Let’s look at all the varieties of things people call pizza. This is not a thread about what constitutes a legitimate pizza. As long as at least two people (hopefully a bit more than that) call something a pizza, then for the purposes of this thread, it is a type of pizza. Provide enough explanation to disambiguate different styles with the same name.
When it comes to toppings, let’s just list each one or any combination just once. We don’t have to repeat every type of pizza with every combination of the possible toppings.
Example: Pepperoni Pizza
That covers every type of pizza with pepperoni on it.
A couple of types to get it started:
Sicilian (New York and Philadelphia style) - Thick doughy crust cooked in a pan.
Party Pizza (a Rhode Island thing) - AKA Pizza Strips, a rectangular pizza, medium thick crust with only tomato sauce, no cheese or toppings, served at room temperature.
For me, a pizza must have 3 basic components: a crust, sauce, and cheese. The two main families are meat and veggie. The former is usually sausage or pepperoni or both. Veggie is usually green peppers or mushrooms or black olives or a combination of all three. Crossovers are allowed; i.e., sausage and green pepper or whatever. After that, I’m leery about what you want me to eat.
A restaurant (not explicitly Italian) where I grew up offers Pizza Squisito. A crust that resembles hardtack, topped with tomato sauce, bacon, fried eggs, onions, parsley, and cheese. Needless to say, that’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten under the name of pizza.
Chicago-style: deep dish, especially the stuffed pizza originated by Pizzeria Uno.
St. Louis-style: very thin cracker-like crust.
I don’t know if it has a proper name but I’ve had a Chicago-style/St. Louis-style hybrid in New Orleans. Very thick around the edge and very thin in the center; they were quite good. ISTR People Magazine voted Mama Rosa’s Little Slice of Italy #7 in the country at some point but I think Katrina put them out of buisiness.
Where do we draw the line between pizza-style other things and other-thing-style pizza? Like, is a pizza bagel a pizza? A pizza Hot Pocket? A pizza steak (cheesesteak with mozzarella and tomato sauce)?
I guess a pizza bagel could be a pizza. The proof is when people call it a pizza. I’m not so sure about pizza bagels in particular, but I don’t ever recall a Hot Pocket or pizza steak being called a pizza. But curse you! Now I want a pizza steak and there is no good version of that around here.
By the mid-1970s, two Chicago chains, Nancy’s Pizza, founded by Rocco Palese,[10] and Giordano’s Pizzeria, operated by brothers Efren and Joseph Boglio, began experimenting with deep-dish pizza and created the stuffed pizza.[11] Palese based his creation on his mother’s recipe for scarciedda, an Italian Easter pie from his hometown of Potenza.[12]Chicago Magazine articles featuring Nancy’s Pizza and Giordano’s stuffed pizza popularized the dish.
Stuffed and deep dish are 2 different things!
According to Tim Samuelson, Chicago’s official cultural historian,[3] there is not enough documentation to determine with certainty who invented Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.[4] It is often reported that Chicago-style deep-dish pizza was invented at Pizzeria Uno in Chicago, in 1943,[5] by Uno’s founder Ike Sewell. However, a 1956 article from the Chicago Daily News asserts that Uno’s original pizza chef Rudy Malnati developed the recipe,[6] and Michele Mohr from the Chicago Tribune reports that Saverio Rosati’s descendants say that the menu is still the same today (including deep-dish) as when Rosati’s Authentic Chicago Pizza opened in 1926.[7]
Thank you! (One can, though, argue that stuffed is a subset of deep dish, but there are restaurants, like Connies, that have both stuffed and deep dish as discrete categories on their menu. It depends on how you want to set up your taxonomy. And then there are pizzas that don’t quite fit, like Pequod’s which is more a pan pizza, but often is put in the deep dish category.)
In the Philly area there is an abomination called a tomato pie (to distinguish it from a proper pizza). Always large and rectangular (like a sheet cake), a thick bread-like crust (thicker than Sicilian), tomato sauce, and grated Parmesan/Romano cheese (no mozzarella). Served room temperature, not hot. Only really see them at large gatherings, usually with lots of kids.
Nothing worse than spying what from a distance looks like a Sicilian pizza from across the room only to get there to find a tomato pie.
ETA to clarify something in the OP: A Philly-style pizza is not a Sicilian pizza. Proper Philly style pizzas are called Neapolitan and are the traditional large, round, hand tossed pizza with thin crust. Sicilian pizza is common around Philly, but it is not dominant.
I was referring only to the Sicilian pizzas found there. The most common pizzas in the area are definitely Neapolitan pizzas with many of the pizzerias started by immigrants from Naples.
There’s something called a Zanzibar pizza that vendors sell in the touristy parts of Zanzibar. It differs pretty wildly from what we would think of as a pizza, but it is a thing that people call pizza, so I guess it counts for this thread. It consists of a fried crepe-like thing with toppings piled on top.
When I’m heading out west from Chicago to visit my friend in Iowa City or otherwise find myself on 80 or 88 in that part of the state, I try to drop in to one of the Quad Cities pizza joints, for a Quad City-style pizza.
What makes it Quad City style? The crust features a good bit of malt or molasses in it, so it browns better and has a bit of a nutty kind of taste to it. It’s usually medium thick and somewhat chewy. The cut you see in the picture there is a common one with pizzerias there, but some do cut it in pie slices. If you can’t see it in the thumbnail well, it’s cut into strips rather than slices or squares, usually with scissors. Other quirks include the sausage there is often loose and granular, as opposed to cut into slices (as you may see in NY and elsewhere) or put on in clumps like you see most places. So it’s the texture of, say, a skillet full of ground meat that’s been broken up. Sausage crumbles, if you will.
I enjoy it, and the style is enjoyed enough by folks outside that area that Chicago has a restaurant, Roots, that specializes in Quad Cities-style pizza.
I figured that’s what you meant, just wanted to clarify. I also note that the tomato pie I mention sounds a lot like your Party Pizza, just with a dusting of grated Parmesan.
I have been making my own crust and sauce for years. Since I came down with gout, I now make my own fresh pepperoni and Italian sausage, sort of. I just looked up recipes for home made pepperoni and Italian sausage and added the spices (sans nitrates) to fresh chicken in a food processor. It tastes really good and my toes don’t mind it.
My crust is a bit thicker than Pizza King crust but is otherwise a good chewy crispy approximation. The sauce is thick with a classic garlic and oregano flavor. Onions and bell peppers (ripe ones, but green will do in a pinch) and mozzarella and parmesan round it out. Yum.
