It’s one of those Friday nights where my brain is imbued with an inevitable thought: I am craving pizza. I trot to my local supermarket and absentmindedly pick up a margherita pizza that looks worthy of an end-of-week dinner, plus a can of Diet Coke for good measure. At the checkout, I have a £5 note at the ready. “That’ll be £7.25 please,” says the server. I begrudgingly tap my card and scurry away. I check the receipt as I leave: the pizza was £5.75.
A trip down the pizza aisle used to be an inexpensive affair. There would be the pale, cardboard-tasting supermarket own-brand pizzas for £1, Pizza Express Sloppy Giuseppes galore and Dr Oetkters stuffed in the freezer section. Being charged more than £3 would have been a punishable offence. You were guaranteed a simple, quick and satisfying meal (even if it wasn’t exactly high in nutritional value). Now, though, ready-meal aisles are filled with luxury, Neapolitan-style sourdough pizzas reminiscent of the Napoli slice that so aroused Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love.
