Saint Louis versus Chicago #1: Pizza

While on a recent trip to Chicago, and stopping off at a Chicago style pizza place, Giordano's, they had a new item on their menu.  They called it Chicago thin crust style pizza and claimed to be famous for that as well.  They described it as being a thin, cracker like crust, that was generally cut into squares or a pattern called "party cut".

Well, there is an issue with that above statement.  The issue is that I thought that Saint Louis invented the cracker thin crust pizza that was cut into squares called "party cut".  So, Chicago, let's take a look at what the internet can find for us.

I think if we look at where pizzas originated, it would take forever but the pizza that we are familiar with didn't come about, even in Italy, until after 1540 or so.  Tomatoes are native to the Americas and so it could not have gotten to Europe until the Spanish or another country brought it there.  The Italians, Greeks and other cultures had flat bread foods with different toppings, but the tomato or tomato sauce could not have shown up until after the 1500's.  This is the pizza that is important to us and in this search.

The best example of what I can call thin-crust pizza was invented in a restaurant called Aurelio's Pizza in 1959, in Chicago.  It was a thin, cracker-like crust, and had cheese and toppings go all the way to the edges and was cut into squares instead of the normal triangular cuts.

While I still can't find any evidence of the first thin-crust pizza in st. louis or when it was first made, I do know that it has a signature ingredient which was invented solely for the use on st. louis thin crust style pizza.  That ingredient is called Provel.  Provel cheese is a mixture of Chedder, Swiss and Provolone and was trademarked in 1947.  Since it was trademarked in 1947, almost 12 years before the first instance of thin-crust pizza showed up in Chicago, it could be said that St. Louis had the thin crust pizza first.

Some of the pizza chains still around in Saint Louis are Cecil Whittaker's (which was founded in 1983), Imo's (which opened in 1964), Faracis's (which opened in 1968) and Rigazzi's (which opened in 1957).  If restaurants are serving Saint Louis style or thin crust pizza, at least 2 years before Chicago claims to have invented it, then I do believe, that Saint Louis wins this one.

So, Chicago, when you list your thin crust pizza, that has a cracker-like crust, and is cut into squares, please list it as being Saint Louis style.  Thank you.

Road trip to Chicago

Yes, it was a bit since the last blog, but a nice trip to Chicago ran Tuesday's post aground.  We started on Friday afternoon and drove our way all the way there, and it took about 5 hours on Friday.  We drove our way in and ate at what is supposed to be the best of Chicago style pizza pie.  It is also interesting to note that Chicago now serves thin crust pizza.  They still call it Chicago style, even thought it is really St. Louis style. 

It was about 9pm, we got a seat for the seven of us and we ordered.  It took about 45 minutes for our 35 minute order to come to us, which seemed to be entirely our server's fault, considering that the first pizza was pretty warm and not hot at all.

We ordered a Tropical Pizza, which is basically a Hawaiian Pizza and we ordered a veggie one.  I only had time to try the Tropical one and this is why:  I normally do like to eat a lot of food, but my body is not used nor does it like to eat food after 9pm.  I'm one of those old fashioned St. Louis natives where 6pm was dinner time and sometimes it went to 7pm, but that was it.  My wife and I normally have our dinner over by 8 and we are getting the kids to bed by 9 so we are not used to dinners after 9pm.  So, anyways, the pizza came and it was huge.

So, you have a giant pizza that is about 2 inches thick.  How thick was that?  Take a look...

So, what we have here, is a thick slice of pie, that has some pineapple and Canadian bacon on it and lots of cheese.  The crust was actually tasting more like a biscuit dough and didn't have that pizza crush flavor at all.  Call me anything you want, but I wasn't crazy about it.

Later on in the trip, besides many trips to the Hellish Golden Arches, we ate at the fantastic Weber Grill.  We saw the restaurant featured on foot network and we had to go and see for ourselves.  This is what I saw:

The cook's line had your basic setup of fries, oven and steamers for certain things and then had about 5 of these giant grills.  I watched the cook as he would check the computer screen for the next order, make a burger or two and then lift the lid and place it on the grill and close the lid quickly.  The fans over the line were always on, making it a very loud cook's line.  The rest all gathered their foods from a side of the line that was also open to the customers and one stood to expidite orders. 

So, in a grill restaurant what did I pick?  Burgers are the norm so I picked something strange to cook on a grill: meatloaf.

I have no idea how they cooked meatloaf, over a hot grill with flames and left it as juicy and moist as it was.  It was awesome as well.  I gave it a 5 out of 5 as it tasted like your best home made meatloaf but had the wonderful charred flavoring and was just perfect.

So, my thought is that if you are looking to get impressed and have time to enjoy yourself: go to the Weber Grill.

I am so proud of myself...

So, on Friday, Good Friday, I wanted something to eat and the only thing I had in the fridge was some old Pizza Hut pizza and breadsticks, which were stale from 3 days old.  I was thinking about chefs who at their height could come up with a dish out of anything and I wanted to be a chef who could do this.  Chefs who have to sit and work off of recipes or cook the same thing baffle me.  On cooking shows like Chopped or Top Chef, the chefs are asked to come up with new and never before seen dishes.  So you know what they come up with 90% of the time?  Dishes from their restaurant.  If they cook a dish with the secret ingredient of beef, then it shouldn't be a dish from their menu.  That would be like cheating.


Well, what did I make?  Stuffing.  I took the garlic breadsticks and chopped them up.  I then added one chopped up celery stick, one diced onion, 1 egg and some Chervil.  I chopped it all up and added it to a bowl to mix it together.

 

So, I slapped it all in a pan, cooked it at 450 degrees for 20 minutes and out came some tasty bread stuffing/dressing.

That is why I am proud of myself because it tasted so good.  I took a dish, that was likely going to be thrown away and made something delicious out of it.  Try that Iron Chef!  They should have a secret ingredient of "Leftovers" and have whatever food was in the green room before taping.