Fifty years ago this March, dozens of people gathered in Ossineke, Michigan, for one of the strangest funerals in American history. They were there to witness the burial of nearly 30,000 frozen pizzas that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had deemed inedible. The pizzas actually were just fine.
At the center of the "Great Pizza Funeral" was Mario Fabbrini, an Italian immigrant who founded Papa Fabbrini Pizzas after settling in Michigan. In February 1973, Fabbrini heard from officials at the FDA, which was issuing a widespread recall of canned mushrooms after a suspected outbreak of botulism at a canning facility in Ohio. Fabbrini submitted samples of his pizzas to the FDA for testing. When two mice died after eating his pizza samples, Fabbrini was ordered to recall thousands of pies.
