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Frozen in Time by Sarah Baird Aswith somany other ultra-convenient foods— instant oatmeal, for example, or cannedsoup— it’seasy totake frozen pizza for granted. Never necessarily anyone’s first choice when craving a pie, but always reliable and at the ready, frozen pizza delivers satisfaction with simplicity: Pluck your pizza of choice from the freezer aisle and you’re already halfway to a slice of cheesy, saucy deliciousness. (No waiting for dough to rise — or a deliveryman to find your house — required.) It might be hard to believe, but inside every tiny, frozen, pepperoni-and-bell-pepper icicle atop your yet-to-thaw pie is a complex history of frozen pizza innovation. There’s the science behind how the pies are able to be frozen in the first place — a method known as “flash-freezing,” which was created by Clarence Birdseye in 1924. There’s a long-standing debate over who first tried to freeze a pizza for greater public consumption. On one side, there’s Joe Bucci, who applied for a patent for a a method for freezing dough in 1950 that would make it less soggy and, thus, ideal for frozen pizza. Another claimant to the “frozen pizza origi- nator” title is Chicagoan Emil De Salvi, who was described in The Chicago Tribune in 1951 as having “…perfected a frozen pizza pie, six fanciful fillings, for the television viewing home trade.” There are still others who believe that frozen pizza was their brainchild, but at some point, it’s not about who was first — it’s about who refined the practice. Below is the story of four crucial moments in frozen pizza history that you can read in less time than it takes to cook a pie — and certainly faster than any delivery pizza could arrive. (I timed it, I swear.) So set your clocks, and let’s get started. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees: The First Lady of Frozen Pizza, Rose Totino It’s difficult, sometimes, to imagine that our favorite brands have actual, down-to-the-letter namesakes: Walt Disney, for instance, or Ben & Jerry founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. But the next time you’re microwaving a plate of Totino’s Pizza Rolls as a midnight snack or scarfing down an entire Totino’s Party Pizza in lieu of a proper dinner (no shame), give a little shout-out to nonna Rose Totino between bites. A second-generation Italian-American from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Rose Totino ( nee Cruciani) was earning 37 cents an hour at a local candy store when she met her future husband, a baker named Jim Totino. Totino quickly showed a knack for baking herself, and after the kind of thin crust pizzas she had grown up eating became a hit with her children and fellow local parents, she and Jim opened a restaurant known as Totino’s Italian Kitchen in 1951. (According to legend, pizza was so rare in those days that she baked a pizza for their loan officer because he had never eaten one.) By 1962, unable to keep up with the demand for pizzas at their brick-and-mortar establishment, the Totinos expanded with full gusto into the frozen pizza business, and by the end of the decade, had become the top-selling frozen pizza in the United States. Eventually, Pillsbury came calling, and in 1975, the Totinos sold their business for a whopping 20-million-dollar deal (which is said to have been negotiated up from $16 million by Rose, who told Pillsbury that “$20 million is God’s will”). The sale, though,

didn’t stop Rose — who had quickly proven herself to have serious business acumen — from being involved in all facets of the frozen pizza business. She became the first female corporate vice president at Pillsbury and worked diligently to help patent the “crisp crust” for Totino’s (the patent was granted in 1979). When Pillsbury acquired the business of fellow Minnesotan Jeno Paulucci — which used an egg roll machine to stuff each piece of dough with, yes, pizza fillings — Rose was quick to help premier this new food — the pizza roll — under the Totino’s brand name. She dressed up in stereotypical nonna Italian garb and appeared in commercials for the company. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Frozen Food Hall of Fame. Both publicly and behind the scenes, Rose Totino was a force to be reckoned with. “I remember my mother traveling from city to city introducing crisp crust nationally on TV and radio. Even though she was petite and stood only 4 feet tall, she would hold her hands high and often repeat her own words on the new pizza carton, ‘Be the best and be generous!’” Rose’s daughter, Bonnie Totino Brenny, told the crowd at her mother’s induction into the Minnesota Inventor’s Hall of Fame in 2008. Today, Totino’s is the second highest grossing frozen pizza company in the United States, selling approximately $380 million worth of pies a year. A particularly hilarious glimpse into Totino’s personality is found in her 1994 obituary, which recalls an invocation Rose delivered at the Pillsbury annual company meeting in 1980: “A deeply religious woman, she thanked the Lord for a long list of things and then stepped away from the lectern. But she had one last thought, and grabbed the microphone to say, ‘Oh, and Lord, I forgot to thank you for crisp crust.’” Set the timer to 20minutes: Schwan’s and the frozen pizza on wheels New York and Chicago might be the cities that initially come to mind when someone mentions locations known for their classic pizza styles, but if frozen pizza had a historical home base, it would be — of all places — Minnesota. After Rose Totino helped to jump-start a national frozen pizza craze, another Minnesota company, Schwan’s, decided to take its convenience a step further by delivering frozen pizzas directly to the consumer’s home. Originally a door-to-door ice cream delivery business that was — and is — known for their distinctive yellow trucks (a muted mustard hue that’s now been trademarked), Schwan’s leapt onto the frozen pizza bandwagon in 1970 by taking out an ad in The Wall Street Journal that read, “Wanted: Frozen Pizza Manufacturer.” This led to the purchase of Schwan’s first toe-dip into the world of frozen pizza, Tony’s, which remains mostly recognizable, to this day, not for its memorable pizza, but

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