From Hamilton, with love and (cheeseless) pizza

Roma pizza has a cultlike following, with its secret sauce, bakery-fresh crust and unusual toppings - that is, there aren't any - but there is one ingredient that cannot be replicated anywhere else in the world: Hamilton.

Toss a pandemic lockdown into the mix, and devotees of the iconic cheeseless pies are going to extremes to get their fix, ordering from as far away as Alberta, P.E.I. and North Carolina, and paying whatever it takes.

To its fans, the slab pizza made at Roma Bakery and Deli at 233 Barton St. in Stoney Creek is as Hamilton as it gets, for decades a staple at birthday parties and weddings.

The seemingly blasphemous absence of cheese isn't the only quirk: while the bread-style pizza can be heated in an oven or barbecue, it is traditionally served cold.

Sometimes we're a bit dumbfounded by it too, the huge following," says Anthony DiFilippo, one of the family owners of the business, which next year will mark 70 years in the city.

But the product is all handmade, no preservatives or trans fats, it's vegan and healthy."

(Their menu does offer a non-traditional option with pepperoni, presumably for those who skulk in from Toronto.)

He admits that those who first encounter the pizza often don't get it.

But if you grow up in Hamilton - you just know," he says.

Gina Graziano-Turner knows.

The Hamilton native lives 400 kilometres away in Toledo, Ohio, and most years comes home frequently to visit her parents, and indulge in her favourite pizza.

With the border closed, she called up Roma and arranged to have a few slabs shipped to Toledo in time for Christmas Eve dinner, to surprise her American husband and two teenage daughters.

I told my husband you have to try it, and at first he was like, What's this, it's just sauce,' but now he's addicted too," she says.

It cost her $38 for shipping and she kept it in the fridge for two days.

I heated it up in the oven and it was perfect. It was worth it, to have a sense of home, and normalcy ... It brings back memories, of all those pizza days in elementary school; it was always Roma pizza."

Once word got out on Roma's Facebook page that a couple of far-flung orders had been placed during the pandemic, they have shipped slabs out to more than 20 customers who live in places like Charlottetown, Ottawa, Sudbury, Winnipeg, and Virginia.

I think some people just want a slice of home," says DiFilippo. People haven't been able to connect with family; a simple pizza from here, maybe with a birthday message, helps."

Long-distance orders are not a profitable venture for the business, and if anything it has cost them money, but it feels like the right thing to do.

DiFilippo's mother, Evelyn, a retired teacher, has managed the deliveries. She chats with a UPS guy down the street named Louie to get shipping quotes.

Then she boxes the pizzas and drives them to Louie herself; she's very particular," says DiFilippo. And we also send the customer an extra complimentary pizza."

His grandparents, Philip and Pauline DiFilippo, started the bakery in 1952 in the backyard of their home at the corner of Ruth and Case streets, near Barton and Sherman.

As for the magical recipe, he jokes that maybe long ago someone accidentally spilled sauce on a cold crust and Roma pizza was born.

But family lore has it that on a vacation to Italy, his grandfather discovered a local artisan crushing tomatoes straight onto dough, adding spices, baking, and serving it cold. He brought the idea home.

DiFilippo says he has searched and found the recipe done proper in only two other places: Montreal and Rhode Island.

Four years ago, Roma came in second place in a Hamilton Spectator poll of readers for the food that best represents the city, behind Grandad's Donuts, and besting mainstays like Hutch's fish and chips and Tally Ho's roast beef sandwich.

Last spring, as fear and uncertainty over the first wave of COVID-19 raged, the family put Roma's business on hold, which generated messages of support on social media, and they soon returned.

You don't need to sell William Charlong on Roma's charms.

Several months ago, the former east-end resident contacted Evelyn and arranged for three boxes of half-slabs to be shipped to the village where he lives, 230 km north of Calgary.

He has lived there alone with his two dogs since his wife died five years ago, in a house they had renovated to retire in together.

Charlong ate one of the pizzas and put two in the freezer. Perhaps shipping costs were peaking back then, because he says he paid $319 for the delivery, and knows Evelyn tried everything she could to get him a better fee.

She didn't charge him for the food.

It would have been almost cheaper to fly to Hamilton and bring it home," he says, and laughs. But I really wanted it. And I still have one left in the freezer. I'm saving it for a special occasion."

Jon Wells is a Hamilton-based reporter and feature writer for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jwells@thespec.com