Pizza in Space … with Gouda cheese???
The Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli is a veteran in space travel, as he was born in Milan in 1957. As it turns out he is the 4th oldest astronaut ever. At the moment he is on his third (and last?) trip to the international space station ISS from which he will return in about a week’s time. After months away from his beloved Italy he began missing his favorite food so much that he decided to order a pizza. And it arrived. Home delivery 2.0! Well, sort of anyway. The ingredients were shipped from earth and the astronauts had to prepare the pizzas themselves. Breaking news all over the world: the first pizza in space! It isn’t his first special occasion on board actually: during his participation in expedition 27, his mother, Maria, died on 4 May 2011. A very sad moment, especially for an Italian son. The crew observed 1 minute of silence the following day around the time of her funeral.
A Dutch treat
But what did the Dutch news say? The cheese used as the topping was Gouda? That can’t be true? What happened to the f*cking mozzarella? And what’s wrong with parmigiano cheese? Why Gouda? Everyone knows which cheese belongs on a real Italian pizza! Or maybe Paolo (as a scientist) was aware of a scientific research carried out in 2014 that showed a mixture of cheeses to be optimal in creating the right structure and colour. One of the extra cheeses was Edam, a Dutch cheese not unlike Gouda. So the pizza the astronauts prepared wasn’t only the first but also the first scientifically approved pizza in space!
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