Communism is alive and slightly delicious.

Cheapness is a mixed bag. Some things are better cheap: tricks, thrills and dirty deeds, for example. Other cheap things give you that sinking feeling that you're getting even less than what you bargained for. Like surgery. Or condoms. In the cases where picking the wrong option can ruin your weekend for the next several decades, paying more means you usually get your money's worth.

There is, however, no good reason to pay more than 15 dollars for a pizza. A 7 dollar pizza can do great things. In order to be twice as good, a 15 dollar pizza should also walk your dog, complement you on your haircut and give you hints on your sudoku - but only if you ask for help.

By that same logic, a cheap pizza should have all the appeal of taking a vacation to death row. But pizza is like love, it's just not rational. When the moon hits your eye like a mixed metaphor, that's pizza. So of course I had to try the Black and Gold pizza. This has the distinction of being the cheapest pizza money can buy (At the foodworks in St. Lucia, assuming nothing else is on sale).

Looking at the box, you get the feeling it might be a holdover from the soviet union. It doesn't have decadent capitalist things like graphic design. HAM AND CHEESE PIZZA. Block letters. Yellow and black. You get the impression that eating this will give you enough calories to be able to work all day at People's glorious number one footwear factory, making boots from lead and dissidents.

Opening the box doesn't reveal any pleasant surprises either. Some swimsuits are called skimpy. This is less than that. You can clearly see the lightly tan parts through the cheese. There isn't much in the way of sauce. You'd get more from accidental cross-contamination.

I should warn you that my taste-test will not be fully objective, because I forgot about the pizza, and it turned out well done. I'm not sure if pizza can catch fire, but I certainly pushed the envelope. Taking all that into account, I'm shocked to say this:

It wasn't bad. It was like pizza-flavored bread, but the pizza flavor tasted like pizza. I would have it again.

And that isn't so much a triumph for the communists, as it is a victory for capitalism. Sure, they can make a decent pizza from nothing but dough, cheese and Marxism, but I have the freedom to eat other, tastier pizzas if I so choose.