Pictou County Pizza

Before you conclude that this time Norm has really lost it, bear with me for a fun lesson in history, geography, business, and life. It has to do with the unique style of pizza served up in Pictou County, Nova Scotia.

Now, it’s well known that Nova Scotia has unique ways of doing a lot of things, coming from a long and sometimes hard history of the sea and mining and forestry and not always hospitable agriculture. For example, if you ask a Nova Scotian why their Companies Act is markedly different from the laws of other provinces, they will ask you why the laws of the other provinces differ so much from the Companies Act.

Pictou County is all this, and more. Settled over two hundred years ago by Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances) , for generations Pictou County saw itself quite different than most of the rest of Nova Scotia, except perhaps for Cape Breton. To this day it’s not uncommon to see bilingual road signs– English and Gaelic.

So, all that to say that it’s no surprise that the residents of Pictou county make their pizza sauce just a little different from anywhere else. It has a tendency to brown, probably from the inclusion of generous quantities of chicken broth. It’s an acquired taste, but easily acquired.

The Pictou County diaspora is everywhere, but particularly in Halifax, Toronto, and most especially in Fort McMurray. So it’s no surprise that UPS delivers frozen Pictou County pizza to Fort Mac, and the variety is widely available in Halifax. You can get it anywhere in the world if you’re willing to pay the shipping. A commercial success, no question.

There’s a lesson in all this. Instead of being a “Me, too!” product or service, we see a unique varietal from a unique people in a unique place celebrating their uniqueness, and doing well by it. We see that when you proudly do what you do best, there is a market, or a “Need”, ready to pick up what you lay down.

That could be you, you know.