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Comment by codemac | Hacker News Reader

It upsets me this is called "Chicago" when clearly it came from further east - these "working class pizza taverns" being common across Indiana, Ohio, and PA as well. There are plenty of examples of these types of "no I started thin crust and square cut" pizza tavern places everywhere.

And even worse is that I am no historian and I'm probably wrong. But my direct experience contradicts a lot of the Chicago-washing of this article. For example Donato's in Columbus obviously made this style popular across the country far more than Chicago, and they weren't inspired by Vito & Nick's or something.

I bet someone right now is writing an article about how the pizza sandwich served at crappy pizza/bar places in the midwest was invented in Chicago too - even though it was probably independently invented in many locations.

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I actually talked with Jim Ellison who is a historian of Columbus style pizza. He also confirmed the style started in taverns on the south side of Chicago and spread from there, including to Columbus where it took on its own regional differences (particularly swapping sausage for a ton of pepperoni, and using a different style of pan).

We had to cut some bits from the article for length.

Unrelated, but thank you for your excellent articles and YT videos. I'm a big fan and even though my ability to execute these recipes is limited, I learn a lot of techniques from your work that I am able to apply.

Thanks for correcting me! I will hold in my heart that this is chicago-washing, regardless of evidence to the contrary. And Jim Ellison is definitely more knowledgeable than me.

Kenji, I noticed you show up once every few years on HN when your article is posted. How does that happen? Do you set up alerts? Does your publisher let you know or ask you to engage with the comments? Do you read HN any other time? Thanks.

I have a lot of friends (mostly from college) on here who inevitably tell me when something of mine shows up.

Love your YouTube. Need more late night snack povs!

They’re different. Columbus pizzas aren’t as dry in the crusts. Chicago tavern cut crusty edges crumble in one’s mouth. I prefer Columbus’ style, and I think it would do well in Chicago.

I didn't grow up in Chicago but in my experience visiting relatives in the southwest suburbs the thin-crust pizza I ate there (usually Aurelio's) was pretty distinct from other kinds I've eaten in the Great Lakes states. The description other commenters have given of a "cracker" crust is apt. A pizza parlor where I worked in Michigan, for example, had thin pies cut "party-style" but with a much chewier crust.

When I first moved Chicago, I found it weird to run into natives that considered tavern style pizza as also Chicago’s style. In Iowa we just generally consider that the Midwest style pizza but that’s definitely the style preferred by locals for many decades.

Chicago is the Big Apple of the Midwest so I guess they think everything originated from there. But I’m pretty sure tavern style either came from back east, or where I’m from along the Mississippi River.

There are stylistic differences on these tavern thin crust styles across the upper midwest region. When I hear "chicago thin crust" I don't expect it to be 1:1 equivalent w/ columbus style pizza, st louis style pizza, etc. I assume Kenji knows this as well, as for instance I know he's talked about st louis style in the past.

Granted the non-paywall link hasn't loaded for me yet, so for all I know he claims the entire broad-country style was invented in Chicago. In which case, yes I agree with you.

My father was addicted to Totino’s frozen pizza. Originally from Minneapolis in 1950, it was a thin crispy cracker-crust pizza sold widely thru the Midwest. I don’t where it started but it has since spread widely.

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