The Best Pizza I Ever Had

The best pizza I ever had was in Port Gibson, Mississippi. Yes, that Port Gibson, Mississippi: Pizza Capital of the World, the Southern Sicily, the Marinara Magnolia. When people ask me if I’ve been to Italy, I say, “Yeah. Have you been to Port Gibson?” The name precedes itself and its pizza prowess, and I’m sure you can taste it now—but you’ll have to salivate just a little bit longer.  This was the best pizza I ever had. 

The Journey Begins

If you haven’t visited the Hospitality State in December, then I urge you. My friend, Josh, and I decided on the premier destination as the route for our 500-mile bike tour from Jackson, Mississippi to New Orleans, Louisiana, in the year of our Pizza Lord 2011, because we assumed that the land south of the Mason-Dixon would be warm in the winter. Thanks to an unseasonable cold snap that plunged temperatures a few degrees below what they normally would be in, you know, winter time, we arrived in Mississippi unprepared to take on the delta climate. 

But Mississippi provided! For our frigid fingertips, we had the warming exhaust fumes of semi-trucks barreling past us at 80 miles per hour! For our chilly gams, we had pitbulls chasing us down rural roads to pump the blood! And if you think our cheeks were stiff from the whipping highway winds, you’d be mistaken: it was from the smiles on our big, stupid faces.

Bike Tour Basics

To me, a bike tour is all about that razor’s edge between playfulness and serendipity. Like throwing a bunch of marbles on a wood floor, you want enough to gingerly walk across, but not so few that you catch an errant one and wind up on your ass. Therein, my friends, lies the adventure. I coaxed Josh on his first bike tour with the promise of this very same spirit, and boy did it deliver! And with only sleeping bags and a tarp between us, we had to amp it up and improvise—or have to sleep outside in our new below-freezing bastion of bicycling. As we headed to the day’s destination, Port Gibson, without a plan for the evening, I had a trick up my icy raincoat sleeve that had worked for me in the past. I rang up the local volunteer fire station, and they quizzically and graciously agreed to let us crash there for the night.

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Benvenuto a Port Gibson

Walking into the Port Gibson fire station was like walking onto the set of The Andy Griffith Show. Lone volunteer Jerry reclined with his feet on the desk, half-asleep, half-wondering what the fuck these two city boys were doing biking through Mississippi in the middle of winter. We offered a satisfying, albeit eye-rolling, explanation, and he gestured to our bunks in a small room adjacent to his office and the living space—complete with two tired Laz-E-Boys and a big-screen TV playing what I can only assume was Jerry’s favorite film, The Princess Bride. 

Accommodations? Five stars. Entertainment? Two thumbs up. Next on the docket: Cuisine. We inquired of our local guide, his eyelids quickly closing again, if there was any place to find some food: maybe a spot off the beaten path with some character. Maybe a favorite known only to Port Gibsonites. Didn’t matter how many Michelin Stars, but at least one wouldn’t hurt. Jerry answered instantly that a pizza place just up the street was pretty good. 

“Pretty good.” It twinkled in our ears like a homily. Have you ever heard a better review than that? And this is Jerry we’re talking about. 

That’s Amore

We walked into what appeared to be a cross between a vacant strip mall and a haunted gas station. The dirty windows bathed everything in heavenly twilight, beckoning us to the front counter of the nameless establishment. “One pizza, please!” we said vivaciously to the two apathetic teens. Then we sat and waited for our fare to be prepared. One of our chefs d’cuisine stumbled through operating the toaster oven while the other unsheathed our ‘za upon retrieving it from the freezer. That’s the thing about a classic Port Gibson pizza: you want it stiff to maintain those crisp, cardboard edges; you want it pre-assembled so the ingredients have time to commingle; you want just enough freezer burn to let you know heat had to be applied to extract the flavor. The toaster oven dinged and just like that, our dinner was served. Despite the alluring ambiance, we decided to take it to go.

That evening, we reclined in our Laz-E-Boys after our frigid 100-mile day and caught the end of The Princess Bride. Dinner and a show? And a place to sleep that wasn’t the side of the road? You better believe it! I don’t think Jerry was awake the rest of our fleeting overnighter in Port Gibson. He probably doesn’t remember us—maybe he dreamt the whole thing. But I like to think that hopefully we gave him a story to tell. Because he gave me the best pizza I ever had. 

For more legends from Elliot Matson, head on over to the landing page of the Folklord.

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