The True History of Deep Dish Pizza

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Subtitles: Jose Mendoza | IG @worldagainstjose

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#tastinghistory #pizza #chicago

[TastingHistory]

Share what your favorite style of pizza is here, or vote on the Community Poll! Thank you for viewing, Liking and Subscribing - Max M.

[zaxxon]

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.

[geraldcormeraie]

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!

[VinceFanghella]

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!

[katherinesacks]

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 <3

[natbvm]

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.

[Quatrawinner]

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.

[OkiesIsJekeu]

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 <3

[jerseybob]

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.

[AwkwardBirb]

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

[TraeFreek]

I recently got hearing aids as I am (technically) deaf- this is the very first YouTube 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!

[DoctorStig-vduf]

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.

[stelioeffrena]

I'm an Italian from Italy and I'd like to share a few facts about Italian pizza.

There are 2 styles: Romana style and Napoletana style. Romana style has a very thin crust (around half the thickness of a NY pizza) and is the most widespread in northern Italy while the Napoletana style is 1/2-1 inch thick and is more common in south Italy. We NEVER use garlic in pizza sauce. In fact, I've never seen a pizzeria using a sauce like what was used here; they always use puréed canned tomato. No garlic, no sugar, no herbs in the sauce. The sauce is only canned tomatoes. Oregano or basil can be used on top of the pizza (not in the sauce) and fresh tomatoes can be used as an additional topping.

The way a pizzaiolo (pizza maker) makes a margarita pizza looks like this: takes the fermented dough stored in little balls, rolls it on a counter dusted with flour, puts the canned tomato on top with a ladle, pours some olive oil and shredded mozzarella. To make a pizza other than Margherita, different toppings (like prosciutto crudo, prosciutto cotto, different cheeses, mushrooms, olives, etc) are added.

[paulakpacente]

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!

[das_gruuben]

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."

[candiigurl]

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!

[CraigHocker]

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.

[Lauren.E.O]

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.

[au_barb]

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.

[skeetboopbo]

The constant shots of the onion just sitting in the sauce while it was cooking were incredibly funny for some reason