From the sublime … to the ridiculous.

I read a few months back about the limited-time-only cheeseburger crust pizza that Pizza Hut was selling in the UK, which was called everything from a “horrifying creation” to “a vaguely angry coronary just waiting to happen” to “the perfect meal for those ‘I’ve given up on life’ moments.”

Well, you know what that meant. I knew that while in Brighton for the World Fantasy convention, I had to try one!

I even went to far as to tweet at the Pizza Hut UK Twitter account to make sure that “limited time” didn’t end before I got to their side of the pond for Halloween weekend! And then I scouted out Brighton locations near the con hotel to make sure there was at least one within walking distance. So Saturday, after taking in the Jan Švankmajer exhibit at the University of Brighton, I wandered over to a Pizza Hut and ordered, of all things …

… a veggie cheeseburger crust pizza! Which, I’ll admit, sounds kind of oxymoronic.

I’ve never ordered a veggie pizza before. My go-to pizzas are always either pepperoni (usually extra pepperoni) or meat (you know, the kind with pepperoni and a bunch of other meats―hamburger, ham, etc.). But with those 10 mini-cheeseburgers surrounding the pie, any additional meat seemed as if it would be overkill.

Plus, this way, I could pretend the thing was healthy!

Here, for scale, is a pic of me and the pizza. My waitress was quite amused at the idea a Yank would travel so far just to eat one of those, and be so enthusiastic about it, too.

FYI—I don’t do fast food of any kind as part of my normal life, only seduced when those offerings go rogue, making it a kind of anthropological excursion. You see, I wasn’t eating, I was doing research!

I obviously didn’t finish it—well, at least I hope that was obvious—and brought much of the pie back to the con, where it was distributed among willing victims, including Michael Walsh, Pete Crowther, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman.

But you must be wondering—how was the pizza?

Another admission of my pizza habits—when and if I do buy a chain pizza, my preference is for Little Caesars. I like their crust and sauce more than those offered by any other major corporation. But—and perhaps I’m only saying this because it’s probably been a couple of years since I’ve had pizza, so any pizza would have been welcome—I found the Pizza Hut cheeseburger crust pizza sufficiently tasty—and absurd—to have been worth the eating. So I’m glad I sought it out.

But even gladder that my meal there was bookended by dinners at The Gingerman and Graze!