Episode 4: Pizza Goes Deep
6/2/202622 min
In episode four of Eating History, hosts Adrienne Cheatham and Stephen Bailey dive into one of pizza’s greatest debates: how did America’s regional pizza styles emerge, and why do people defend them so fiercely? From wartime Chicago to the factories of Detroit, they explore the innovators who transformed pizza from an immigrant tradition into a distinctly American phenomenon. Topics Covered: The origins of Chicago deep dish pizza The partnership that launched Pizzeria Uno How deep dish challenged conventional ideas of what pizza could be The key differences between Chicago and New York pizza The rise of Detroit-style pizza and its automotive roots Regional pizza identities and rivalries across America The growth of pizza franchising and commercialization The tension between preserving tradition and expanding access From deep dish pioneers to Detroit innovators, this episode uncovers the personalities, business decisions, and cultural forces that helped shape America's pizza landscape, and sparked debates that are still raging today.
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First 90 secondsStephen Bailey· Host0:11
[upbeat music] Chicago, December 1943. Here's the scene. Outside, snow swirls down Ohio Street. Wind off Lake Michigan cuts through the city like a knife. It's the kinda cold that makes your lungs ache. But in the basement at number 29, it's warm. Almost too warm. Rick Ricardo stands near a cold oven, flour dusting his forearms, dough stretched across his knuckles. He's an artist and a restaurateur. Owns Ricardo's, a popular restaurant on Rush Street, where Chicago's painters and writers gather. But right now, in this basement that smells like yeast and coal smoke, he's deep in an experiment. Ricardo moved his family into the apartment directly above the basement after returning from a solo trip to Italy. Ricardo grew up in northern Italy, not Naples. Pizza wasn't his thing, but he knows food and business, and for months now he's been experimenting, living upstairs so he can work at all hours. The pizza in his hands doesn't look like anything in New York or Chicago's Little Italy. It's taller. Actually, much taller. He presses dough into a deep