When you grow up in Chicago, you come with a few pizza preferences that others may not understand. Preferences like flavor of the sauce, texture of the dough, thickness of the crust and how slices are cut!
GETTING CHICAGO-STYLE PIZZA THEN
Chicago is definitely known for it’s deep dish pizza. Downtown establishments such as Giordano’s and Lou Malnati’s are legendary, serving some of thee best deep dish pizzas you will ever have. However, if you are from the Windy City, or have spent enough time there to know, the “real” Chicago-style pizza is a thin crisp crust cut into squares. This square-cut pizza preference has become known as Tavern-style.
That’s not what we called it growing up, but here’s a quick history lesson about how square-cuts came to be. From the back of a Home Run Inn box, if you can find one in your local market’s frozen section:
Hometown favorites I remember as a kid included Chesdan’s (when they used to be on Archer just off California, not far from where my Babcia lived), Home Run Inn, Falco’s (who stole the recipe from Home Run Inn I believe) and Palermo’s on 63rd. As we moved west from the Midway Airport area, new favorites were added to the list from Villa Nova’s, Michael Anthony’s, Benny’s, Baldinelli’s and Rosati’s.
Why am I taking you on this trip down pizza’s memory lane?
WANTING CHICAGO-STYLE PIZZA NOW
I now live far away from home and often crave Chicago-style pizza, hot dogs and my absolute favorite, a double-dipped Italian beef sandwich – which could be a whole ‘nother topic. Call me a pizza snob, and maybe I am, but I won’t do Domino’s nor any other low-budget ones like Little Caesar’s, Papa John’s or even Pizza Hut. I will however, do MOD Pizza on occasion. Now MOD is a long way from any original family recipe that was brought over from Italy, but at least it’s a cut above Domino’s and the like.
Without even one authentic Italian pizza place within a 400 mile radius of where I am, MOD is really the only option I have. Plus, I can have it made exactly the way I like it with a crust that is thin and crispy.
My only complaint is how often I ask for it to be cut into SQUARES and then looked at like I’m nuts.
Every time, I have to say, “Seriously, cut it in squares like 1, 2, 3 vertical and 4, 5, 6 horizontal (making visual motions with my hand). They get it right only about 10% of the time! Here’s are some examples.
If someone doesn’t spell it out, they robotically cut it like a pie… New York style I guess. Is this so hard?
Do you think someone was trying to be funny on this visit?
The middle pieces are my favorite, but com’on, this is silly. It’s not rocket science people!
When they “forget” to honor my complicated request, I will often re-cut squares right over top of their pie slices. The result is a Frankenstein-cut hack job, but I don’t care. I WANTED SQAURES DAMN IT.
In my Good/Better/Best system of ranking, sometimes they get close (Good).
And almost there a few times (Better).
But rarely do they get everything exactly right (Best)!
AN EASY SOLUTION
As for most scenarios that support success, consistency is key… and with MOD, consistent they are not.
Yet all it would take, in my opinion, would be to tweak only two things. 1) Pay more attention to detail and 2) add just ONE MORE choice to the Create Your Own custom selection process for HOW a customer would like their pizza cut, New York style or Chicago style!
