Saturday Matinee: Eating History

History Daily

This episode of 'Eating History' explores the origins and evolution of Chicago-style deep-dish pizza, contrasting it with New York's iconic

Key takeaways

• Chicago deep-dish pizza emerged from a deliberate departure from traditional styles, prioritizing substance over tradition.

Main topics

• Origins of Chicago-style deep-dish pizza

Notable quotes

"This is not pizza time. This is casserole time."

Conclusion

The episode concludes by framing the deep-dish vs. New York pizza debate as

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:07) I have a lot of ideas. Ideas for new episodes, ideas for new seasons, ideas for new shows, ideas for new projects, new tools, ideas everywhere. But ideas are cheap. That's why you can't patent just an idea. You have to actually work it and turn it into something tangible. You can't copyright an idea either. You can write it down, and the expression of that idea is protected, but not the idea itself. Ideas are cheap. So even though I have a lot of ideas, they're all worthless until I act upon them. And here is one that I won't be acting on. Because I like to cook so much and love the rich history behind the food we eat, I've had the idea that I should start a new podcast about the history of food. Maybe I could get a real credentialed chef to co-host. I could be the quote-unquote historical authority, and they can bring their practical in-the-kitchen experience. And then we both enjoy diving into the real history behind some of our favorite foods. But why won't I be pursuing this tasty idea for a new show? Because someone's already done it. On today's Saturday matinee, we're sharing an episode from Eating History. Michelin-starred chef and top chef runner-up Adrienne Cheatham and her history buff husband Stephen Bailey co-host to take us through the people, business decisions, cultural forces, and raging debates behind arguably the world's favorite food, pizza. I hope you enjoy. While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow Eating History. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. Speaker 2 (2:03) Chicago, December 1943. Here's the scene. Outside, snow swirls down Ohio Street. Wind off Lake Michigan cuts through the city like a knife. It's the kind of cold that makes your lungs ache. But in the basement at number 29, it's warm, almost too warm. Rick Ricardo stands near a cold oven, flour dusting his forearms, dough stretched across his knuckles. He's an artist and a restaurateur. owns Ricardo's, a popular restaurant on Rush Street where Chicago's painters and writers gather. But right now in this basement, that smells like yeast and coal smoke. He's deep in an experiment. Ricardo moved his family into the apartment directly above the basement after returning from a solo trip to Italy. Ricardo grew up in northern Italy, not Naples. Pizza wasn't his thing, but he knows food and business, and for months now, he's been experimenting. living upstairs so he can work at all hours. The pizza in his hands doesn't look like anything in New York or Chicago's Little Italy. It's taller, actually much taller. He presses dough into a deep pan, building the crust up the sides like a pie shell. Then he layers it backwards, cheese on the bottom, chunks of cooked sausage, then thick tomato sauce on top. His business partner, Ike Sewell, A smooth-talking Texas liquor salesman thinks pizza should be more substantial. A meal, not a snack. Something worth a higher price. But it's Ricardo down here, night after night, working through what will become a year of experimentation. He slides the heavy pan into the cold oven. 30 minutes, maybe longer. That's not pizza time. That's casserole time. The cast iron radiates heat. Cheese melts from the bottom up. Sauce bubbles and reduces. The crust climbs the sides of the pan, golden and buttery. When it comes out, crust two inches tall, cheese stretching in thick ropes, sauce the color of brick. It doesn't look like anyone else's pizza. And that is exactly the point. In New York, pizza means thin crust in a fold. But Chicago? Chicago's about to do something totally different. Something bigger, something so different that people will argue for the next 80 years about whether it's even pizza at all. This is Eating History, Food That Changed the World, a show about the dishes that spread, evolved, and reshaped culture along the way. I'm Stephen Bailey, a history enthusiast who loves to eat. Speaker 3 (4:43) And I'm Chef Adrienne Cheatham, a food enthusiast who loves to history. This season, we're telling the story of pizza, and this is episode four, Pizza Goes Deep. Okay, well, we just heard about Rick Ricardo. Love. Hate the name, by the way. But he's making something that definitely does not sound like the pizza that we've been talking about for the last three episodes. But before we get to Chicago and the whole deep dish situation, I think we need to pull up again because our listeners need to see what's happening more broadly. When did pizza stop being just one style of pizza with toppings that varied from region to region and start becoming New York style pizza or Chicago style pizza? Speaker 2 (5:31) That's the perfect question for this episode, because by the 1940s and 50s, as we discussed in the last episode, pizza is starting to branch out from New York, and that means different regional identities are forming. I mean, American cities aren't just making pizza anymore. they're kind of creating competing definitions of what pizza is. While there were a number of regional variations, this episode is going to focus on two cities that end up creating the most iconic competitors to what we know of as New York-style pizza. And I promise you that competition will be absolutely fierce. Speaker 3 (6:04) So let's quickly establish what makes New York pizza New York pizza, because you already know about Lombardi's and coal ovens from the last episode. But there's really three key things here. First, thin, pliable crust that you can fold in half lengthwise. Second, it's sold by the slice, eaten standing up or walking. And that's important because the largely working class clientele doesn't have time or money during lunch to buy a whole pizza. Third. It's cooked in coal ovens, 700 to 900 degrees Fahrenheit, which creates that specific char and chew. By the 40s and 50s, this is just what pizza means in New York. Dozens of pizzerias, all solving the same problems the same way. And from a food science perspective, the coal oven temperature is crucial. You need dough with high-protein flour to withstand that heat without burning. And you need it thin enough to cook in two to three minutes. The crust has to stay pliable because it's cooked so fast,