By Tracy Morin

Call it conditioning: As a PMQ editor for more than 15 years, I’m forever on the lookout for pizza, especially when traveling. The good thing about pizza is that (almost) no matter where you go, you’ll find it! 

Before taking a recent trip to Zanzibar, a group of islands off the coast of Tanzania, I was poking around online for pizza options when I stumbled upon the street food sensation known as “Zanzibar pizza.” Most online information seemed to emphasize that it wasn’t a traditional Italian-style pizza. But it was universally lauded as a delicious concoction—and as customizable as pizza is, with your choice of sweet or savory toppings folded into a delicate dough that’s fried in ghee (clarified butter) atop a tawa (round pan). 

It seemed my best bet for scoring some Zanzibar pizza involved visiting the waterfront night market at Forodhani Gardens on Zanzibar’s main island, Unguja. After a day of wandering the hive-like maze of adjacent Stone Town, I’d worked up an appetite for pizza—an appetite that, let’s face it, never really wanes.

Related: The New York Times sniffs out more amazing pizzerias in the U.S. and beyond

At the market, vendors set up their tables in the light of a setting sun, arranging ingredients for sizzling meat skewers and hearty urojo stew. Local boys somersaulted off the dividing wall into the Indian Ocean. My guide deposited me in front of a man whose menu proclaimed Mr. Mango Salt Pizza. “Anthony Bourdain has been here!” he proudly told me with a wide smile. The cloth banner draped over his table listed, indeed, Bourdain, as well as the BBC, which covered the culinary delicacy and its origins in detail in 2020.

Mr. Mango Salt Pizza (Tracy Morin)

“Farid Hamid…a local historian and cultural expert who often works with Stone Town’s storied Emerson Spice Hotel, said this ‘pizza’ is actually a riff on the keema chapati, a popular Swahili street food from neighbouring Kenya—which, in turn, derived its inspiration from the unleavened flatbreads of India,” the article explained. “And as far as how it got its name: ‘A young guy from [the Zanzibari island of] Pemba [working] at Forodhani was making this old street food recipe but didn’t know how to explain it when people asked, and simply called it pizza.’”

Whether Bourdain or a BBC reporter ate at Mr. Mango Salt in particular, or whether he was merely advertising the fact that they had sampled the food in general—well, that was up for conjecture. But what would any pizza slinger be without the powers of self-promotion? 

The menu listed a range of savory toppings (or fillings): Cheese, tomato, spinach, mushroom, beef, mango, avocado, chicken and octopus were a few possibilities. Sweets like Nutella, starfruit and a Snickers bar were scattered over the table, too. As a vegetarian who prefers savory tastes, I told him to toss in whatever veggies he wanted. (Always trust the chef, right?) 

He grabbed a small ball of dough and whipped up a filling meal in minutes for just a few bucks. The thin, flaky, delicate dough was stuffed with tomato, egg, red onion, green bell pepper and avocado. Though I inhaled the entire thing, served simply on a paper plate and cut into nine squares, it reminded me of a stuffed pita-type dish rather than a pizza per se. 

But if there’s anything I’ve learned at PMQ, it’s that pizza is open to endless interpretations. In fact, that’s one of its greatest assets—part of the reason I can travel thousands of miles and still find something that bears its name. As I ate, a boat sailed by with the words “Life Is Change” painted on its side. So, among those of us for whom pizza is life, I guess pizza can be change, too.

Food & Ingredients