The reason for canned tomatoes is consistency across the seasons. Tomatoes are not naturally available year round in most locations. So while you either use canned, or pizza becomes seasonal.
And it being "created" during/after WWII (1940-1945), I bet a lot of food products were (still) canned - as food could be preserved longer and shipped to the 🇺🇸 Forces (still) abroad. ✌🏻
I’m French, and in the 80s when I was a kid, I asked my Grandparents for pizza for dinner. “Papi” said sure, and dug out a recipe from a 1930s cookbook in Italian he’d bought on a trip to Italy. This pizza was nothing like the pizza that was popular in pizza shops. He made a yeasted, leavened crust, and layered the pie. With a tomato sauce on the bottom, he layered ham, sliced onions, salami, and even boiled egg slices! In the end he topped it with shredded cheese. I always loved his pizza even though it was different than what I expected, and he made it for me for years. It was only after having it again as an adult, I noticed how similar it was to the American concept of deep dish pizza. In Italy, while Neapolitan style has taken over now, previously many places had their own distinct type of pizza. The origins of the deep dish might be a modern version of a northern Italian pizza. Possibly even Piedmont Style!
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but this sounds quite a bit like a Sicilian style pizza - also known as "Detroit" style (because Detroit doesn't know what a Sicily is, I guess). Was the entire crust thick and risen, or did it have distinct, raised pie-crust sides? The former would make it a Sicilian (I would personally classify this as a pan pizza, just a thick one), the latter would make it a general deep dish. Thanks for sharing that rad memory! 👍
I had a pizza like that in both Sicily and Old Town Chicago (near Lincoln Park, not the amusement park). Quite frankly, sliced eggs dusted with paprika was as a topping was amazing.
@@yayhandles ah, the Three Deep Dish Pizzas in the US are Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis, and all three are inspired from Sicilian Pizza. The big distinctions between the three is; St. Louis and Detroit is always in a square or rectangle shaped pan, Chicago can be round or in a square or rectangle pan. The Chicago Style can be in a pan from 8 to 38 inches, or 8x8 to 24x48 inches. The big pans are 'gang' or 'team' pans because it takes at least two people to load them up, get them in the oven and to bang them out (remove from the pan) and were used at bars for 'free pizza' (expensive beer). St. Louis uses Provel Cheese, its different being a mix of white cheddar, swiss and provolone, and you may find pulled pork or BBQ rib meat as a topping. Detroit uses Wisconsin Brick Cheese, and sometimes provolone, either mixed or just one type of cheese. Chicago only uses Mozzarella, but I have encountered Mozz and Provolone mixed or just Provolone.
Canned tomatoes are a staple of pizzerias because they are canned at peak freshness, consistent, and year round, and have become emblematic of the flavour of pizza.
In pre food processor days, one might have wanted the onion flavor but didn't want onion pieces in the sauce. So, leave it whole (same with a whole garlic clove). Now, I think one might process it all together.
1) Your old-timey announcer voice will never fail to make me smile 2) Your new kitchen is BEAUTIFUL! I mean it, I love the colors and that backsplash is so pretty
I love his voice n his delivery is clear, distinct, not heavily accented to render speech indistinct n inaccurately enunciated to make it hard to make out for non Muricans like myself.
I got that stove and they DROPPED IT. Which totaled it. The warranty guys wouldn't touch it. Glad you had better luck. I ended up with a GE monogram and I like it. But I wanted that one 😐
Loved the part about Alice Redmond. One thing i learned growing up in the south. If a little old lady is running the kitchen, the food's bound to be good no matter what. Just can't beat grandma's cooking.
And love how this shows a truth about American cuisine: its a mixture of influences incorporating new at the time (Italian) with necessity and ingenuity (African American)
I recently got hearing aids as I am (technically) deaf- this is the very first RUclips video I’ve ever heard and to say that it is the best thing I could’ve ever hoped to hear would be the understatement of the year!
Kudos for the first guess being the correct and only one, much like the cheese layer in a sandwich to protect the bread from moisture the same logic reapplied. Plus, if you serve soggy crusted pizza 2 or 3 Nana's might fall over onto the floor in shock at such a horror lol
The onion in the sauce (I always cut in half) serves not only as an aromatic but provides sweetness as the onion cooks and releases its sugars. This is how you sweeten a tomato sauce without using sugar!
I use carrot to sweeten tomato sauce. Cut a carrot into large chunks so you can fish it out at the end. It really works. Tip given to me by an old Italian lady :)
I worked a pizza joint for four years, could eat that pizza for 3 square meals a day and still love it. It is a bit of a blend between New York and Chicago (not deep dish) pizza. I never had a compliment better than when an Italian couple came to town. They missed the ferry leaving town and ended up in our little pizza shop. They ate slices and had a good time. Fast forward a year and the same couple came back to town. They planned another trip to the US and brought some friends to our town to, and I quote "Tell people that SOME Americans know how to make pizza."
Whoa, seeing Pizzria Uno and Due featured made me jump! For a few years i was operations manager of an online ordering company in the mid-2000s long before DoorDash and UberEats and we made and hosted online ordering websites for a bunch of restaurants, and I was responsible for the online ordering menus of all locations of Uno Chicago Grill throughout the US, including the two flagship locations Uno and Due which had their own exclusive menus apart from the 'Chicago Grill' restaurants containing all the original menu items of the original stores. That chain was an absolute nightmare for 1 guy to deal with during their quarterly menu 'refreshes' and involved a huge matrix of different items and prices at different levels across different locations that had to be set up to go live all at once without mistakes every 3 months, but it's something I will never forget for the organizational techniques it forced me to adopt and use to this day! Very cool video Max!
@@boomznbladez405 Good stuff! I didn't create the system however, just re-structured the menu and updated the system to be more modular and far easier to manage when it was time to do a full-chain refresh as well as managing the account on a daily basis. They were a pretty good client to deal with for the most part.
Recovering from food poisoning by taking a spontaneous vacation to Italy is both super extra and a great idea. The fact that he *supposedly* wanted to do it during a war…less of a great idea.
Born in 1915, Alice Mae Redmond was trained as a short order cook by her mother, Sarah Lee Murrell, in their hometown of Greenville, Miss. At an unrecalled date in the 1940s (Regas believes it was likely between 1945 and 1948), Redmond moved to Chicago as part of the Great Northern Migration and found work as a chef at Uno. But Redmond discovered she couldn’t properly knead the dough, probably because, Regas posits, the chefs weren’t giving it enough time to proof. He called it the “… rubber band effect. You can’t stretch it-it just goes right back on you.” Instead of allowing the dough to rest, the only other way to make it more pliable was to add fat to it. Redmond’s instincts told her to incorporate elements from her family’s biscuit recipe, and doubled the amount of fat, likely adding olive oil and cream of tartar. Her contribution, which she called her “secret dough conditioner,” is considered to be the final piece in the creation of deep-dish. Sewell opened up Pizzeria Due, and Redmond moved to the new location a block north on Ontario St. Conwell, who started working at Uno in 1950, told Regas that around 1960 Redmond had started moonlighting at Gino’s, a new pizzeria at 930 N. Rush St., making the same dough she had perfected at Uno and brought to Due. Lou Malnati, who was Due’s manager before going on to become one of the biggest names in deep-dish, found out about it and gave Redmond an us-or-them ultimatum. Redmond chose Gino’s and, in 1966, they were able to open a second place, Gino’s East, at 162 E. Superior St. She stayed at Gino’s East until retiring in 1989. Regas pointed out that, wherever Redmond went, the pizza immediately improved. Pizzeria Due was considered to have better pizza than Uno. Redmond’s move to the first Gino’s caused it to become the most popular deep-dish spot in Chicago. Gino’s slowly declined after Gino’s East opened and closed in 2005. And all of this was long before the era of the celebrity chef, where the comings and goings of chefs make headlines. Redmond’s name and her contributions remained largely unknown for decades; people only knew which restaurant had the best deep-dish, and it happened to be wherever she was working at the time. On the eve of her retirement, the Chicago Tribune spotlighted Redmond, who died in 2009. Patricia Tennison called her “sweet” and “soft-spoken,” and also noted the care she took in preparing the pizza. “[She] pats and coaxes-not slaps and splatters-the sauce on the pizzas,” Tennison wrote. “Part of it-her slow, deliberate moves as she arranges the pre-portioned sausage-you can imagine as you dig into a slice of Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.” Maybe her “secret dough conditioner” was simply the care she put into every pizza she made.
I've come to realize how much I enjoy any opportunity Max has to slip into his 1930s newsreel narrator / BW movie gangster accent. Chicago did not disappoint. Peet-za.
In the 1980s, I was working in Chicago. My apartment was a couple of blocks from Pizzeria Uno. We would stop for a deep dish on the way home from work. They also had a refrigerator case in the lobby filled with bake it yourself take out pies. Your video brought back many delicious memories.
hey max, been watching your channel for over a year now and i just wanted to share how your content has been instrumental in helping me keep myself fed-- i suffer from an eating disorder that manifests in multiple ways and one treatment for it has been meal support i.e. eating with other people in person as often as i can. i lived alone last year and was chronically ill and figuring out a lot about myself and the only meal support i could consistently get was with my therapist once or twice a week. watching your videos and your warm, comforting energy helped me feel less lonely, stimulated my appetite and distracted me with special-interest-esque content long enough to get some nutrition in me. your videos are still a go-to when i'm particularly struggling, and when i'm not. so thank you for being my meal support buddy even though you didn't know it. much love from a fellow queer theatre kid
Thank you for sharing that. Maybe the strategy will be able to help me or other neurodivergent people I know who have challenges with eating that sometimes start to go on for too long. The special interest deep dive is an excellent point, and exactly why it might work.
@@victoriahoward8244 on top of just not feeling well because I have an autoimmune disease, and bipolar disorder which makes me manic and makes eating and sleeping difficult. Hope this helps ❣️
Suggestion: Morkovcha, a dish by the Koryo-saram, or ethnic Koreans who were deported by Stalin from the Russian Far East to Central Asia. Their version of kimchi made with carrots since they didn't have access to napa cabbage.
@@michaelwarenycia7588 yes! In Ukraine they're just called "Korean carrots" or "Моркву по-корейськи". They're so easy to make but so tasty. You need a special shredder for the carrots, to make super thin julienne carrots.
@@ZhovtoBlakytniy I never make them myself (I'm still in Ukraine, as a humanitarian volunteer now), but I am happy to eat them if someone else makes them.
Max! I believe the recipe specified canned tomatoes for a reason. It’s common to use canned tomatoes in restaurants (at least today) for sauce due to their consistent quality and quick prep.
Canned tomatoes are the best. It's as simple as that. They are also de-skinned already, so no hassle in getting the skin off. Fresh tomatoes are for salads and such, canned for pizza and stews.
Our grandmother usually used canned tomatoes for pizza and focaccia. 90% of families, during the past used to produce by themselves canned tomatoes ( but in glass container, I don't know how to say it in eng, jar?)
Canned was also the only way to get good tomatoes affordably throughout the year. Can them when the quality is high in season, enjoy them all year long.
I’m from Chicago and have seen so many people talk about deep dish and mentioned every other restaurant except Uno or Due. Thank you for actually doing the research and mentioning an underrated classic restaurant!
Hi Max, I'm of Sicilian heritage, and your "more bread-like" dough is similar to what I remember my aunt's and grandmother making. I don't know anything about Chicago Deep Dish Pizza, but that beauty you pulled out of the oven certainly hit some familiar notes... If that thing were rectangular, and included anchovies... I'm pretty sure it would be very close to what I know as Sicilian Pie. Very interesting, and very delicious!
My husband was born in Chicago and I was born in the suburbs. We both enjoy both deep dish and flat crust pizza. What makes both of them different from most pizza across the U.S. is the SEASONING. In most chain/frozen pizzas the seasoning is non-existent. We moved to Billings, MT. and opened a Chicago pizzeria in 1994. We were open for 15 years and tried to sell the business, but nobody wanted to work as hard as we did so we closed the place. At least twice a month (currently) people ask my husband, "When are you going to make that pizza again?" The answer is "never" because I literally wore my body out and he (at 76) could no longer carry 2 cases of #10 cans of tomatoes anymore than fly to the moon. In any event the people who mentioned canned tomatoes are correct. That really is the ONLY way to obtain tomatoes at their peak of ripeness, and to ensure they are sweet---not bitter. We searched for TWO years to get the best tomatoes we could find. Fortunately, we had a distributer who brought them in for us. My favorite pie is Pizzeria Due, and if I had to pin my husband down he'd probably choose Lou Malnati's. Anyway, thanks for showcasing one of our favorite dishes!
I was looking for another Due fan in the comments! I come from the northwest suburbs and though Lou's is my favorite for their crust, there's just something so good about Due's.
Cheese goes on the bottom to avoid a soggy crust! When you've got THAT much sauce, it makes a difference. (The reason a traditional pie crust stands up better to all that wet is, yes, all that butter.) Also, love that sprinkle of oregano. I 😱'ed when oregano wasn't in the initial list of spices! Your new kitchen is beautiful! And, just gotta say... the Great Migration (of free Blacks to the North and esp. Midwest) had a HUGE impact on Chicago history. I'm deeply gratified to learn that a Black woman played a role in the evolution of this most iconic of Chicago dishes, as well. Thank you for acknowledging her, Max.
What I can appreciate about deep dish pizza (Native Chicagoan here) is that if you start with the crust, most restaurants give you enough sauce that you can dip the crust in the sauce and still have enough to eat the rest of the pizza. I know that this is a history about deep dish pizza (so cool) but just for fun you should try Beggars Pizza, Italian Fiesta, Pizza Nova (near Sox Stadium) and Milano's just to name a few. They are great pizza places. They are best known for thin crust or thicker crusted pizzas. Chicago and the surrounding areas have a HUGE pizza culture. Thank you for the history lesson! Love your videos!
One of my favourite things about Max's videos is that he puts an accent on every little article he reads and it makes it seem just that little bit more authentic
You mean the cultural appropriation accent? I agree with you, but you must understand the loony-left made the rules that if he does this he should be canceled. 😢
@@IzzyTheEditor What're you even talking about?? He just changes his style and cadence of voice to read quotes to make them feel more authentic because that's how they would've been written. It's not like he puts on an Indian accent and shakes his head to talk about curry. Not everything needs to be an issue, just enjoy the food content
MAX!!! I hear you got signed for a show, I hope this is true and I'm soooo excited for you! You have such amazing talent in story telling and cooking. Top level research
Honestly, i am not mad about the sponsor, I'm impressed because of how smooth these transitions are. Also, never had a deep dish pizza ever but i might have to try it now.
Italian families have been canning tomatoes (in glass jars) for ages now and using them all year long for everything that needs them. Sometimes they just make huge batches of tomato sauce at once to store and use for as long as they can last.
@@LeeGee If you get good sun, you can grow/can good tomatoes at home with decent volcanic soil. They might not be San Marzano, but they're good and don't have to be shipped from the other side of the planet.
Eh in Italy I find that some restaurants just use straight up stuff you might see in Lidl. Sure the really fancy ones may use brands like Cosi Com'e' but not all pizza tomato was San Marzano DOP.
My in-law-Grandparents are from Italy. Grandfather was a baker at an Italian bakery. His pizza was very thick that took up a whole cookie sheet. A thin layer of sauce was on top. A barley there sprinkle of cheese and sometimes anchovies. For holidays he would make 2 or 3, place them on the bed in the guest room with a big knife. You would go into the room and hack off a piece whenever you wanted.
Years ago I worked in a pizza restaurant where one of the owners was an Italian immigrant. We made that pizza in addition to something similar to NY style pizza. We called the thick kind "Sicilian." We baked the crust (same dough as the NY-style) on sheet trays, then flipped it over before spreading the sauce and cheese.
I don't care if we're not blood. If I walk into the guest room and there's a pizza like that at the foot of my bed, we're family. Then again, I guess that's pretty much how you know you're a part of the family.
exactly. deep dish is like a cultural snapshot of actual Italian and Italian immigrant food that was prevalent in the mid 20th century. just because it's a different format doesn't make it not pizza.
So much of this recipe reminds me of Italian cooking (directly from Italy, as opposed to Italian-American): the canned tomatoes, the light use of garlic, the whole onion thrown into the sauce just for flavor, the simple toppings. It makes sense that Riccardo was born in Italy, and it is so cool to see that influence evolve (HUGE credits to chef Alice Mae Redmond, a black woman from the South!!!) into the classic Italian-American dish we recognize today :)
Totally agree. My Zia Angie would put garlic in the olive oil and then, before she did anything, let that brown and then she would pull it out so it was just basically to flavor the olive oil.
Thank you for sharing this.....being from Chicago, Uno's/Due's are the original deep dish favorites (for our family). Since we have moved across the country (don't get me started on the faux za here), we are often recreating our favorite deep dish pizza at home. Your piece is so very informative and I appreciate it.
WHY THE CHEESE IS ON THE BOTTOM: The first time I heard about a Deep Dish Pizza concept, we can't get Deep Dish in Texas; so we made it ourselves. We learned very quickly, that if you don't put cheese directly on the bottom of the crust, you get tomato flavored goo on the bottom of your pizza. No amount of moving the pan around in the oven, could remedy that wet gooey bottom crust. Oh, our Deep Dish at home, was mostly ground beef and sausage, second place two or three kinds of cheese, and just barely enough sauce to keep the contents from drying out... well, some of us wanted crispier crust which meant less sauce. Italians today, don't like garlic, as much as American Italians love garlic. Finally, I have heard Dave Portenoy [One Bit Pizza Reviews] call Deep Dish: Pie, not casserole. Thanks, again, for teaching me a few new things! I never knew that Deep Dish was a 20th century introduction to our cuisine.
I mean, I'm one of those who don't consider deep dish pizza. It's a pie, while pizza is basically a huge grilled sandwich. There's nothing _wrong_ with deep dish, it's just...I don't call hamburgers hot dogs either. Both are tasty combos of meat in a bun, but they're not the same dish. Besides, plenty of dishes have been exported and then done...differently, to the point it becomes its own thing. I live in a country where our two main national dishes are basically Turkish/Greek foods exported and using different spices. (Edit: By which I mean Sweden - cabbage rolls are basically a very different version of dolmi, and Swedish meat balls are according to legend, at least, originally based on Turkish ones.)
I mean, considering it's basically a pizza themed pie, you could probably avoid that by just blind baking the crust for a few minutes before adding the filling so the bottom gets dried out and won't start drawing liquid from the sauce. Basically the same thing that you would do for a quiche.
"I never knew that Deep Dish was a 20th century introduction to our cuisine." I know! I just realized my grandma was a teenager before Deep dish pizza even existed for all she carried on about it, though interestingly, she always called it Pizza Pie (which I though was "piece of pie" as a small child).
It's driving me crazy! He doesn't explain what happened to it, do they eat it? Does it get smashed? Is there ANY POINT to having a whole onion sitting in the sauce!?
@@MarkEliasGrant Max said the recipe instructs you to remove the onion after the sauce is done cooking, so it's just to add onion flavor to the sauce without giving yourself the ton of extra steps of having to chop the onion, strain it out of the sauce, probably lose way more sauce while doing that, dirty more dishes, etc. Way easier to just lift out a whole onion lol.
It’s not that strange. There’s a tomato sauce recipe by Marcella Hazan where you cut an onion in half and simmer it, cut side down in the sauce, then remove it at the end.
Two things: 1) Love your shirt! And 2) Your sponsor sections are the ONLY sponsorships I actually sit and watch. Normally, "Now a word for our sponsor" is my cue to skip ahead in the video, but you, sir, are a GENIUS at seamlessly weaving your sponsorships into the video, so they always catch me off guard, and I reward that by actually watching the sponsorship.
So many people forget that everyone did not live in California and that cookbooks came with an appendix that showed when fruits and vegetables were in season which for some was only a few weeks and that some recipes could only be made during those periods. Now you can eat berries year round and have watermelon for Christmas and any vegetable is available anytime. Real fresh tomatoes (as opposed to expensive hothouse ones) were a later summer item. Impossible to use them year round in Chicago for a restaurant. And in the Chicago region pizzerias are always busy all the year round.
I was raised by my grandmother and she worked at I think it was Uno. And she made this for me once a month it was a thing we’d make together and that recipe article was in her photo album clip from the paper. This was a pleasant memory and so cool to see it nowadays. I almost completely forgot about it.
Now, in Chicago, the issue is "deep dish" versus "tavern". Tavern-style pizza is a thin crust pizza with sauce and toppings edge-to-edge (primarily sausage, though it's not exclusive) and is cut in a square or party cut. Typically, Chicagoans prefer the tavern style, but it's not like deep dish doesn't have its supporters.
tavern style is what you order on a Friday night for a party with your friends or a family board game night. deep dish is what you get with your relatives who have never been to Lou Malnati's, or when you need to thank your friends for helping you move apartments lmao.
Here in Sweden only Pizza Hut has thick pizzas. The "normal" pizza here is the thin crust type. I think that goes for most of Europe. The most typical topping is ham, though salami pizzas exist as well. Now I speak of real Italian pizzerias. There are also Turks etc that own pizzerias, and they have toppings like kebab.
Good pizza and good explanation Oregano's in Flagstaff Az gets it wrong. Oregano's employees in Flagstaff Az read it, "edge-to-edge" not an inch of burnt dry crust.
You misunderstand chicago pizza culture. There's 3 tiers. I'll start from the "worst" and go to the best. Slices. Chicagoans get slices; much like new york slices, when they need a snack or something for the train or bus home past 2am though sometimes starting as early as midnight. Tavern style. Tavern style; also sometimes called cracker style, is essentially just very very very thin pizza that's covered almost completely in its ingredients, with no general American type crust. It's the lightest of all the pizza options, hence why it's the most preferred most of the time. Deep dish. Deep dish is for special occasions, large hangouts, or to show off the pie to tourists. We LOVE Deep dish as chicagoans, but no healthy human could eat it every day or even every week. It's reserved for special occasions. Pizza styles in Chicago differ depending on the location, time, stomach fullness, and last time since you had a deep dish.
@@RickJuniorO this is exactly it! Deep dish is like steak, a fancy, special occasion food. I don't have much preference between Uno, Lou, or giordano's, just depends on what proportion of crispy/buttery/bready I'm in the mood for, they're all good in their own way, but if you're going to have one pizza when you visit us, it should definitely be a deep dish.
Back in the 50s and 60s there was a movie theater down in the Mission district that had a pizza place that had a Dutch door into the lobby. You could get pizza by the slice or a whole pizza during intermission. The smell of that place was like no other. I still can remember it today.
i do not ever put sugar in tomato sauce, onion or carrot or pumpkin pure to sweeten and reduce acid only. to people who argue sugar lowers the acidity, it doesn't, it just makes it taste less sour. if you want to reduce the acid, add a pinch of baking soda, or replace some of the tomato sauce with pumpkin pure and tomato paste.
I’ve just finished catching up on every single episode; and I think it’s fascinating how much the channel has matured while staying true to form(e of cury). I’ve also taken delivery of not one, but 2 copies of Tasting History, and finally made hardtack (clackclack) which was made easy thanks to the book and video. One thing I think would be interesting would be a deeper dive into Japan’s rich food history with foods such as onigiri and takoyaki.
Max! I’m a Chicagoan! I’ve never responded to a RUclips video, but I’m willing to make an exception. I’ve been watching and loving you for a long time. I’m a Lou’s girl living in Phoenix. I thank God deep dish pizza came to the Great State of Arizona. It is a rivalry between Uno, Giordano’s and Lou Malnati’s that won’t end. Chicago makes the best pizza (PERIOD) I also like paper thin crust. But, thank you for giving Chicago the history it deserves. You presented it perfectly. Thank you ❤
Can I ask-- when did deep dish pizza come to Arizona? I'm an Illinoisan who went to the University of Arizona from 1989-1993, and though I loved it, one thing that *killed* me was that there was no good pizza (or even decent pizza) anywhere in Tucson. :-)
Phoenix has Lou Malnati pizza in the valley. I’m not sure of Tuscon. However, you should be able to find Chicago deep dish in the freezer section at Safeway.
Loving the new kitchen - the colour scheme of dark blue and white looks very soothing. And I fully agree that christening a new oven should involve pizza :)
Grew up in NYC with thin-crust style pizza, but tried deep dish for the first time when I when to college in Maine (early '90s). Pat's Pizza in Lewiston-Auburn, Maine. Blown away!! That was the beginning of my being an foodie craving foreign exotic dishes!
Love the new kitchen! To weigh in on the "is it pizza?" question, as someone who grew up in Chicago my answer is "yes, under an expansive definition of pizza." Anecdotally, when I or my friends or my family wanted pizza, we'd order thin crust Chicago-style pizza. When we wanted deep dish, we'd order deep dish. It sort of occupied a different kind of "use case" than regular pizza while still being pizza by lineage and by ingredients. At the end of the day, I think the arguing is a bit silly, since having an extra possible dimension to pizza (literally, the 3rd dimension) is nice all around. In any case, your pizza looked amazing and I very much appreciated learning the real history behind it!
Here in Italy "Pizza" is/was a very broad and generic term. Nowadays "pizza" usually means the neapolitan Margherita and its variants, but there are a lot if traditional pizzas that have nothing in common with the neapolitan one. For example, here in the towns just south of Rome we have "pizza cresciuta"/"easter pizza", wich is basically a simple sweet cake. What i want to say is that "pizza" is a generic and ill defined term, and that Chicago's deep dish pizza probably descends from a recipe that has nothing to do with neapolitan pizza. It would be interesting to know what is the italian ancestor of Chicago's pizza.
agreed. NY style pizza isn't real pizza either. Ask someone from Naples(origin point of pizza as we know it). The only thing that matters is whether it tastes good to you. Arguing about which thing that isn't a pizza is "real pizza" is silly tribal nonsense, but to be honest, people from NYC are very, very tribal when it comes to anything from their city, so it isn't surprising.
Wow, both a new kitchen (with direct water tap over the stove! Fancy!) and the American version of the pizza rustica (a real thing in Italy, too). Congrats, Max and Jose! And how apt to do an Italian-American recipe and use Smoliv as your accessory Pokemon. 😃
It is funny how every "food crime" is actually made by italians. Making pie and calling it pizza?Italians.Fish with meat?Italians.I wouldn't be surprised if the first person to make pineapple pizza was an italian.
@@sapphireseptember It's for filling up pots while cooking. So you don't have to heft a pot full of water across your kitchen for like, pasta, or for adding more water to account for evaporation in a soup/stew.
Chicago here. Great research! I learned more from this episode than I'd known to this point. We all knew Ike Sewell was just claiming ownership of deep dish and I loved learning about Alice Mae Redmond. As Max noted, most Chicagoans eat Chicago thin crust - and we do so probably 80% of the time - but we enjoy and appreciate our deep dish and stuffed pizza too. And, growing up around Italians and Sicilians, I can tell you that thick crust (a.k.a. pan pizza), which is just thicker dough with regular toppings, is a Sicilian dish that many of my friends' Nonnas made regularly. I sometimes think it may have been the precursor of deep dish because the families I know followed recipes from great-grandparents who were making it long before any of the contemporary restaurants in town were serving deep dish. Thanks again! Heads Up: Steer clear of Uno franchise locations. The original Uno and Due restaurants are good. Uno franchises are not. They're awful. Fun Fact: Sewell did, in fact, get his Mexican restaurant. He opened Su Casa, right around the corner from Due on Ontario Street. It's still in business, although I'm unsure of the current ownership. Surprisingly, I've never eaten there.
I feel so proud to know that a Black woman had a very important culinary experience with the iconic deep dish pizza of Chicago! Wow! Thank you for sharing her story!
@uzx151 because the achievements of black americans and especially black women at the time were scarcely highlighted. even now, plenty of places in america have little access to that information. uplifting black achievements sets great examples for young children who might not have much representation for people like them in their lives.
I'm not a native Chicagoan, but I've lived here for almost fifty years and have eaten all the deep-dish pizzas you've mentioned and enjoyed them all. If you'd like to start an argument among Chicagoans, just state that you prefer deep-dish pizza X over pizza Y, and watch the fireworks begin. Each deep-dish version has its adherents and detractors despite the fact that there is not a lot of significant differences between them. My first deep-dish was at Lou Malnati's, which I still consider the prototypical deep-dish because it was the first one I ever ate. Then I tried Pizzeria Uno's, then Pizzeria Due's, then Giordano's, and then Gino's. Each version had its own advantages, and I finally decided that I didn't have to choose one as my favorite--I decided to appreciate them all for what they are and, as such, I have no favorite. After all, pizza in whatever form is divine and all deep-dish pizzas fall into that category, right? Just don't fall for the myth that Chicagoans usually prefer tavern-style thin crust pizza and eat deep-dish only on special occasions. In my experience, gather some Chicago inhabitants together and say that you'll treat them to pizza, and, inevitably, everyone will advocate for deep-dish pizza.
Not me. I'd rather have no pizza than deep dish, and I was a Chicagoan more than half my life. I rarely heard people advocate for it either, although most of them would eat it.
Dude, you proved yourself wrong in your own comment. You just said "dont believe chicagoans lie, that says they prefer tavern style but only eat/prefer deep dish on special occasions"...and then you said when chicagoans go out together for a celebration they inevitably go for deep dish...well yeah because it's a celebration witg multiple people and a deep dish is about sharing...Chicagoans DO prefer tavern style/thin crust pizza almost always, but a hang out is of course going to consist of a deep dish, unless we're all already full.
@Detson404 pizanos has the worst deep dish/pizza in general, in Chicago. You are literally insane. I've only ever gone there because they do an amazing deal for students on Tuesday nights and a really nice older man works there...otherwise that pizza is literally human feces. The crust alone is like a key lime pie, it's foul.
WRONG! Chicagoan. Wrigleyville before it was Wrigleyville and the Latin Kings and Latin Eagles ran every other block. I like deep-dish, but tavern pizza is my go-to. Always has been. Laurie's. Leona's. LoGablo's. All made a good thin crust.
I'm a pan pizza person. I grew up in Indianapolis and all the mom an pop pizza places did pan pizzas. It wasn't as heavy as Chicago Deep Dish and it wasn't as thin and flimsy as New York style. It's a good middle ground between the two. You don't need a knife and fork to eat it and it will fill you up for those cold mid western winter nights.
All of my immediate family are Chicagoans born and raised. For them deep dish pizza was something you got maybe once a year when family was visiting from out of town but the real pizza they were eating were tavern style with super thin crust and cut into squares. Thanks for the awesome video Max!
With everything going on in the news right now, I'm thankful for the wonderful distraction of Max Miller every Tuesday (and on demand whenever else I need it).
I don't see why people need to argue about this. They're such different dishes, you can like both. It's like arguing which ice cream is better, chocolate or vanilla.
Absolutely! I grew up in Oakland and in the bay area we have both a real great New York style pizza in Arinell's and a fantastic Chicago deep-dish place in Zachary's Unlike if I ever have multiple children: I cannot pick favorites between those two. They are great in their own ways to me!
Agreed. I've very rarely had deep dish pizza simply because it isn't common around here but when I have had it, it was essentially a different food completely. It'd be like comparing pizza to lasagna simply because they both have tomato sauce in them. It's no wonder people have such polarizing views if they're trying to compare the two as the same thing.
Chicagoan here- Pequod's is my favorite by far. You're correct that most locals only eat deep dish when their parents are in town, but I'll go to Pequod's maybe once a year.
Another Chicagoan throwing in my vote for Pequod's. I havent had Lou's, Gino's, or Giordano's in years but I make it a point to go to Pequod's on a date night once in a blue moon
I'm very Happy because my only american real friend (i mean, someone i spent lot of time with, and not just a brief encounter) told me of chicagoan pizza. She was enthusiast of it. The description was a bit confusing because It Is so different from my italian idea of pizza that i thought i was misunderstanding something. Now, after 40 years, i have seen one thanks to you!
In the 1930s, my grandfather was introduced to pizza because he like the bread at the Italian bakery (this is in Medford, Massachusetts). The bakers were "sitting around a flat loaf of bread, about the size of a steering wheel, with cheese and tomatoes on it." He asked to buy one.
Max! I've been waiting for this episode since we talked about it at your Tempe book signing. You did not disappoint! I love Chicago and all its different pizzas. Thank you!
The worst part about Chicago style pizza is the dork who comes out of the woodwork to condescendingly remind you that the locals “don’t eat deep dish, we eat tavern cut,” right as he gets into his Mercedes to drive back to Schaumburg.
@@ramonpizarrowas about to say. This is like the people that call X band sucks and no one likes them. Yet they have millions of records sales. I guess someone likes it.
People hate deep dish because it doesn't look like traditional pizza. And why enjoy a new variation of something when you can be a fanboy about it. I understand some of it is in good fun, but a lot of people really are sad.
It feels surreal to see pictures of my city on Max's video!! Thank you for doing this excellent video on deep dish. I'm on the side of "I eat every pizza in front of me", whether it's stuffed or thin or NYC or traditional. I had no idea about Alice--super cool to know where the iconic deep dish crust comes from. Deserves far more recognition.
European here. I read about it in a video game. I looked it up and it was a real thing. I lookied up for recipes and made it. It was glorious. I invited american friends that had never tried it and they loved it. It is a good dish but I would call it a pie, not a pizza. But yeah it rocks.
I live about 70 miles from Chicago (112 km for our friends outside the USA), and we eat a lot of pizza in our family. Mostly, we have a thinner crust pizza, cut into squares (the cuts look like #). But occasionally, we will get Chicago style deep dish pizza; maybe twice a year. It is delicious, but very heavy, and more of a special occasion thing.
Thanks Max for spotlighting Chicago deep dish! As a Chicagoan (and this goes for Chicagoland area too) yea most times we’re eating Tavern Style which is a thin cracker like crust cut into squares. The corner triangle pieces are the best! Awesome going into the history too. I’m more of a Pequod’s guy but have had good to great pizza from the other places. Also good at pointing out that stuffed and deep dish aren’t exactly the same and people confuse the two. Also just want it to be known that Chicago deep dish is obviously still pizza even if you have to use silverware. That’s how a majority of pizza is eaten in Italy by the way although you can use your hands too
Oh man, I rarely meet a Pizza I don’t like. For commonplace pizza consumption I like the simplicity of a flat pizza, but I also love the heartiness of the deep dish kind every so often. A couple trips to Chicago ago, I stopped to pick up a few frozen-solid deep dishes on my way to the airport going home. Totally worth the hassle!
It's very hearty indeed. In Chicago, the most common pizza to get is a "tavern style" or "cracker style" both the same, they just signifiy that it's super thin, and it's usually square cut. But deep dish is still something we eat quite a bit, just more so on special occasions or big hangouts. A deepdish is always to share after all. And for slices when we need a snack on the train, we got places like rosati's open till 4am.
Can't disagree about pizza. Even the cheap frozen stuff that tastes like cardboard, you know what you're getting before getting it. I once found a brand of super cheap microwavable pizza that actually had the same flavor microwaved as baked in the oven. Bland, but cheap and consistent. Worthwhile when I was poor, sick of ramen, and had crushed red pepper handy.
6:37 imported tinned tomatoes are actually encouraged for pizza made by italians away from italy. you get italian tomatoes imported, tinned, and use those. makes them taste more like the tomatoes from home
As a native Detroiter, I always thought Detroit-style was just regular pizza until I was in my teens. 😂😂 I am biased, but I still think it’s the best! A nice medium between deep-dish and thin crust
As someone born in Chicago, I appreciate this episode. My personal favorite deep dish restaurant was always Giordano's ❤ Thank you Max, love your episodes!
Sorry, but Edwardo's is the best. The one in river north rebranded to Eduardo's Enoteca, a more traditional Italian place, but you can still order the original deep dish, off menu, and it slaps.
Chicago deep dish is a special occasion pizza, it's why it seems so much like a casserole, because it is treated as such. Like a family style meal. Normal everyday pizza in Chicago and our surrounding suburbs is usually tavern style cut/cracker crust. The cut being in a # pattern instead of triangles like a NY slice. You should try that that, it's completely different and much more approachable.
It's my go to taste of home. Too bad pretty much all of the Barnaby's are closed up. Rosati's is close to it but it's a pretty big chain, but good up where I am.
I came here to say this same thing. We get Chicago style deep dish from Lou's maybe 2 or 3 times a year. Otherwise, it's " pizzeria" style, cut with the # pattern, most of the time.
Thank you. That was a very informative twenty-two minutes. No matter how you feel about Deep Dish (not my style), but if you are a true pizza enthusiast, this video is a must watch -From Russian with love!
Been a silent watcher for a few weeks now and after the terrible weather during my vacation last week I had enough time to catch up with all of your videos. Absolutely love the work you do, I have a hard time making my ADHD brain focus on anything but I can literally watch your videos for hours on end. Just ordered your book as well, I’ll admit I’m not much of a cook myself but hey, who doesn’t like looking at pretty pictures of food and reading interesting facts about it 😁
The pizza you made is exactly the kind we have at Papa Del's in Champaign, IL. Bready, buttery, cheese on the bottom, a simple tomato sauce, and typically "dollops" of Italian sausage. It's most like what Unos used to serve. It's also my favorite deep dish anywhere - Chicago has forgotten their roots, gotta come downstate to Champaign!
My dad, a South Sider, always told the story that Rudy Malnati was a partner with Sewell at UNO BEFORE Lou went off to fight in the war, so your stories don’t match. I don’t live in Chicago anymore, so I had to learn how to make it myself and like the stuffed version with sausage, spinach and cheese the best. But I try to get to Uno every time I go back. What I crave more is true Chicago tavern style pizza, there are 1000 places you can get it around town. The flavor is like nothing you can get outside of Chicago. I’ve never even come close to duplicating it at home. It is absolutely worth the 1000 mile drive to Chicago every year, sometimes twice, for pizza, bbq ribs, Italian beef and hot dogs. Thanks for a great video!
I’ve never met a pizza I didn’t like, including deep dish and New York style, but my absolute favorite is the pizza my husband makes every Friday. He starts the sauce cooking on low at breakfast time and just lets it cook down all day, stirring periodically and testing to make sure the spices are right. Definitely want to be patient with your sauce and give it plenty of time to cook down while the flavors meld! (It also makes the house smell fantastic 😁)
This is looking to be a great like always Max, can't wait to watch it. Anyway, think in the future you'd do a recipe like History of Chop Suey ( Chinese American Food) or History of Crab Rangoons/ Tiki Trend Food.
There is so much gatekeeping around pizza. "Deep dish isn't pizza", "Pineapple shouldn't be on pizza", "Pizza needs cheese or it's not pizza", "Pizza needs to be on a wheat-based crust", etc. So unnecessary.
If I ever go to America, there are three cities I will try to visit and they are: Washington DC (for specific historical reasons) then New York City (it has the most amount of friends I have in America & I have to have a pizza & bagel there - I am an HUGE fan of bagels, especially cream cheese, capers & salmon) then finally Chicago because I simply love what it has to offer and I just want to go there. The deep dish has just solidified my desire to go to Chicago because I do love pizza. TBH, I'm fond of architecture, so that's another reason. Max Miller, this is the smoothest video I've seen of yours. It feels as if it lasted only 5 minutes! Bravo! Well done! You only have gotten better with time, Max. ❤
If you haven’t already seen them, I highly recommend the Geoffrey Baer Chicago architecture/history tours here on YT. He’s a producer for the local public television station as well as a volunteer guide for the Architecture Society walking and riverboat tours here in the city. He’s done so many of them, covering all areas in Chicagoland as well as the city itself.
5:28 When I’m making bread, I don’t melt the butter separately, I just add the butter to the scalded milk, it both melts the butter and helps cool the milk faster.
@@Vincent_Beers- But were they done well, with a heavy eye towards being "video friendly" for recording? I imagine there was considerable planning and additional features to accommodate that usage. Much more so than a standard house.
Speaking as a Home Inspector, I really appreciate the colors and style of your new kitchen. The dark blue cabinets, white countertop, and gold fittings is a brilliant and clean combination.
As a native Chicagolandian, I learned a lot from this video. I'm generally not a big fan of Chicago style deep dish, but I do like Uno's version the best. I loved learning about Alice! Of course it was a Black lady making the very best pizza in the city. Of course it was. I'm not even remotely surprised.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Share what your favorite style of pizza is here, or vote on the Community Poll! Thank you for viewing, Liking and Subscribing - Max M.
Oh…it is sacrilegious being from the REAL outside (al caponeville) Chicago to even SAY who is the best. Ya wouldn’t dare…..
Did you happen to stop by Gino’s while hitting ChiTown?
Savage Pizza, Atlanta GA.
Where do I find the community poll?
How about to keep the Pizza theme going. Calzone maybe?
The reason for canned tomatoes is consistency across the seasons. Tomatoes are not naturally available year round in most locations. So while you either use canned, or pizza becomes seasonal.
Specially up north where the season is so short.
I have an incredible deep dish pizza recipe that also uses canned tomatoes.
Here in Norway to make a "proper" pizza you pretty much gotta go with Italian canned tomatoes for even coming close.
And it being "created" during/after WWII (1940-1945), I bet a lot of food products were (still) canned - as food could be preserved longer and shipped to the 🇺🇸 Forces (still) abroad. ✌🏻
Only reliable way to get genuine San Marzano tomatoes.
I’m French, and in the 80s when I was a kid, I asked my Grandparents for pizza for dinner. “Papi” said sure, and dug out a recipe from a 1930s cookbook in Italian he’d bought on a trip to Italy. This pizza was nothing like the pizza that was popular in pizza shops. He made a yeasted, leavened crust, and layered the pie. With a tomato sauce on the bottom, he layered ham, sliced onions, salami, and even boiled egg slices! In the end he topped it with shredded cheese. I always loved his pizza even though it was different than what I expected, and he made it for me for years. It was only after having it again as an adult, I noticed how similar it was to the American concept of deep dish pizza. In Italy, while Neapolitan style has taken over now, previously many places had their own distinct type of pizza. The origins of the deep dish might be a modern version of a northern Italian pizza. Possibly even Piedmont Style!
This is wholesome af
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but this sounds quite a bit like a Sicilian style pizza - also known as "Detroit" style (because Detroit doesn't know what a Sicily is, I guess). Was the entire crust thick and risen, or did it have distinct, raised pie-crust sides? The former would make it a Sicilian (I would personally classify this as a pan pizza, just a thick one), the latter would make it a general deep dish. Thanks for sharing that rad memory! 👍
I had a pizza like that in both Sicily and Old Town Chicago (near Lincoln Park, not the amusement park). Quite frankly, sliced eggs dusted with paprika was as a topping was amazing.
@@yayhandles ah, the Three Deep Dish Pizzas in the US are Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis, and all three are inspired from Sicilian Pizza. The big distinctions between the three is; St. Louis and Detroit is always in a square or rectangle shaped pan, Chicago can be round or in a square or rectangle pan. The Chicago Style can be in a pan from 8 to 38 inches, or 8x8 to 24x48 inches. The big pans are 'gang' or 'team' pans because it takes at least two people to load them up, get them in the oven and to bang them out (remove from the pan) and were used at bars for 'free pizza' (expensive beer). St. Louis uses Provel Cheese, its different being a mix of white cheddar, swiss and provolone, and you may find pulled pork or BBQ rib meat as a topping. Detroit uses Wisconsin Brick Cheese, and sometimes provolone, either mixed or just one type of cheese. Chicago only uses Mozzarella, but I have encountered Mozz and Provolone mixed or just Provolone.
What a great story of closeness with your grandpa. ❤
Canned tomatoes are a staple of pizzerias because they are canned at peak freshness, consistent, and year round, and have become emblematic of the flavour of pizza.
And that you can GET them year round like that... everywhere.
@@NeverlandSystemAngelAnd you can GET 20pounds of them every day at consistent price.
Canned tomatoes are tastier!
I use canned tomatoes all the time, they have great flavor, especially fire roasted ones
@@RangerMan-yv7rl you've never grown your own tomatoes have you?
The constant shots of the onion just sitting in the sauce while it was cooking were incredibly funny for some reason
it was not right...i was hurt watching that :/ cant be right
@@davidkairis9487 Some of the oldest and most traditional recipes use this method
In pre food processor days, one might have wanted the onion flavor but didn't want onion pieces in the sauce. So, leave it whole (same with a whole garlic clove). Now, I think one might process it all together.
Apologies for being that annoying person late replying but I’m drunk as hell right now and I almost cried of laughter when I noticed 🥹😭
1) Your old-timey announcer voice will never fail to make me smile
2) Your new kitchen is BEAUTIFUL! I mean it, I love the colors and that backsplash is so pretty
Yes! That voice is wonderful! 🎉🎉🎉
I love his voice n his delivery is clear, distinct, not heavily accented to render speech indistinct n inaccurately enunciated to make it hard to make out for non Muricans like myself.
I was always trying to figure out what that voice of his reminded me of - then I was rewatching Seinfeld and figured it out. J. Peterman!
I got that stove and they DROPPED IT. Which totaled it. The warranty guys wouldn't touch it. Glad you had better luck. I ended up with a GE monogram and I like it. But I wanted that one 😐
Yes! Thank you, Ed Herlihy!
Loved the part about Alice Redmond. One thing i learned growing up in the south. If a little old lady is running the kitchen, the food's bound to be good no matter what. Just can't beat grandma's cooking.
exactly
Yep cos it’s from the heart and not process crap
This is so true!
So it's really Mississippi style pizza.
And love how this shows a truth about American cuisine: its a mixture of influences incorporating new at the time (Italian) with necessity and ingenuity (African American)
I recently got hearing aids as I am (technically) deaf- this is the very first RUclips video I’ve ever heard and to say that it is the best thing I could’ve ever hoped to hear would be the understatement of the year!
Congrats on the new hearing aids!
I'm really happy for you to have good hearing again!
HELL YEAH DUDE!!! congrats on getting hearing aids!
Happy to hear it, bud.
I don’t know wether that pun was intentional or not, but either way I love it (and thank you!).
I think the purpose of putting the cheese on the bottom is to form a cap and prevent the tomatoes from making the dough soggy.
It’s also so the cheese doesn’t burn during the hotter and longer cook times
@@xodiaqmy family tells pizza places to leave the pizza in a bit longer to brown up the cheese. Heaven is actually covered in darkened cheese.
Kudos for the first guess being the correct and only one, much like the cheese layer in a sandwich to protect the bread from moisture the same logic reapplied. Plus, if you serve soggy crusted pizza 2 or 3 Nana's might fall over onto the floor in shock at such a horror lol
The onion in the sauce (I always cut in half) serves not only as an aromatic but provides sweetness as the onion cooks and releases its sugars. This is how you sweeten a tomato sauce without using sugar!
People really need to listen to the little devil on their shoulder and just add the sugar. It's just evolution, sugar tastes good.
I use carrot to sweeten tomato sauce. Cut a carrot into large chunks so you can fish it out at the end. It really works. Tip given to me by an old Italian lady :)
@@rihardsrozans6920tt
@@rihardsrozans6920No.
I surprisingly don't like pasta sauces or pizza sauce that's sweet, I never add sugar or a sweetener
I worked a pizza joint for four years, could eat that pizza for 3 square meals a day and still love it. It is a bit of a blend between New York and Chicago (not deep dish) pizza.
I never had a compliment better than when an Italian couple came to town. They missed the ferry leaving town and ended up in our little pizza shop. They ate slices and had a good time.
Fast forward a year and the same couple came back to town. They planned another trip to the US and brought some friends to our town to, and I quote "Tell people that SOME Americans know how to make pizza."
That is now one of my favorite stories. Kudos to your time at that pizzeria.
@@TheModdedwarfare3 To quote an overblown quote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
I'm glad that the story made you smile.
Awesome 🤩 ❤
Where is this?
@@Pyxis10 Western Washington.
Whoa, seeing Pizzria Uno and Due featured made me jump! For a few years i was operations manager of an online ordering company in the mid-2000s long before DoorDash and UberEats and we made and hosted online ordering websites for a bunch of restaurants, and I was responsible for the online ordering menus of all locations of Uno Chicago Grill throughout the US, including the two flagship locations Uno and Due which had their own exclusive menus apart from the 'Chicago Grill' restaurants containing all the original menu items of the original stores.
That chain was an absolute nightmare for 1 guy to deal with during their quarterly menu 'refreshes' and involved a huge matrix of different items and prices at different levels across different locations that had to be set up to go live all at once without mistakes every 3 months, but it's something I will never forget for the organizational techniques it forced me to adopt and use to this day! Very cool video Max!
@@exidy-yt shit. I might have ordered from the very system you created and managed. Impressive
Grubhub? I worked a temp job doing exactly that when it was a pilot program.
Amazing job!
But…did ya deliver Gino’s??🤔
@@boomznbladez405 Good stuff! I didn't create the system however, just re-structured the menu and updated the system to be more modular and far easier to manage when it was time to do a full-chain refresh as well as managing the account on a daily basis. They were a pretty good client to deal with for the most part.
3 things i like a lot: history, cooking and listening to someone talk about what they are passionate about. You absolutely killing it!!!
Recovering from food poisoning by taking a spontaneous vacation to Italy is both super extra and a great idea. The fact that he *supposedly* wanted to do it during a war…less of a great idea.
On some Michael Corleone sh*t
Taking a vacation to Italy right smack-dab in the middle of WWII?
No, my friend, the fact that he decided to do it during the war is a bad ass idea
Food poisoning overall ain't fun.
Yeah for an American probably a bad idea
Born in 1915, Alice Mae Redmond was trained as a short order cook by her mother, Sarah Lee Murrell, in their hometown of Greenville, Miss. At an unrecalled date in the 1940s (Regas believes it was likely between 1945 and 1948), Redmond moved to Chicago as part of the Great Northern Migration and found work as a chef at Uno. But Redmond discovered she couldn’t properly knead the dough, probably because, Regas posits, the chefs weren’t giving it enough time to proof. He called it the “… rubber band effect. You can’t stretch it-it just goes right back on you.”
Instead of allowing the dough to rest, the only other way to make it more pliable was to add fat to it. Redmond’s instincts told her to incorporate elements from her family’s biscuit recipe, and doubled the amount of fat, likely adding olive oil and cream of tartar. Her contribution, which she called her “secret dough conditioner,” is considered to be the final piece in the creation of deep-dish.
Sewell opened up Pizzeria Due, and Redmond moved to the new location a block north on Ontario St. Conwell, who started working at Uno in 1950, told Regas that around 1960 Redmond had started moonlighting at Gino’s, a new pizzeria at 930 N. Rush St., making the same dough she had perfected at Uno and brought to Due. Lou Malnati, who was Due’s manager before going on to become one of the biggest names in deep-dish, found out about it and gave Redmond an us-or-them ultimatum.
Redmond chose Gino’s and, in 1966, they were able to open a second place, Gino’s East, at 162 E. Superior St. She stayed at Gino’s East until retiring in 1989. Regas pointed out that, wherever Redmond went, the pizza immediately improved. Pizzeria Due was considered to have better pizza than Uno. Redmond’s move to the first Gino’s caused it to become the most popular deep-dish spot in Chicago. Gino’s slowly declined after Gino’s East opened and closed in 2005. And all of this was long before the era of the celebrity chef, where the comings and goings of chefs make headlines. Redmond’s name and her contributions remained largely unknown for decades; people only knew which restaurant had the best deep-dish, and it happened to be wherever she was working at the time.
On the eve of her retirement, the Chicago Tribune spotlighted Redmond, who died in 2009. Patricia Tennison called her “sweet” and “soft-spoken,” and also noted the care she took in preparing the pizza. “[She] pats and coaxes-not slaps and splatters-the sauce on the pizzas,” Tennison wrote. “Part of it-her slow, deliberate moves as she arranges the pre-portioned sausage-you can imagine as you dig into a slice of Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.”
Maybe her “secret dough conditioner” was simply the care she put into every pizza she made.
Thank you for this. Alice deserves the spotlight.
Great additional information! Thank you!
@@RosemaryBread Love your name!
The unsung Black lady!
A beautiful tribute. Thanks.
I've come to realize how much I enjoy any opportunity Max has to slip into his 1930s newsreel narrator / BW movie gangster accent. Chicago did not disappoint. Peet-za.
In the 1980s, I was working in Chicago. My apartment was a couple of blocks from Pizzeria Uno. We would stop for a deep dish on the way home from work. They also had a refrigerator case in the lobby filled with bake it yourself take out pies. Your video brought back many delicious memories.
Did these also come with good bathroom memories?
@@resto4lifewhat the flip does that mean also don't ask people about their bathroom habits if you don't want to look like a weirdo
@@DiamondDisaster i imagine the pizza would make for some... eventful times. Especially if you consumed a lot
hey max, been watching your channel for over a year now and i just wanted to share how your content has been instrumental in helping me keep myself fed-- i suffer from an eating disorder that manifests in multiple ways and one treatment for it has been meal support i.e. eating with other people in person as often as i can. i lived alone last year and was chronically ill and figuring out a lot about myself and the only meal support i could consistently get was with my therapist once or twice a week. watching your videos and your warm, comforting energy helped me feel less lonely, stimulated my appetite and distracted me with special-interest-esque content long enough to get some nutrition in me. your videos are still a go-to when i'm particularly struggling, and when i'm not. so thank you for being my meal support buddy even though you didn't know it. much love from a fellow queer theatre kid
Thank you for sharing that. Maybe the strategy will be able to help me or other neurodivergent people I know who have challenges with eating that sometimes start to go on for too long. The special interest deep dive is an excellent point, and exactly why it might work.
@@lynn858 it was a great new change of pace for me!
Is it a texture thing, making it difficult for you to eat? Curious nurse here. Thank you for your answer.
@@victoriahoward8244 no, i have an unspecified eating disorder. been through 2 rounds of treatment but still struggle.
@@victoriahoward8244 on top of just not feeling well because I have an autoimmune disease, and bipolar disorder which makes me manic and makes eating and sleeping difficult. Hope this helps ❣️
Suggestion: Morkovcha, a dish by the Koryo-saram, or ethnic Koreans who were deported by Stalin from the Russian Far East to Central Asia. Their version of kimchi made with carrots since they didn't have access to napa cabbage.
I can vouch that it's popular in Ukraine today. When I stayed in Ternopil my cousins almost always had some in the fridge.
Looking this one up
@@michaelwarenycia7588 yes! In Ukraine they're just called "Korean carrots" or "Моркву по-корейськи".
They're so easy to make but so tasty. You need a special shredder for the carrots, to make super thin julienne carrots.
@@ZhovtoBlakytniy I never make them myself (I'm still in Ukraine, as a humanitarian volunteer now), but I am happy to eat them if someone else makes them.
I want to see this episode.
Max! I believe the recipe specified canned tomatoes for a reason. It’s common to use canned tomatoes in restaurants (at least today) for sauce due to their consistent quality and quick prep.
They work for me!
Canned tomatoes are the best. It's as simple as that. They are also de-skinned already, so no hassle in getting the skin off. Fresh tomatoes are for salads and such, canned for pizza and stews.
@telebubba5527 Agreed
Our grandmother usually used canned tomatoes for pizza and focaccia.
90% of families, during the past used to produce by themselves canned tomatoes ( but in glass container, I don't know how to say it in eng, jar?)
Canned was also the only way to get good tomatoes affordably throughout the year. Can them when the quality is high in season, enjoy them all year long.
I’m from Chicago and have seen so many people talk about deep dish and mentioned every other restaurant except Uno or Due. Thank you for actually doing the research and mentioning an underrated classic restaurant!
I went to visit in 07 Uno was the my first and favorite. I thought it was close to the stadium?
Hi Max, I'm of Sicilian heritage, and your "more bread-like" dough is similar to what I remember my aunt's and grandmother making. I don't know anything about Chicago Deep Dish Pizza, but that beauty you pulled out of the oven certainly hit some familiar notes... If that thing were rectangular, and included anchovies... I'm pretty sure it would be very close to what I know as Sicilian Pie. Very interesting, and very delicious!
Sicilian pizza, especially it's crust, is completely different so, no, in fact it would be absolutely different than a Sicilian pan pizza.
Look up Detroit style pizza
My husband was born in Chicago and I was born in the suburbs. We both enjoy both deep dish and flat crust pizza. What makes both of them different from most pizza across the U.S. is the SEASONING. In most chain/frozen pizzas the seasoning is non-existent. We moved to Billings, MT. and opened a Chicago pizzeria in 1994. We were open for 15 years and tried to sell the business, but nobody wanted to work as hard as we did so we closed the place. At least twice a month (currently) people ask my husband, "When are you going to make that pizza again?" The answer is "never" because I literally wore my body out and he (at 76) could no longer carry 2 cases of #10 cans of tomatoes anymore than fly to the moon.
In any event the people who mentioned canned tomatoes are correct. That really is the ONLY way to obtain tomatoes at their peak of ripeness, and to ensure they are sweet---not bitter. We searched for TWO years to get the best tomatoes we could find. Fortunately, we had a distributer who brought them in for us. My favorite pie is Pizzeria Due, and if I had to pin my husband down he'd probably choose Lou Malnati's. Anyway, thanks for showcasing one of our favorite dishes!
I was looking for another Due fan in the comments! I come from the northwest suburbs and though Lou's is my favorite for their crust, there's just something so good about Due's.
@@sarahrabin1842- I agree!
I've never before read a RUclips video comment that literally FORCED my brain to switch to a thick Chicago accent mid way through reading it. Bravo!
@@jarodmasci3445- We've been gone over 31 years and I never lost my accent.
@@paulakpacente Thank you for sharing
Cheese goes on the bottom to avoid a soggy crust! When you've got THAT much sauce, it makes a difference. (The reason a traditional pie crust stands up better to all that wet is, yes, all that butter.) Also, love that sprinkle of oregano. I 😱'ed when oregano wasn't in the initial list of spices!
Your new kitchen is beautiful!
And, just gotta say... the Great Migration (of free Blacks to the North and esp. Midwest) had a HUGE impact on Chicago history. I'm deeply gratified to learn that a Black woman played a role in the evolution of this most iconic of Chicago dishes, as well. Thank you for acknowledging her, Max.
Is there any part of America that black people haven’t made immeasurably better? Music, art, dance, PIZZA?👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
@@dannork1240 Crime statistics? I dunno, I'm not an American.
@@dannork1240 all of it
What I can appreciate about deep dish pizza (Native Chicagoan here) is that if you start with the crust, most restaurants give you enough sauce that you can dip the crust in the sauce and still have enough to eat the rest of the pizza. I know that this is a history about deep dish pizza (so cool) but just for fun you should try Beggars Pizza, Italian Fiesta, Pizza Nova (near Sox Stadium) and Milano's just to name a few. They are great pizza places. They are best known for thin crust or thicker crusted pizzas. Chicago and the surrounding areas have a HUGE pizza culture. Thank you for the history lesson! Love your videos!
Beggars is my go to drunk food.
One of my favourite things about Max's videos is that he puts an accent on every little article he reads and it makes it seem just that little bit more authentic
I agree. He’s so corny and cheesy it makes him cool. He, himself is very authentic 🤘🏼
You just know he'd be amazing at reading stories to kids
You mean the cultural appropriation accent? I agree with you, but you must understand the loony-left made the rules that if he does this he should be canceled. 😢
@@IzzyTheEditor What're you even talking about?? He just changes his style and cadence of voice to read quotes to make them feel more authentic because that's how they would've been written. It's not like he puts on an Indian accent and shakes his head to talk about curry. Not everything needs to be an issue, just enjoy the food content
@@maxbracegirdle9990 Max is my favourite You tube Creator!
MAX!!! I hear you got signed for a show, I hope this is true and I'm soooo excited for you! You have such amazing talent in story telling and cooking. Top level research
The blue-green cupboards, brass fittings, Mario background hills-like tiles.
*chefs kiss*
OH. EM. GEE! I *swear* I hadn’t read this before I posted my comment! I guess great minds really do think alike lol!!!
Honestly, i am not mad about the sponsor, I'm impressed because of how smooth these transitions are. Also, never had a deep dish pizza ever but i might have to try it now.
A lot of Italian restaurants DO use canned tomatoes, but they need to be good quality San Marzano tomatoes.
Italian families have been canning tomatoes (in glass jars) for ages now and using them all year long for everything that needs them. Sometimes they just make huge batches of tomato sauce at once to store and use for as long as they can last.
@@ZhovtoBlakytniy In Spain my family does the same, Im sure its the best way to get the best tomatoes
@@LeeGee
If you get good sun, you can grow/can good tomatoes at home with decent volcanic soil.
They might not be San Marzano, but they're good and don't have to be shipped from the other side of the planet.
Eh in Italy I find that some restaurants just use straight up stuff you might see in Lidl. Sure the really fancy ones may use brands like Cosi Com'e' but not all pizza tomato was San Marzano DOP.
Did a San Marzano salesman tell you that?
My in-law-Grandparents are from Italy. Grandfather was a baker at an Italian bakery. His pizza was very thick that took up a whole cookie sheet. A thin layer of sauce was on top. A barley there sprinkle of cheese and sometimes anchovies. For holidays he would make 2 or 3, place them on the bed in the guest room with a big knife. You would go into the room and hack off a piece whenever you wanted.
That sounds more like my mother's pizza!
Great story!🎉🎉🎉
Years ago I worked in a pizza restaurant where one of the owners was an Italian immigrant. We made that pizza in addition to something similar to NY style pizza. We called the thick kind "Sicilian." We baked the crust (same dough as the NY-style) on sheet trays, then flipped it over before spreading the sauce and cheese.
I don't care if we're not blood. If I walk into the guest room and there's a pizza like that at the foot of my bed, we're family. Then again, I guess that's pretty much how you know you're a part of the family.
exactly. deep dish is like a cultural snapshot of actual Italian and Italian immigrant food that was prevalent in the mid 20th century. just because it's a different format doesn't make it not pizza.
So much of this recipe reminds me of Italian cooking (directly from Italy, as opposed to Italian-American): the canned tomatoes, the light use of garlic, the whole onion thrown into the sauce just for flavor, the simple toppings. It makes sense that Riccardo was born in Italy, and it is so cool to see that influence evolve (HUGE credits to chef Alice Mae Redmond, a black woman from the South!!!) into the classic Italian-American dish we recognize today :)
Totally agree. My Zia Angie would put garlic in the olive oil and then, before she did anything, let that brown and then she would pull it out so it was just basically to flavor the olive oil.
Thank you for sharing this.....being from Chicago, Uno's/Due's are the original deep dish favorites (for our family). Since we have moved across the country (don't get me started on the faux za here), we are often recreating our favorite deep dish pizza at home. Your piece is so very informative and I appreciate it.
WHY THE CHEESE IS ON THE BOTTOM: The first time I heard about a Deep Dish Pizza concept, we can't get Deep Dish in Texas; so we made it ourselves. We learned very quickly, that if you don't put cheese directly on the bottom of the crust, you get tomato flavored goo on the bottom of your pizza. No amount of moving the pan around in the oven, could remedy that wet gooey bottom crust.
Oh, our Deep Dish at home, was mostly ground beef and sausage, second place two or three kinds of cheese, and just barely enough sauce to keep the contents from drying out... well, some of us wanted crispier crust which meant less sauce.
Italians today, don't like garlic, as much as American Italians love garlic.
Finally, I have heard Dave Portenoy [One Bit Pizza Reviews] call Deep Dish: Pie, not casserole.
Thanks, again, for teaching me a few new things! I never knew that Deep Dish was a 20th century introduction to our cuisine.
Oh man! Finally a soul that understands that there are actual and deep differences between us and our Americam displaced "cousins"!
I mean, I'm one of those who don't consider deep dish pizza. It's a pie, while pizza is basically a huge grilled sandwich. There's nothing _wrong_ with deep dish, it's just...I don't call hamburgers hot dogs either. Both are tasty combos of meat in a bun, but they're not the same dish. Besides, plenty of dishes have been exported and then done...differently, to the point it becomes its own thing. I live in a country where our two main national dishes are basically Turkish/Greek foods exported and using different spices. (Edit: By which I mean Sweden - cabbage rolls are basically a very different version of dolmi, and Swedish meat balls are according to legend, at least, originally based on Turkish ones.)
I mean, considering it's basically a pizza themed pie, you could probably avoid that by just blind baking the crust for a few minutes before adding the filling so the bottom gets dried out and won't start drawing liquid from the sauce.
Basically the same thing that you would do for a quiche.
"I never knew that Deep Dish was a 20th century introduction to our cuisine."
I know! I just realized my grandma was a teenager before Deep dish pizza even existed for all she carried on about it, though interestingly, she always called it Pizza Pie (which I though was "piece of pie" as a small child).
The cheese on the bottom will avoid all the ingredients to sink on it.
The whole raw onion just sitting in the sauce kills me. Why is it so funny.
"I feel like I forgot something." Suspiciously intact onion:
It's driving me crazy! He doesn't explain what happened to it, do they eat it? Does it get smashed? Is there ANY POINT to having a whole onion sitting in the sauce!?
@@MarkEliasGrant It subtly flavors the sauce. Google “tomato onion butter sauce” and see what you learn.
@@MarkEliasGrant Max said the recipe instructs you to remove the onion after the sauce is done cooking, so it's just to add onion flavor to the sauce without giving yourself the ton of extra steps of having to chop the onion, strain it out of the sauce, probably lose way more sauce while doing that, dirty more dishes, etc. Way easier to just lift out a whole onion lol.
It’s not that strange. There’s a tomato sauce recipe by Marcella Hazan where you cut an onion in half and simmer it, cut side down in the sauce, then remove it at the end.
"Son, there will come a time in your life when you learn to accept all pizza." -Greg Universe
Pineapple on pizza is precisely for such a connoisseur.
Man is a sage
But fortunately it is not this time.
Square pizza?!
Exactly, all pizza deserves love ❤
Two things: 1) Love your shirt! And 2) Your sponsor sections are the ONLY sponsorships I actually sit and watch. Normally, "Now a word for our sponsor" is my cue to skip ahead in the video, but you, sir, are a GENIUS at seamlessly weaving your sponsorships into the video, so they always catch me off guard, and I reward that by actually watching the sponsorship.
Please give us a kitchen tour, looks lovely!
So many people forget that everyone did not live in California and that cookbooks came with an appendix that showed when fruits and vegetables were in season which for some was only a few weeks and that some recipes could only be made during those periods. Now you can eat berries year round and have watermelon for Christmas and any vegetable is available anytime. Real fresh tomatoes (as opposed to expensive hothouse ones) were a later summer item. Impossible to use them year round in Chicago for a restaurant. And in the Chicago region pizzerias are always busy all the year round.
With the new blue lower cabinets, and the blue in Max's shirt, it really brings out his eyes, I'd honestly never noticed they were blue before.
And the pop of red❤in his plaid shirt really brings out that blue! 😊
Max is a handsome dude but i didn't realise his eyes are blue!
He knows what he’s doing 😉
Stop that! You put Max's eyes back in this second!
How do you look at this fine human and not notice his eyes?
I was raised by my grandmother and she worked at I think it was Uno. And she made this for me once a month it was a thing we’d make together and that recipe article was in her photo album clip from the paper. This was a pleasant memory and so cool to see it nowadays. I almost completely forgot about it.
Now, in Chicago, the issue is "deep dish" versus "tavern". Tavern-style pizza is a thin crust pizza with sauce and toppings edge-to-edge (primarily sausage, though it's not exclusive) and is cut in a square or party cut. Typically, Chicagoans prefer the tavern style, but it's not like deep dish doesn't have its supporters.
tavern style is what you order on a Friday night for a party with your friends or a family board game night. deep dish is what you get with your relatives who have never been to Lou Malnati's, or when you need to thank your friends for helping you move apartments lmao.
Here in Sweden only Pizza Hut has thick pizzas. The "normal" pizza here is the thin crust type. I think that goes for most of Europe. The most typical topping is ham, though salami pizzas exist as well. Now I speak of real Italian pizzerias. There are also Turks etc that own pizzerias, and they have toppings like kebab.
Good pizza and good explanation Oregano's in Flagstaff Az gets it wrong. Oregano's employees in Flagstaff Az read it, "edge-to-edge" not an inch of burnt dry crust.
You misunderstand chicago pizza culture. There's 3 tiers. I'll start from the "worst" and go to the best. Slices. Chicagoans get slices; much like new york slices, when they need a snack or something for the train or bus home past 2am though sometimes starting as early as midnight. Tavern style. Tavern style; also sometimes called cracker style, is essentially just very very very thin pizza that's covered almost completely in its ingredients, with no general American type crust. It's the lightest of all the pizza options, hence why it's the most preferred most of the time. Deep dish. Deep dish is for special occasions, large hangouts, or to show off the pie to tourists. We LOVE Deep dish as chicagoans, but no healthy human could eat it every day or even every week. It's reserved for special occasions. Pizza styles in Chicago differ depending on the location, time, stomach fullness, and last time since you had a deep dish.
@@RickJuniorO this is exactly it! Deep dish is like steak, a fancy, special occasion food. I don't have much preference between Uno, Lou, or giordano's, just depends on what proportion of crispy/buttery/bready I'm in the mood for, they're all good in their own way, but if you're going to have one pizza when you visit us, it should definitely be a deep dish.
Back in the 50s and 60s there was a movie theater down in the Mission district that had a pizza place that had a Dutch door into the lobby. You could get pizza by the slice or a whole pizza during intermission. The smell of that place was like no other. I still can remember it today.
There’s nothing like watching someone talk about a topic they’re deeply passionate about. I always enjoy watching Max geek out about food and history.
i do not ever put sugar in tomato sauce, onion or carrot or pumpkin pure to sweeten and reduce acid only.
to people who argue sugar lowers the acidity, it doesn't, it just makes it taste less sour. if you want to reduce the acid, add a pinch of baking soda, or replace some of the tomato sauce with pumpkin pure and tomato paste.
I’ve just finished catching up on every single episode; and I think it’s fascinating how much the channel has matured while staying true to form(e of cury). I’ve also taken delivery of not one, but 2 copies of Tasting History, and finally made hardtack (clackclack) which was made easy thanks to the book and video. One thing I think would be interesting would be a deeper dive into Japan’s rich food history with foods such as onigiri and takoyaki.
Max! I’m a Chicagoan! I’ve never responded to a RUclips video, but I’m willing to make an exception. I’ve been watching and loving you for a long time. I’m a Lou’s girl living in Phoenix. I thank God deep dish pizza came to the Great State of Arizona.
It is a rivalry between Uno, Giordano’s and Lou Malnati’s that won’t end.
Chicago makes the best pizza (PERIOD) I also like paper thin crust. But, thank you for giving Chicago the history it deserves. You presented it perfectly. Thank you ❤
Can I ask-- when did deep dish pizza come to Arizona? I'm an Illinoisan who went to the University of Arizona from 1989-1993, and though I loved it, one thing that *killed* me was that there was no good pizza (or even decent pizza) anywhere in Tucson. :-)
Phoenix has Lou Malnati pizza in the valley. I’m not sure of Tuscon. However, you should be able to find Chicago deep dish in the freezer section at Safeway.
Loving the new kitchen - the colour scheme of dark blue and white looks very soothing. And I fully agree that christening a new oven should involve pizza :)
Thank you! I’m glad it turned out well on camera.
Grew up in NYC with thin-crust style pizza, but tried deep dish for the first time when I when to college in Maine (early '90s). Pat's Pizza in Lewiston-Auburn, Maine. Blown away!! That was the beginning of my being an foodie craving foreign exotic dishes!
Love the new kitchen! To weigh in on the "is it pizza?" question, as someone who grew up in Chicago my answer is "yes, under an expansive definition of pizza." Anecdotally, when I or my friends or my family wanted pizza, we'd order thin crust Chicago-style pizza. When we wanted deep dish, we'd order deep dish. It sort of occupied a different kind of "use case" than regular pizza while still being pizza by lineage and by ingredients. At the end of the day, I think the arguing is a bit silly, since having an extra possible dimension to pizza (literally, the 3rd dimension) is nice all around. In any case, your pizza looked amazing and I very much appreciated learning the real history behind it!
😂It’s not remotely pizza.
Here in Italy "Pizza" is/was a very broad and generic term. Nowadays "pizza" usually means the neapolitan Margherita and its variants, but there are a lot if traditional pizzas that have nothing in common with the neapolitan one. For example, here in the towns just south of Rome we have "pizza cresciuta"/"easter pizza", wich is basically a simple sweet cake. What i want to say is that "pizza" is a generic and ill defined term, and that Chicago's deep dish pizza probably descends from a recipe that has nothing to do with neapolitan pizza. It would be interesting to know what is the italian ancestor of Chicago's pizza.
agreed. NY style pizza isn't real pizza either. Ask someone from Naples(origin point of pizza as we know it). The only thing that matters is whether it tastes good to you. Arguing about which thing that isn't a pizza is "real pizza" is silly tribal nonsense, but to be honest, people from NYC are very, very tribal when it comes to anything from their city, so it isn't surprising.
Wow, both a new kitchen (with direct water tap over the stove! Fancy!) and the American version of the pizza rustica (a real thing in Italy, too). Congrats, Max and Jose! And how apt to do an Italian-American recipe and use Smoliv as your accessory Pokemon. 😃
I kept wondering what that thing on the wall was! Thought it looked like a tap but it didn't make sense, didn't make sense as a light fitting either!
It really looks amazing!
It is funny how every "food crime" is actually made by italians.
Making pie and calling it pizza?Italians.Fish with meat?Italians.I wouldn't be surprised if the first person to make pineapple pizza was an italian.
@@sapphireseptember It's for filling up pots while cooking. So you don't have to heft a pot full of water across your kitchen for like, pasta, or for adding more water to account for evaporation in a soup/stew.
@@RockMongler I'd never seen one before! Brilliant idea. 😊
Chicago here. Great research! I learned more from this episode than I'd known to this point. We all knew Ike Sewell was just claiming ownership of deep dish and I loved learning about Alice Mae Redmond. As Max noted, most Chicagoans eat Chicago thin crust - and we do so probably 80% of the time - but we enjoy and appreciate our deep dish and stuffed pizza too. And, growing up around Italians and Sicilians, I can tell you that thick crust (a.k.a. pan pizza), which is just thicker dough with regular toppings, is a Sicilian dish that many of my friends' Nonnas made regularly. I sometimes think it may have been the precursor of deep dish because the families I know followed recipes from great-grandparents who were making it long before any of the contemporary restaurants in town were serving deep dish. Thanks again!
Heads Up: Steer clear of Uno franchise locations. The original Uno and Due restaurants are good. Uno franchises are not. They're awful.
Fun Fact: Sewell did, in fact, get his Mexican restaurant. He opened Su Casa, right around the corner from Due on Ontario Street. It's still in business, although I'm unsure of the current ownership. Surprisingly, I've never eaten there.
Man, I love it when you do the advertisement voice, I chuckle every time.
I feel so proud to know that a Black woman had a very important culinary experience with the iconic deep dish pizza of Chicago! Wow!
Thank you for sharing her story!
Why does her skin colour matter?
@@uzx151 Because black people's contributions to history are frequently erased.
@@uzx151 because the loony left can't function if something is not culturally appropriated.
@uzx151 because the achievements of black americans and especially black women at the time were scarcely highlighted. even now, plenty of places in america have little access to that information. uplifting black achievements sets great examples for young children who might not have much representation for people like them in their lives.
I'm not a native Chicagoan, but I've lived here for almost fifty years and have eaten all the deep-dish pizzas you've mentioned and enjoyed them all. If you'd like to start an argument among Chicagoans, just state that you prefer deep-dish pizza X over pizza Y, and watch the fireworks begin. Each deep-dish version has its adherents and detractors despite the fact that there is not a lot of significant differences between them. My first deep-dish was at Lou Malnati's, which I still consider the prototypical deep-dish because it was the first one I ever ate. Then I tried Pizzeria Uno's, then Pizzeria Due's, then Giordano's, and then Gino's. Each version had its own advantages, and I finally decided that I didn't have to choose one as my favorite--I decided to appreciate them all for what they are and, as such, I have no favorite. After all, pizza in whatever form is divine and all deep-dish pizzas fall into that category, right? Just don't fall for the myth that Chicagoans usually prefer tavern-style thin crust pizza and eat deep-dish only on special occasions. In my experience, gather some Chicago inhabitants together and say that you'll treat them to pizza, and, inevitably, everyone will advocate for deep-dish pizza.
Not me. I'd rather have no pizza than deep dish, and I was a Chicagoan more than half my life. I rarely heard people advocate for it either, although most of them would eat it.
Pizanos has a pretty good deep dish as well.
Dude, you proved yourself wrong in your own comment. You just said "dont believe chicagoans lie, that says they prefer tavern style but only eat/prefer deep dish on special occasions"...and then you said when chicagoans go out together for a celebration they inevitably go for deep dish...well yeah because it's a celebration witg multiple people and a deep dish is about sharing...Chicagoans DO prefer tavern style/thin crust pizza almost always, but a hang out is of course going to consist of a deep dish, unless we're all already full.
@Detson404 pizanos has the worst deep dish/pizza in general, in Chicago. You are literally insane. I've only ever gone there because they do an amazing deal for students on Tuesday nights and a really nice older man works there...otherwise that pizza is literally human feces. The crust alone is like a key lime pie, it's foul.
WRONG! Chicagoan. Wrigleyville before it was Wrigleyville and the Latin Kings and Latin Eagles ran every other block.
I like deep-dish, but tavern pizza is my go-to. Always has been. Laurie's. Leona's. LoGablo's. All made a good thin crust.
I'm a pan pizza person. I grew up in Indianapolis and all the mom an pop pizza places did pan pizzas. It wasn't as heavy as Chicago Deep Dish and it wasn't as thin and flimsy as New York style. It's a good middle ground between the two. You don't need a knife and fork to eat it and it will fill you up for those cold mid western winter nights.
All of my immediate family are Chicagoans born and raised. For them deep dish pizza was something you got maybe once a year when family was visiting from out of town but the real pizza they were eating were tavern style with super thin crust and cut into squares. Thanks for the awesome video Max!
With everything going on in the news right now, I'm thankful for the wonderful distraction of Max Miller every Tuesday (and on demand whenever else I need it).
Soooo true! 🍕 🍕 🍕
I don't see why people need to argue about this. They're such different dishes, you can like both. It's like arguing which ice cream is better, chocolate or vanilla.
Absolutely! I grew up in Oakland and in the bay area we have both a real great New York style pizza in Arinell's and a fantastic Chicago deep-dish place in Zachary's
Unlike if I ever have multiple children: I cannot pick favorites between those two. They are great in their own ways to me!
Vanilla
Haven't thought about Neapolitan ice cream in years...or the clowns that would scoop out all of just one flavor.
As a Chicagoan, we love arguing about this in a friendly way! We'll tease each other but it's all love!
Agreed. I've very rarely had deep dish pizza simply because it isn't common around here but when I have had it, it was essentially a different food completely. It'd be like comparing pizza to lasagna simply because they both have tomato sauce in them. It's no wonder people have such polarizing views if they're trying to compare the two as the same thing.
Chicagoan here- Pequod's is my favorite by far. You're correct that most locals only eat deep dish when their parents are in town, but I'll go to Pequod's maybe once a year.
its really is, I have deep dish once every 7 years
Another Chicagoan throwing in my vote for Pequod's. I havent had Lou's, Gino's, or Giordano's in years but I make it a point to go to Pequod's on a date night once in a blue moon
I see cultured people with the Pequod’s! And yea I eat deep dish like 1-2 times a year. But I’ll run through that thin crust 😂
Pequod’s rocks - I bring out of towners there or Unos - normally I like thin crust but out of towners need deep dish 😂
I'm very Happy because my only american real friend (i mean, someone i spent lot of time with, and not just a brief encounter) told me of chicagoan pizza. She was enthusiast of it. The description was a bit confusing because It Is so different from my italian idea of pizza that i thought i was misunderstanding something. Now, after 40 years, i have seen one thanks to you!
In the 1930s, my grandfather was introduced to pizza because he like the bread at the Italian bakery (this is in Medford, Massachusetts). The bakers were "sitting around a flat loaf of bread, about the size of a steering wheel, with cheese and tomatoes on it." He asked to buy one.
Massachusetts has great pizza too no one ever gives us credit but I think mass "bar" pizza is the best.
Max! I've been waiting for this episode since we talked about it at your Tempe book signing. You did not disappoint! I love Chicago and all its different pizzas. Thank you!
I deliver, eventually! Thanks for supporting.
The worst part about Chicago style pizza is the dork who comes out of the woodwork to condescendingly remind you that the locals “don’t eat deep dish, we eat tavern cut,” right as he gets into his Mercedes to drive back to Schaumburg.
Lol that's 90 percent of the comments here
@@ramonpizarrowas about to say.
This is like the people that call X band sucks and no one likes them. Yet they have millions of records sales. I guess someone likes it.
😂😂😂😂
@@mramisuzuki6962Or Yogi Berra talking about a trendy restaurant. "Ah, nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
People hate deep dish because it doesn't look like traditional pizza. And why enjoy a new variation of something when you can be a fanboy about it.
I understand some of it is in good fun, but a lot of people really are sad.
It feels surreal to see pictures of my city on Max's video!! Thank you for doing this excellent video on deep dish. I'm on the side of "I eat every pizza in front of me", whether it's stuffed or thin or NYC or traditional. I had no idea about Alice--super cool to know where the iconic deep dish crust comes from. Deserves far more recognition.
European here. I read about it in a video game. I looked it up and it was a real thing. I lookied up for recipes and made it. It was glorious. I invited american friends that had never tried it and they loved it. It is a good dish but I would call it a pie, not a pizza. But yeah it rocks.
I'd call it casserole
@@Vincent_Beers I'd call it a pie.
I live about 70 miles from Chicago (112 km for our friends outside the USA), and we eat a lot of pizza in our family. Mostly, we have a thinner crust pizza, cut into squares (the cuts look like #). But occasionally, we will get Chicago style deep dish pizza; maybe twice a year. It is delicious, but very heavy, and more of a special occasion thing.
@@abbeymanalli5485 Chicago Tavern style?
@@AlistairGaleYes, it's typically called Tavern Style.
Thanks Max for spotlighting Chicago deep dish! As a Chicagoan (and this goes for Chicagoland area too) yea most times we’re eating Tavern Style which is a thin cracker like crust cut into squares. The corner triangle pieces are the best!
Awesome going into the history too. I’m more of a Pequod’s guy but have had good to great pizza from the other places. Also good at pointing out that stuffed and deep dish aren’t exactly the same and people confuse the two. Also just want it to be known that Chicago deep dish is obviously still pizza even if you have to use silverware. That’s how a majority of pizza is eaten in Italy by the way although you can use your hands too
The middle pieces that are half again the height of cheese as crust are the best part of a tavern pizza IMO
Oh man, I rarely meet a Pizza I don’t like. For commonplace pizza consumption I like the simplicity of a flat pizza, but I also love the heartiness of the deep dish kind every so often. A couple trips to Chicago ago, I stopped to pick up a few frozen-solid deep dishes on my way to the airport going home. Totally worth the hassle!
It's very hearty indeed. In Chicago, the most common pizza to get is a "tavern style" or "cracker style" both the same, they just signifiy that it's super thin, and it's usually square cut. But deep dish is still something we eat quite a bit, just more so on special occasions or big hangouts. A deepdish is always to share after all. And for slices when we need a snack on the train, we got places like rosati's open till 4am.
You can get it mailed to you now!
Can't disagree about pizza. Even the cheap frozen stuff that tastes like cardboard, you know what you're getting before getting it.
I once found a brand of super cheap microwavable pizza that actually had the same flavor microwaved as baked in the oven. Bland, but cheap and consistent. Worthwhile when I was poor, sick of ramen, and had crushed red pepper handy.
6:37 imported tinned tomatoes are actually encouraged for pizza made by italians away from italy. you get italian tomatoes imported, tinned, and use those. makes them taste more like the tomatoes from home
You should do an episode on Detroit-style Pizza and its history. Its got a great crust and interesting industrial origin!
I need to try it!
Detroit style pizza is so tasty!!
@@TastingHistory Little Ceasar's doesn't count.
As a native Detroiter, I always thought Detroit-style was just regular pizza until I was in my teens. 😂😂 I am biased, but I still think it’s the best! A nice medium between deep-dish and thin crust
@@bacare1971What about Pizza Hut's?
As someone born in Chicago, I appreciate this episode. My personal favorite deep dish restaurant was always Giordano's ❤ Thank you Max, love your episodes!
Giordano's with a pitcher of pop! Yes!
It's not the same since he died but Burt's Place is still superior to any of the chains.
giordano's is trash, if you're going to one of the big chains you gotta go lou malnati's
I've never liked Giordano's regular pizza, but their deep-dish is perfect for the days that need it.
Sorry, but Edwardo's is the best. The one in river north rebranded to Eduardo's Enoteca, a more traditional Italian place, but you can still order the original deep dish, off menu, and it slaps.
Chicago deep dish is a special occasion pizza, it's why it seems so much like a casserole, because it is treated as such. Like a family style meal. Normal everyday pizza in Chicago and our surrounding suburbs is usually tavern style cut/cracker crust. The cut being in a # pattern instead of triangles like a NY slice. You should try that that, it's completely different and much more approachable.
I feel like the happy medium is Detroit style pizza.
It's my go to taste of home. Too bad pretty much all of the Barnaby's are closed up. Rosati's is close to it but it's a pretty big chain, but good up where I am.
I came here to say this same thing. We get Chicago style deep dish from Lou's maybe 2 or 3 times a year. Otherwise, it's " pizzeria" style, cut with the # pattern, most of the time.
@@Noisy_Cricketdon’t care for the cheese choices. Jersey tomato pie is better happy medium. It’s essentially fancy Eleo’s Pizza.
@@Noisy_CricketI also love the lore of baking the OG Detroit pizzas in the drip pans from the auto assembly lines
Thank you. That was a very informative twenty-two minutes. No matter how you feel about Deep Dish (not my style), but if you are a true pizza enthusiast, this video is a must watch
-From Russian with love!
The new kitchen is BEAUTIFUL!! CONGRATULATIONS! ❤🎉🎉
Thank you!
Been a silent watcher for a few weeks now and after the terrible weather during my vacation last week I had enough time to catch up with all of your videos. Absolutely love the work you do, I have a hard time making my ADHD brain focus on anything but I can literally watch your videos for hours on end.
Just ordered your book as well, I’ll admit I’m not much of a cook myself but hey, who doesn’t like looking at pretty pictures of food and reading interesting facts about it 😁
00:16 giggidy giggidy
Your comment popped up exactly when he said it and I snarfed coffee all over my phone, damnit! 😂
Lol
The pizza you made is exactly the kind we have at Papa Del's in Champaign, IL. Bready, buttery, cheese on the bottom, a simple tomato sauce, and typically "dollops" of Italian sausage. It's most like what Unos used to serve. It's also my favorite deep dish anywhere - Chicago has forgotten their roots, gotta come downstate to Champaign!
Still cant believe the recipe calls for one big ass onion to just chuck it in, atleast cut it in half 😂😂😂
That reminded me of the Family Guy "every pizza place salad" skit. "First you throw in a whole head of lettuce..."
It looks so comical sitting there in the pot!
To be fair, if they cut the onion it would probably change the flavor because cutting an onion releases the enzymes.
Nope, the point is infusing the flavor without having any of the onion in it
@@jwalster9412this also getting all tge pieces out after cutting it is hopeless
That faucet over the stove is genius
Yeah, a nice pot filler.
Joanna Gaines would be elated
My dad, a South Sider, always told the story that Rudy Malnati was a partner with Sewell at UNO BEFORE Lou went off to fight in the war, so your stories don’t match. I don’t live in Chicago anymore, so I had to learn how to make it myself and like the stuffed version with sausage, spinach and cheese the best. But I try to get to Uno every time I go back. What I crave more is true Chicago tavern style pizza, there are 1000 places you can get it around town. The flavor is like nothing you can get outside of Chicago. I’ve never even come close to duplicating it at home. It is absolutely worth the 1000 mile drive to Chicago every year, sometimes twice, for pizza, bbq ribs, Italian beef and hot dogs. Thanks for a great video!
I’ve never met a pizza I didn’t like, including deep dish and New York style, but my absolute favorite is the pizza my husband makes every Friday. He starts the sauce cooking on low at breakfast time and just lets it cook down all day, stirring periodically and testing to make sure the spices are right. Definitely want to be patient with your sauce and give it plenty of time to cook down while the flavors meld! (It also makes the house smell fantastic 😁)
The lighting/contrast is much better in this video than some older ones, looks great!
This is looking to be a great like always Max, can't wait to watch it. Anyway, think in the future you'd do a recipe like History of Chop Suey ( Chinese American Food) or History of Crab Rangoons/ Tiki Trend Food.
Both on my to do list
@@TastingHistory Awesome
I love both styles of pie, grew up in the Midwest and been to NY several times. They’re both great for different occasions
I love almost any kind of pizza. This episode was great!
I love the new kitchen look!!! So happy for you to have such a lovely place to make my favourite show 😋
Thank you 😊
There is so much gatekeeping around pizza. "Deep dish isn't pizza", "Pineapple shouldn't be on pizza", "Pizza needs cheese or it's not pizza", "Pizza needs to be on a wheat-based crust", etc. So unnecessary.
Unnecessary? No. Pineapple on any style of pizza is a crime.
My hubs made this last night for my bday. It was freaking amazing. Freaking. Amazing. Many thanks for the recipe. 🎉😊
If I ever go to America, there are three cities I will try to visit and they are: Washington DC (for specific historical reasons) then New York City (it has the most amount of friends I have in America & I have to have a pizza & bagel there - I am an HUGE fan of bagels, especially cream cheese, capers & salmon) then finally Chicago because I simply love what it has to offer and I just want to go there.
The deep dish has just solidified my desire to go to Chicago because I do love pizza. TBH, I'm fond of architecture, so that's another reason.
Max Miller, this is the smoothest video I've seen of yours. It feels as if it lasted only 5 minutes! Bravo! Well done!
You only have gotten better with time, Max. ❤
If you haven’t already seen them, I highly recommend the Geoffrey Baer Chicago architecture/history tours here on YT. He’s a producer for the local public television station as well as a volunteer guide for the Architecture Society walking and riverboat tours here in the city. He’s done so many of them, covering all areas in Chicagoland as well as the city itself.
@@kathyastrom1315 I'll go check all that out then!
visit chicago in the summer!
Love from Chicago, Max♥️ Deep Dish is one of my favorite foods to get during Special Occasions
So happy for you about the new kitchen and the new stove! 😊
Thank you!! 😊
@@TastingHistory You're welcome. 😁
5:28 When I’m making bread, I don’t melt the butter separately, I just add the butter to the scalded milk, it both melts the butter and helps cool the milk faster.
That was probably one of the fastest kitchen renovations I've seen.
A month is fast? They can be done in under a week with good planning. I've seen houses built in the time it took to get that kitchen redone.
@@Vincent_Beers- But were they done well, with a heavy eye towards being "video friendly" for recording? I imagine there was considerable planning and additional features to accommodate that usage. Much more so than a standard house.
Haven't seen many?
Put pineapples in a deep dish pizza for ultimate New Yorker rage.
😂
You monster!
You should see how Italians react. 😂
Whenever I see someone speaking Italian on the internet I tell them I'm going to put pineapple on a pizza, they lose their minds lol
@@FortunateXpat please, they don't even put cheese on the entire pizza.
Was up until 2AM reading about the history of Deep Dish. Wake up to this. Scared Max Miller is outside of my window when I sleep.
It takes him more than a day to make his videos, silly!
He could tell you but then he'd have to wake you up.
No just your good spying friend Google
Max Miller knows, don't you worry.
Never be afraid of Max Miller!
Speaking as a Home Inspector, I really appreciate the colors and style of your new kitchen. The dark blue cabinets, white countertop, and gold fittings is a brilliant and clean combination.
Definitely do Pequod's next time you go! It's my favorite of the "newer" deep dish places. Gino's East is my favorite of the traditional ones.
Kitchen looks good dude. Vertical tiles were definitely the right choice.
Thank you 😊
As a native Chicagolandian, I learned a lot from this video. I'm generally not a big fan of Chicago style deep dish, but I do like Uno's version the best.
I loved learning about Alice! Of course it was a Black lady making the very best pizza in the city. Of course it was. I'm not even remotely surprised.
Yes. Not surprised, either. 🩷
Naw dats fuh rill n sheit!
Thank you Max; you always impress me with details and storytelling.