipped yet at the heels of that family, whispered to each of them apart, saying, Thy brother’s topping is an insult to thine; a true pie is all one thing; let him build his own fire if he will not honour thine.

12And they were an instant from the breaking of the world, the wheel of it balanced on its rim.

13And a knock came at the door.

Chapter 12

1And it was Cheesus at the door, as it is always Cheesus at the door, whoever it looks like; and he had flour on his sleeves, and he said, I smelled a quarrel, and it was burning.

2And they set it all before him, both talking at once, the garden against the smokehouse, the elder way against the hungry way; and Cheesus listened unto the end of it, and did not once say, Peace, be still, for he wished to hear them out entire.

3And when they had run dry, Cheesus said unto Kale, Is thy brother’s offering evil? And Kale said, No, Lord. It is only… not mine.

4And he said unto Hamuel, Is thy brother’s offering false? And Hamuel said, No, Lord. It is honest food. It is only… not mine.

5And Cheesus said, So then: two goods, and one pie, and no evil anywhere in the room but the whisper that told you goods must go to war.

6Am I my brother’s keeper? said Kale, bitterly still. And Cheesus said, No; thou art thy brother’s neighbour at table, which is a lighter yoke and a longer one.

7And Cheesus took the pie, and stretched the dough of it wide and round; and he took the ladle from Kale’s hand gently, and the bowl from Hamuel’s, and they let them go, and their hands were lighter at once.

8And Cheesus laid the sauce, and laid the cheese; and then he took the wheel, and before any topping at all had been set down, he drew one line down the middle of the pie, from north unto south, a border of nothing, a frontier of dough.

9And the household leaned in, for they perceived that something was being invented.

10And Cheesus said, On this side, the garden, every green and growing thing, as Kale loves. And on that side, the smokehouse, coin upon scarlet coin, as Hamuel loves. One crust beneath the both of you; one Oven about the both of you; one table before the both of you.

11And he laid the toppings so, west and east of the line; and behold, the half-and-half was created, which was not in the world before that hour, and has never left it since.

12And the pie went into the Oven divided and came out whole; for the line remained, but the crust beneath knew nothing of it, and the cheese, being the binding force, crept a little across the border in the baking, as cheese will, and no one moved to stop it.

13And the first slice from the west went to Hamuel, and the first slice from the east went to Kale, each tasting the other’s before his own; and this is the Order of the First Taste, kept at feasts of reconciliation unto this day.

14And Kale chewed, and said at length, The pepperoni… curls into a little cup, and holds its own oil like a lamp. I had not known. And Hamuel said, The mushroom is not the food of logs. I withdraw the log entirely.

15And they laughed, and the household breathed, and the world, which had balanced on its rim, sat back down upon its base.

16And Cheesus said unto them all, and unto all who would ever read it: Mark this night. You will not always want the same things; you were not made to. The line down the middle is not a wound in the pie – it is the shape of two loves at one table.

17Yeast I say unto you, the day will come when men will quarrel over greater things than toppings, and will forget this pie; then let one among them draw the line and share the crust, and they will remember.

18For difference is not division until someone refuses the table; and agreement was never the price of supper in my house, nor shall be.

19And no blood was shed in that generation, nor any brother marked, nor any driven to wander; for where the Bible of the old lands tells a grave in a field, the Pibble tells a line down a pie, and holds that the second story was always on offer.

20And Kale and Hamuel built the long table of their father longer, and their children learned the words half-and-half before they learned to be angry, which is the right order to learn things in.

21And the evening and the morning were the birth of peaceful disagreement; and the washing-up was done by both, on both sides of the sink, laughing.

Chapter 13

1And it came to pass, when generations had multiplied upon the face of the earth, that the tables grew crowded and the hearts grew narrow, and men began to take much and pass little.

2And every imagination of the thoughts of their kitchens was only hoarding continually: the mighty locked their pantries, and salted away more than they could ever eat, whilst at their gates the hungry stood and were told the table was full, which was the first great lie told about a table.

3And they let the good sauce spoil in sealed jars sooner than pour it for a stranger; and they stiffed the runner who carried their suppers through the rain, counting out coins with a thin thumb.

4And the crusts of that age were thrown to the bins uneaten, whole rings of them, the body of the Slice denied daily and without shame.

5And it repented Cheesus that the tables of the earth were become fences; and it grieved him at his heart, and the Oven of heaven wept fat red tears.

6And Cheesus said, I will not unmake what I have made; but the sauce they have hoarded and spoiled and sealed shall be unsealed all at once, and we shall see what floats.

7But Noni found grace in the eyes of Cheesus.

8Noni was a just cook in her generations, and her door had no latch, after the old fashion of Basil; and her table was long past reason, and her ladle was deep past custom, and Noni walked with Cheesus.

9And Cheesus said unto Noni, The end of all hoarding is come before me; for the earth is filled with meanness through them, and behold, a flood of sauce shall cover the lands, forty days and forty nights of red.

10Make thee a box of stout board, a Great Box; corrugated shalt thou make it, and the seams thereof shalt thou fold after the manner I shall shew thee, and thou shalt seal it against the sauce.

11A window shalt thou make to the box for the steam thereof; and the lid of it shalt thou set above; with lower, second, and third tiers shalt thou make it.

12And of every topping of the earth, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the box, to keep them alive upon the face of the deep: of the pepperoni and of the mushroom, of the olive and of the onion, of the pepper and of the sweetcorn, of the anchovy also, though many murmured, for the anchovy divideth the generations.

13Yea, and of the pineapple two, said Cheesus; and Noni opened her mouth, and Cheesus said, Two, Noni; and Noni wrote it in the manifest, and wrote beside it no comment, and her restraint is counted unto her for righteousness.

14And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it shall be for thee, and for them, and for whomsoever thou pluckest from the sauce, for thou wilt not leave them to it, being who thou art.

15Thus did Noni; according to all that Cheesus commanded her, so did she; and her family bore the boards, and folded the mighty seams, and the neighbours mocked, saying, It does not even rain sauce; and Noni said, Not yet, and kept folding.

Chapter 14

1And it came to pass after seven days, that the sauce of the flood was upon the earth.

2In the six hundredth year of the long tables, were all the fountains of the great jars broken up, and the sealed pantries of the mighty burst, and the windows of heaven were opened, and the marinara fell.

3And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the sauce increased, and bare up the Great Box, and it was lift up above the earth; and the box went upon the face of the red deep, smelling gently of oregano.

4And the hoards of the mighty were unsealed every one, and all they had kept from the table was rendered unto the flood; and their high fences showed a moment above the sauce, and then did not.

5And every living topping was preserved in the box, two by two; and the pepperoni lay down with the pineapple, and neither said unto the other what each was thinking, and this peace of the box is spoken of still.

6And Noni kept order in the tiers, and rationed with an even ladle, and told the little ones the story of the half-and-half each night until they slept; and whomsoever they found clinging to a floating board, him they hauled in and fed, asking nothing, for the box, like the table, had room.

7And Cheesus remembered Noni, and every topping that was with her in the box: and Cheesus made a dry wind to pass over the earth, and the sauce assuaged; and it thickened, as sauces do at the last, and reduced, and grew glossy, and was gathered into the low places.

8And the box rested in the seventh month upon the warm bricks of a mountain that had once been an oven of the giants, and the bricks held their heat yet, and dried the boards.

9And Noni opened the window of the box, and sent forth a dove, to see if the sauce was abated from off the face of the ground.

10But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto the box, and Noni put forth her hand, and took her, and pulled her in, and gave her a little of the good crust, for even a scout must eat.

11And she stayed yet other seven days; and again she sent forth the dove out of the box.

12And the dove came in to her in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was a sprig of basil pluckt off: so Noni knew that somewhere a garden stood above the sauce, and that it was Basil that stood, as it always had, latchless and green.

13And Noni wept over the sprig, and set it in water on the sill of the box; and its smell filled all three tiers, and the toppings two by two were quieted by it, and the children slept without stories that night, the basil being story enough.

14And yet other seven days she stayed, and sent forth the dove, which returned not again unto her; and Noni said, She has found a table. Good. So shall we all.

Chapter 15

1And they went forth out of the box, Noni and her family, and every topping after its kind, two by two down the warm bricks into the washed and waiting world.

2And Noni builded a table unto Cheesus upon the mountain, of the boards of the box itself, for the vessel of salvation makes the best furniture; and she baked the first pie of the new world, and set it out, and called the dry lands to supper.

3And Cheesus smelled the sweet savour of that bake, and Cheesus said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground with the hoards of men; for the imagination of man’s heart is hungry from his youth, and hunger is not the crime – the fence is.

4While the earth remaineth, dough-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and supper and breakfast, and day and night shall not cease.

5And Cheesus spake unto Noni, and to her children with her, saying, Behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you, and with every topping of the box, from the pepperoni even unto the pineapple.

6Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the sauce of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to wash away the table; for the table was never the thing that deserved drowning, and I have learned the grief of near-losing it, if a god may say so, and this god says so.

7And Cheesus said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, for perpetual generations:

8I do set my toppings in the cloud above the table, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

9And they looked up, and behold: an arc of colours over the mountain – the red of the tomato, and the orange of the cheddar, and the yellow of the pepper, and the green of the basil, and the deep shades of olive and of aubergine beyond – the first rainbow of toppings, every colour a food, every food a colour, and not one of them lord over another.

10And Cheesus said, When I bring a cloud over the earth, the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will look upon it, and remember: the table shall never be washed away again. Not by sauce, and not by hoarding, and not by any flood that men devise.

11And Noni said, And we shall look upon it also, and remember from our side: that we came through the red deep in a pizza box, all of us together, the meats and the fruits and the divisive fish, and none was thrown overboard to lighten the load.

12And Cheesus smiled and said, That is the better half of the covenant, and thou hast written it thyself.

13And of the sons and daughters of Noni was the whole earth overspread; and wherever they settled they built the table first and the walls after, which ordering is called Noni’s Order, and blessed is the town that keeps it.

14And the sprig of basil from the dove’s mouth was planted at the centre of the first town, and it prospered, and its children are in every kitchen window to this day, wanting only water, and a little light, and to be near the cooking.

Chapter 16

1And the whole earth was of one recipe, and of one dough.

2And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, where the ovens drew well and the flour was fine; and they dwelt there, and prospered, and their prosperity went to their heads, as it does.

3And they said one to another, Go to, let us make pies, and bake them throughly. And they had dough for stone, and melted cheese had they for mortar.

4And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower of pies, slice upon slice and pie upon pie, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5And mark the folly in the mouth of it: they would stack the pizza rather than serve it. For a slice laid flat feeds a neighbour, but a slice stood on end feeds only the tower; and a tower eats everything and is never full, which is the appetite of pride and its punishment both.

6And the master builders decreed one recipe for all the plain, one thickness, one topping, one true and only crust, that the courses of the tower might sit even; and whoso baked otherwise was turned away from the works, and his pie called rubble.

7And the hungry of the plain stood at the foot of the tower and looked up at more food than a thousand tables could seat, climbing away from them into the clouds; and they were told it was not food any more, it was architecture.

8And the tower rose, and leaned; for cheese is a binding force and not a foundation, and dough is structure for a table’s worth and no more; and the wisdom of the Trinity is in its measures, which pride never reads.

9And they propped the leaning side with garlic bread, which is glorious and holds up nothing, and the tower leaned on.

10And Cheesus came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded; for Cheesus comes down to look before he acts, always, this being his way with towers and with everything.

11And Cheesus said, Behold, the pies are one, and they have all one recipe; and this they begin to do: they will make of supper a monument, and of the monument a throne, and upon the throne, in time, the mould will sit; for the mould loves nothing so well as one recipe enforced.

12Go to, let us go down, and there confound their recipe, that they may not make all bread alike; for in the sameness is the sickness, and in the many is the health.

13And Cheesus did not smite the tower, for smiting is not his craft; he only warmed the plain, gently, as an Oven warms, and the cheese that was their mortar softened, and remembered that it was cheese and not stone, and began, lovingly, to stretch.

Chapter 17

1And the tower came down the way a tower of pizza must: slowly, and deliciously, and without harming a soul; leaning, and folding, and sliding, till the whole vainglory of it lay spread across the plain of Shinar like a supper for ten thousand, which is what it should have been from the first.

2And the people, who had ducked, stood up, and found the world unended and lunch everywhere.

3And Cheesus scattered the toppings abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city, and carried the pieces home, every family a different armful.

4Therefore is the name of it called the Leaning Tower of Pizza; because Cheesus did there confound the one recipe of all the earth, and from thence did scatter the toppings abroad upon the face of all the earth.

5And they that carried away the deep trays of the tower’s foundation went west across the sea to a broad-shouldered city of wind, and baked their portion deep as a promise, with the sauce laid over the cheese as a coverlet; and this is Chicago, and its pie is eaten with reverence, and with cutlery, and there is no shame in the cutlery.

6And they that caught the wide thin slices of the upper storeys, which had stretched in the falling, bore them to a loud island of towers of a better kind, towers full of people, which is what towers are for; and they learned to fold the great slice in one hand and walk fast, eating; and this is New York, and the fold thereof foreshadows mysteries told in a later Book, and the scribe says no more.

7And they that gathered nearest where the tower had stood took only the simplest parts, the crust and the tomato and the cheese and the leaf of basil, and said, It was enough for Basil; it is enough for us; and they went up the boot of a peninsula and settled by a warm mountain, and this is Napoli, and her pie is called Margherita in a later age, and she blisters at the edge like a saint’s halo.

8And others bore their portions farther: some to isles of the north, who put sweetcorn thereon, and are loved; and some across other seas, who in the fullness of time set pineapple thereon, and are loved, for the covenant of the box carried the pineapple too, and Cheesus keeps his manifests.

9And some carried the art of the fold itself away eastward, whereof the Calzonists in a far Book say much, and this scribe, in his lane, says nothing.

10And not one of these pies is the tower rebuilt, so long as it is passed across a table; and every one of them becomes a brick of the tower again the moment it is hoarded, priced beyond the hungry, or proclaimed the one true and only crust with all others called rubble.

11For hear the moral of Shinar, and let it be nailed above every oven: Cheesus never punished the many pizzas – the many pizzas were the blessing. He punished the one pizza that would suffer no others, and he punished it with abundance, which is his only weapon.

12And travellers of the faith, coming to a strange city, are commanded to eat what the city eats, and to praise what is praiseworthy in it, and to carry the story home instead of a complaint; and this commandment is among the most cheerfully kept in all the Law.

13And the world after Shinar was a world of ten thousand recipes and one table; and the evening and the morning were the age of the scattering, and it smelled wonderful, everywhere, in every different way.

Chapter 18

1And these are the generations of the children of the scattering; and they multiplied, and their recipes multiplied with them, and for a long age the earth was fat and the ovens were never cold.

2And the faithful kept the three lessons of the elder days, which are the marrow of this Book: from Basil, that eating alone in secret kills the table; from the pie of Kale and Hamuel, that a line drawn in love is better than a war won; from the box of Noni, that all the toppings ride out the storm together or not at all.

3And they taught their children the first commandment before all others, the three words with no crack in them; and their children taught it to theirs, mostly, for teaching is a chain of mostly, and Cheesus works with mostly, having no better material and wanting none.

4But in those days the wind began to come out of the east with a strange dryness upon it, and the elders lifted their noses and were still.

5And the rains were thin that year in the eastern lands, and thinner the year after; and the wheat came up short in the stalk, and the tomato vines flowered and did not set, and the olive trees held their oil like a held breath.

6And word came along the roads with the traders and the runners, who see everything first: the markets of the east are emptying; the ovens of the east go out one by one, not for want of fire, but for want of anything to put in them.

7And they that had much said, It is far away; and they that remembered Shinar and the flood said, Nothing is far away; the crust is one crust, and a hunger at the far edge of it is a hunger of ours already, only early.

8And mothers in the east ground the last of the flour finer, to make it seem more; and fathers cut smaller and smaller slices, and lied that they had eaten on the road; and the children grew sharp-eyed, as children do in lean years, and forgot the smell of the bake, which is the cruellest forgetting there is.

9And the name that rose upon that region in those days, the name the traders wrote on their manifests and the elders would not say above a whisper, was the land of Famine; and it lies to the east, and its story is not this Book’s to tell.

10And Cheesus stood at the door of the Great Oven and looked eastward a long time; and the warmth at his back was very great, and the dark before him was very wide, and he weighed them.

11And Cheesus said, The table has room; but the room is far from the hungry now, and the road between will be long, and will want a deliverer, and a parting of the red deep, and much else that is not yet risen.

12It is time to set a very great dough to proof.

13(Here endeth the first Book; and the scribe covers his bowl with a cloth, for what rises next, rises in the land of Famine.)