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18 Things To Know About Deep Dish Pizza

Deep Dish Pizza Day

Pizza lovers far and wide will be making the most of Deep Dish Pizza Day. This is your holiday!

According to Tim Samuelson, Chicago’s official cultural historian, there is not enough documentation to determine with certainty who invented Chicago-style deep-dish pizza. It is often reported that Chicago-style deep-dish pizza was invented at Pizzeria Uno in Chicago, in 1943, by Uno’s founder Ike Sewell, a former University of Texas football star. However, a 1956 article from the Chicago Daily News asserts that Uno’s original pizza chef Rudy Malnati developed the recipe.

This wonderfully tasty pizza, also known as Chicago-style pizza, is characterised by a superb buttery crust that can be as high as 3 inches tall, along with generous amounts of flavoursome sauce, toppings and cheese. On this day, get together with friends or family to visit your favourite pizza restaurant and enjoy a wonderful slice (or more) of cheesy goodness.

  1. In ancient Greece, the Greeks covered their bread with oils, herbs and cheese which some people believe is the beginning of the pizza.
  2. Roughly 1,000 years ago herb-and-spice-covered circles of baked dough grew exceptionally popular in Naples, Italy. Known as focaccia, these rounds were served as an appetizer or a snack.
  3. In Byzantine Greek, the word was spelled “πίτα,” pita, meaning pie. 
  4. A sheet of dough topped with cheese and honey, then flavored with bay leaves was developed by the Romans.
  5. The modern pizza had its beginning in Italy as the Neapolitan flatbread.
  6. The original pizza used only mozzarella cheese, mainly the highest quality buffalo mozzarella variant which was produced in the area surrounding Naples.
  7. It was estimated that the annual production of pizza cheese in the United States in 1997 was 2 billion pounds.
  8. The first United States pizza establishment opened in 1905 in New York’s Little Italy.
  9. Pizza has become one of America’s favorite meals.
  10. In 1830 pizza truly began with the opening of the world’s first pizzeria. Named Port’Alba, the pizzas were cooked in an oven lined with lava from Mount Vesuvius, a volcano located on the Bay of Naples.
  11. In the 1800s, most Italians thought of pizza as a peasant meal. That changed when a baker named Raffaele Esposito created a margarita pizza for visiting royalty. The king and queen were impressed by the colors of the Italian flag represented by the pizza’s white mozzarella cheese, red tomato sauce, and green basil. Pizza became fashionable overnight and was soon a staple in restaurants all across the country.
  12. Americans eat approximately 350 slices of pizza per second
  13. There are approximately 61,269 pizzerias in the United States.
  14. In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi opened the first licensed American pizzeria, Lombardi’s Pizzeria Napoletana, at 53-1/2 Spring Street in New York City.
  15. According to a recent Gallup Poll, kids between the ages of 3 to 11 prefer pizza over all other food groups for lunch and dinner.
  16. Each year, thousands of people involved in the pizza industry attend Pizza Expo, the world’s largest pizza-only trade show. Pizza Expo is held each year in Las Vegas, Nevada.
  17. Regular thin pizza crust is still the most popular crust, preferred by 61 percent of the population. Thick crust and deep dish tied for second, at 14%. Only 11 percent of the population prefers extra thin.
  18. The world’s largest pizza was built on October 11, 1987 by Lorenzo Amato and Louis Piancone. The pizza covered 10,000 square feet and measured 140 feet across. It weighed in at 44,457 pounds, consisting of, among other items, 18,174 pounds of flour, 1,103 pounds of water, 6,445 pounds of sauce, 9,375 pounds of cheese and 2,387 pounds of pepperoni. The pie was cut into 94,248 slices and eaten by more than 30,000 spectators at the baking in Havana, Florida.

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