I Went To The Small Pizzeria In A Nearby Village Last Month And Asked For A Calzone, And When She Brought

I went to the small pizzeria in a nearby village last month and asked for a calzone, and when she brought it to me the owner had a look on her face I can only describe as bitter.

Naturally my first assumption was that she was judging me for my food order (maybe calzones are too easy compared to other pizzas and she felt under-challenged as a pizza chef?), but then I looked at my calzone and the more I looked at it, the more I felt like it might have been a failed attempt at a cat calzone.

(I didn't ask for a cat calzone, just a calzone.)

If I had immediately identified it as a cat calzone I would have of course said something about it, such as "Aww that's so cute! You made it in the shape of a cat!! Thank you!" — but it was too late. I hesitated too long, and it was just failed enough that I wasn't sure it was meant to be a cat.

I think this poor woman knew her cat calzone was a failure and I wouldn't be able to recognise her effort for what it was, hence the bitterness in her eyes when she brought it to me.

I asked my friend if my pizza looked like a cat to her, and she said "Are you saying this because of the olives? I think they were just placed randomly."

no, I think they were meant to be eyes, and a cat nose. And those are the ears. Wait, I'll turn it in your direction so you can see

Friend: "It's just a pointy calzone... Maybe you should ask the chef if she meant to make it a cat?"

If I tried to make a cat calzone and the recipient of this gift went like 'hey, sorry, is this weird-looking thing meant to be cat?' I would sell my pizza restaurant and drown myself in the river.

After considering this, my friend said we could brainstorm a better phrasing—but then we ended up agreeing that since the chef didn't go 'haha sorry I tried to make a cat and failed!!' when she brought my pizza, the options were a) she didn't try to make a cat; b) she feels humiliated by her failure, and either way it's better to say nothing.

But I felt deeply curious about this unresolved mystery, so this week when I went back to the pizzeria I asked for a calzone again.

The options were now: a) the chef brings me a better, recognisable cat calzone and I immediately remark upon it and she's happy and we erase the failed cat calzone from the historical record and never mention it ever;

or b) the chef brings me a normal calzone, which suggests that the vague cat shape from last time was accidental and just another instance of chronic cat pareidolia.

(I refused to consider option c) The chef brings me another failed, hardly-recognisable cat. She just doesn't seem like the kind of person who would let that happen to her twice.)

Here's the photo of the failed cat calzone from last time, which, according to my friend, just looks like a pointy calzone with randomly-placed olives and not a deliberate attempt to make a cat:

And here's what the chef brought me this time:

THAT'S A CAT.

I knew it!!!!

And it looks so sad!! This cat calzone looks like it will burst into olive oil tears if you once again fail to identify it as the cat that it is

But I didn't; I was so ready this time. I went "A cat!!!!! It's so cute!" and the chef went like yes!!! I tried to make one last time but it looked weird :(

I said I was pretty sure it was a cat last time and apologised for not bringing it up and she said no, it's my responsibility to make it a decent cat. She also said she was glad I'd come back and ordered another calzone because she was really bothered ("vraiment embêtée") by that first failed attempt, and wondering if I'd noticed an attempt was made (and failed)

That's so relatable. It's like when you make a really embarrassing spelling mistake in a text and you're not sure if the other person has seen it and is judging you for it. Should you bring it up? Can it go unnoticed if you don't? It's the cat calzone equivalent of that. I'm so glad we were able to clear the air.

when she says she doesn’t send nudes

lil baby hippo

squishes you :)

squashes you :)

please enjoy the rest of your scroll :>

first day as a second century warlord i have my men tie branches to their horses’ tails to stir up dust and make it look like there’s a lot of us but i forget it just rained so there isn’t any dust and the enemy can clearly see there’s like twenty of us all spread out in a line

I am not vagueposting in bad faith, but I want to followup on a post going around without adding to the post itself and seeming combative. the post is about eating meat from wild animals, and it claims that the majority of harmful pathogens in meat that make humans sick is introduced into processed meat by humans & that E. Coli is only a problem in processed supermarket meats due to contact with human fecal matter. The post states that E. Coli comes from poop—totally correct. But it also emphasizes the role of human fecal contamination, and if you kill a wild deer and eat its meat raw, the risk is comparatively negligible. The post also stated, “wild predators don’t get food poisoning from raw meat” (not true).

This may seem extremely pedantic, but as a wildlife manager & a hunter, I wanna discuss E. Coli and other pathogens connected to meat consumption and how they exist naturally in the wild animals which we (and other predatory mammals) consume.

In fact, wild deer are natural vectors for E. Coli, and wild birds are natural vectors for Salmonella (1) (2)

We can not only contract E. Coli from direct contact with wild deer, but from contact with shared water sources (3) This is by exposure to deer fecal contamination.

Onto the meat: If you hunt a wild deer, you must immediately ‘field dress’ the carcass. Field dressing in this context is the act of removing organs, especially the stomach & intestines, to trigger an immediate decrease in the animal’s body temperature, which buys you time to transport the meat before bacteria grows.

You must be extremely careful to avoid puncturing the stomach and intestines, which would contaminate the meat, because, once again, deer are natural vectors of E. Coli.

It’s also crucial to kill a deer efficiently (not only to ensure minimal suffering to the animal). A gut-shot can contaminate the abdominal cavity, and the animal is likely to live longer after the shot, allowing for a longer contamination period, which increases risk of contracting E. Coli through meat consumption (4)

You could argue that in the end, the contamination is still caused by human error, even if it’s not by human fecal contamination. So let’s talk about non-human species contracting illnesses from eating wild meat.

Someone else on the post supposed that predators such as wolves come into contact with harmful pathogens in the raw meat they eat.

In fact, predators can and do contract diseases in the act of predation.

Harmful pathogens do exist in wild meat untouched by humans, but predators and scavengers can demonstrate a resistance to more serious infections.

One example is predatory mammals contracting Anthrax infections from sick prey animals. Anthrax infection is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, which lives in the soil and infects prey animals, especially grazing ungulates. Predatory mammals can contract Anthrax infections by consuming the meat of infected prey animals.

However, Anthrax infections caused by meat consumption tend to be milder in predatory mammals, with decreased mortality: “Anthrax resistance in predators is not absolute. It manifests itself not as an inability to become infected, but rather as an ability to transfer the disease in a non-lethal or even asymptomatic form.” (5)

So illness-causing pathogens spread by meat consumption do exist in the soil and in wild meat. Predatory mammals have an advantage against infections caused by meat consumption, but not an immunity! 

Another example of predatory mammals contracting a disease by eating wild meat is wolves and bears contracting Brucellosis by consuming infected prey animals (6) (7)

I DO caution against overestimating the danger of food borne pathogens in nonhuman predatory mammals. In Wyoming, some people are sensationalizing the alleged risk of Brucellosis in wolves as a strategy in the age old settler colonial war on wild canids, but there is no proven risk of transmission from wolves in the state (8) I only bring up the infection and wolves to demonstrate that predatory mammals can contract illnesses by consuming wild meat.

Game meat and the hunting of wild animals is extremely important for both nutrition and culture throughout the world. I would caution people against buying into sensationalism about the dangers of ‘bush meat,’ which is often exoticizing and racist.

I do not think we should be any more afraid of eating wild game than we should worry about processed meats. And often there is a distinct advantage to eating wild game. I especially encourage learning about hunting in your region for subsistence and ecological conservation.

So this is all to say, there is inherent risk to eating game meat, much like many other things we eat, and predators do contract illnesses by eating wild meat, but you should be informed, not afraid!

While the risk may be lower than meat processed in factories, there are important safety procedures and protocols to follow to ensure it is consumed safely.

TL;DR: You can, in fact, contract illnesses such as E. Coli from eating wild game. Predatory mammals other than humans do, in fact, contact illnesses from eating raw wild game. BUT don’t worry too much about it! Just know the facts!