Chicago Tribune Article

[mgraban]

Chicago Tribune news | Registration

Here's a nice article about thin crust pizza, inspired by Italy and Pizzeria Bianco, with some tips for doing pizza at home, even if you don't have a home oven.

Chicago-ans are actually enjoying "real" pizza even though they're still a deep dish market.

[james]

That's a good article. Thanks Mark. I can happily say that Gruppo di Amici has a Forno Bravo and they have had some very good reviews.

Does anybody know what the origins of deep dish pizza are? Is it possible that Sicilians landed there and adapted their type of pizza?

Anybody have a good story for that one?
James

[CanuckJim]

James,

Don't think I ever described my experiences with Sicilian pizza. Used to be that in a riverside town called Manayunk, on the "Skookl" river outside Philadelphia that there were brick ovens built on the backs of some of the row houses (probably quite illegal). The bakers were all Italian, all Sicilian, and they made "hoagie" and cheese steak buns for the local joints. You could drive down the laneway and buy a hunk of thick Sicilian pizza (rectangular pan) for about a quarter right from the baker. On it was tomato sauce and usually oregano. This wasn't actually for sale, but more for the baker's family. My memory of it is that it was very tasty but very unlike the conventional pizzas sold in Philly at the time.

Jim

[jengineer]

Ah thick crust Sicilian Pizza - Take this as an American review of "authentic Sicilian Pizza circa 1990.

"What the heck are little fishes doing in my dough? Daaaad what kinda backwards relatives do you have?"

My impression the "real" stuff sucked. Why? becasue it was nothing like what I grew up with. Yes thick crust was the way to go but you also loaded up the pie deep with sauce, meatballs that were mashed with a fork and then spread all over, then some homemade italian sausage and of course cheese. What I got was thick crust (with anchovies in the dough - bleech) and a very thin almost drizzle of tomatoe sauce and some thin herbal seasoning. Sorry but I just can't get that salty fish taste out of my mind to properly critique my pizza experience. Too bad I was down with full tilt food poisioning from Rome to eat anything in Naples. A good bout with food poisioning during a month long travel is really good, I came back 5 pounds lighter rather than 5 pounds heavier.