Chicago is known for its signature dish: deep dish pizza, which is basically a big round calzone. (To quote Leslie Knope from NBC's Parks and Recreation, "Calzones are pointless. They're just pizza that's harder to eat.") Most of the country is, I think, at least a little intrigued by the concept of a Chicago-style deep dish pizza, but when you get right down to it, most people just want a regular normal pizza.
Turns out the same is true for Chicagoans.
Yes, when residents of Chicago buy pizza, 91% of the time they buy a regular pizza, not a Chicago-style deep dish pizza. 91%!
This statistic is telling in so many ways. I personally always assumed that I was not able to get decent Chicago-style deep dish pizza here in Washington State, which is why they were always kind of gross. In fact, the only place I have ever found actual Chicago-style deep dish pizza here is at Sbarro's, and Sbarro's is pretty terrible all around.
I always thought that if I lived in Chicago they would probably be better (like bagels in New York, or sushi in Japan). But I am starting to think this is not the case. After all, can 91% of Chicagoans be wrong?
As is so often the case, Jon Stewart is way ahead of us on this one. In a recent rant about pizza, he slighted the Chicago-style deep dish as being "not pizza," adding that it was "tomato soup in a bread bowl… I don't know whether to eat it, or throw a coin in and make a wish."
Chicagoans responded with outrage, but the numbers don't lie. Even though Chicago residents may be ready to defend their strange hometown pizza style, only 9% of them are willing to actually eat it.
Image courtesy Flickr/SoStark
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