Two weeks before Super Bowl Sunday in 2021, a few guys in my cellblock invited me to cook pizza with them for the big game. I was asked to buy a bag of chili, a pickle and two packages of ramen noodles. I didn’t understand how these ingredients could make a pizza, but I was game. I had been in jail less than a month and already missed the easy comfort of a pepperoni slice.
We formed a crust by smashing crushed chips and ramen noodles together. Chili and squeezable cheese became our sauce and cheese layers. Diced jalapenos and pickles, sliced summer sausage and ranch dressing topped it all off.
The jail administration even let us stay out past count time to watch the end of the game. I had enough fun to briefly forget my troubles.
Over several years in jail and prison, pizza has become one of my favorite dishes to make. It gives me something to look forward to, tests my culinary creativity and makes me feel more connected to my life before incarceration.
Here’s how some other chefs cook pizza behind bars.
Making do with makeshift ingredients
The canteen at Farmington Correctional Center in Missouri offers three varieties of cheese — cheddar, pepper jack and mozzarella. We have to improvise to shred the blocks. My first cellmate used his state-issued ID to dice tiny bits; my second used a spork. Others invent makeshift graters, cutting slits into the sides of a plastic jar or cross-stitching thread over the top of a hollowed-out peanut butter lid.
Incarcerated cooks get creative with pizza sauce, too. At Farmington, residents can buy a squeezable bottle of slightly sweet pizza sauce, or they can achieve a more concentrated herbal flavor via so-called pizza kits — similar to the Lunchables packages so many kids used to take to school.
Experienced prison chef Ron Shearer, on the other hand, favors the regular, non-spicy picante spaghetti sauce from the canteen, which is just chunky enough to resemble authentic marinara.
Cooking up unique crusts
The crust is often the most innovative part of a prison pizza. Stephen Hensley, known in Farmington for his famous peanut butter fudge, has a special take on pizza too. He smashes iced oatmeal cookies together with ramen noodles and water to make personal pan pizza crusts.
Inspiration for Hensley’s recipe came from a “reunion pizza” he encountered in county jail. Two friends who had previously done time together ended up back in jail on the same cellblock. Though unhappy to be incarcerated again, they celebrated by making a pizza, using vanilla wafers, graham crackers, ramen noodles and nacho cheese tortilla chips.
After he’s made the cookie crust, Hensley tops it off with cheese and pepperoni, jalapeno slices and spicy corn chips. The heat plays off the cinnamon sweetness in the crust. I had never heard of turning cookies into pizza crusts. The hints of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg quickly won me over.
“I like feeding people,” Hensley said.
Pizza is a love language
Patrick C. Anderson first tried prison pizza when an old cellmate promised he had the best recipe, which included tuna, pickles, ranch dressing and honey. It was good, but Anderson, who was enrolled in a culinary arts class before becoming incarcerated, wondered if he could do better. He started experimenting with ingredients, watching the Food Network for inspiration.
“It starts to unfold that there’s hundreds of ways” to make pizza, he said.
Anderson now uses torn-and-smushed bagels to bake a deep dish crust. He sprinkles classic seasonings like butter, garlic and parmesan as well as more eccentric options like taco seasoning or tomato-queso mix atop bagel pieces, pressing them into the dough before baking the crust in a microwave. He makes a slightly sweet version, too, using a cinnamon raisin bagel.
“You learn from your mistakes and get better,” Anderson said. “This is what I’m good at now.”
He sees himself in an ongoing competition with the rest of the prison to make the perfect pizza. But he also cooks as an act of love.
“The feelings come through the food,” he said.