May 15, 2025 • 7 mins
Scott Weiner talks to Mendte in the Morning about the age old question; is Chicago style deep dish pizza actually pizza?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know I should mention this if you're wondering where
(00:01):
Natalie is today. Well, Natalie is one of the best
moms I've ever met. She dotes over her two kids,
and her daughter is graduating from college today and that's
a holiday in the Vacca household. So I hope she
has a great day today. And in for her is
Chris Switzer. And Chris doesn't talk too much. Not too
(00:25):
much now, No, Chris is very quiet. And Chris is
responsible for a lot of the sound you hear on
the air and putting together the recaps and getting the
talkbacks on the air, And so we appreciate you being
here today. You can pipe in anytime you want.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Okay, I mean, I don't know how Natalie does it,
all the stuff she has to do behind the scenes
and then talking to you at wine. Hey, I'm more
praising her than whining I got on. She's just you know,
she's super at her job.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So she is. She's super her job, but she's a
mom first, and so we all understand why she's not
here today. And congratulations congratulations as well to her daughter. Yeah,
to Nicole, thank you for that. I was trying to
come up with the name so it was pretty obvious.
I guess, huh, Well.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Some of us are multitaskers like Natalie's.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
True. Yeah, it is amazing what Natalie does every day.
It is pretty amazing.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
It is.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I watch her and it is wild. She's got one
headphone like can on one ear, the other one pushed back.
She's typing, and then she'll grab the mic and say
something with you.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
She's just it is incredible. It is. She basically runs
the show and I just sit here and watch and
I'm allowed to talk every once in a while. And Chris,
you can whatever you want. You just pop in whatever
you want.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I'll pop in a little a little more frequently.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah. Please, if you have an opinion on anything, just
go ahead. You're not going to I can tell Vipa Namy.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
We'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
How about deep dish dish pizza? Is that a pizza?
Is dish deeps dit deep dish deep dish pizza? Is
that a pizza?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I don't think so, But I think we have somebody
better to answer that question.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, he's coming up. But you know what, we have
the King, Yes, the King, we have John Stewart. John
Stewart went on, I don't know if you've ever seen
it online, but John Stewart went on like a ten
minute ramp on the fact that deep Dish pizza is
not pizza.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
This is not pizza.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
This is tomato soup and a bread ball.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
This isnt above ground the Marinara swimming pool for rats.
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
He went on and on. It got worse than that.
That was the part I could play, But he ended
it with this, which I think maybe the definitive argument.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
For so I know I'm right.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
You call it Chicago style pizza. You call it deep
dish pizza, stuffed pizza. You know what we call it? Huh?
You know we call this You know we call this pizza.
Now listen, we're going to go to Scott Wiener, who
is with run Scott's Pizza Tour as he also teaches
classes on pizza, and we'll get a definitive answer from him.
(03:10):
But I will admit this. I live for seven years
in Chicago and I like deep Dish pizza. I used
to go to Gino's East all the time and eat it.
I don't know if it actually qualifies as pizza. I
understand the argument, but I think it's delicious. So Scott,
how are you, how do you do? How do you
(03:30):
feel about deep dish pizza?
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Well, obviously I've got a lot of feelings.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Love that you just played that John Stewart quote.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
I love it. So I ran into John Stewart at
John's Pizza on Believable, maybe two years ago, and I say,
excuse me, I hate to interrupt. I know you're eating this.
I would just want to thank you for your service,
thank you for what you've said about pizza. And then
I said, even though I disagree with him, and I
think it is absolutely pizza, even though it's not the
(04:03):
thing that he or you identify as a pizza. So
let me just flip it on you for a second. Okay,
what how do you define pizza? What is required for
something to be pizza?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
To it to be for it to be flat, to
it not to be kicked cooked in a special pan
or oven, and to it to be easy to take
down the street and eat while you're walking. How about that?
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Okay, So Sicilian and Detroit style are not pizza to you?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
No, you can you can still carry them. I can
carry them down the street and eat them.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
But they're not flat, they're not thin.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, they're not this. They're not I love the way
he described it, soup and a bread bowl. They're not that.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Have you ever been to Have you ever been in Naples, Italy?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yes? I have, as a matter of fact, just recently.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Great. When you're walking along Vietrivinali, it's like the most
famous street with all the pizzai is. You'll see all
those remember all those little takeout windows. There's like a
little right on the street. They've got things that look
exactly like maybe not so much Ginozi's, but Giordano's and Nancy's,
where it's a crust on top and a crust down below,
and then in between two separate layers of cheese and toppings,
(05:15):
just like a stuffed pizza in Chicago, which is a
subset of deep dish, and they call it a pizza.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
There in the birthplace of pizza.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, is it.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Really I'm gonna argue with you about this. Is it
really the birthplace of pizza because they didn't even have
tomatoes when they were eating what allegedly was a pizza.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Yeah. Absolutely, the birthplace of pizza. And that's just because
there are tons of dishes that are dough with something
on it. That predate the pizza of Naples, but never
in the format that's in Naples. And in fact, we
only really start calling it pizza historically when that tomato
joins the party, which doesn't happen until the late seventeen hundreds.
So I would argue that other things that resemble pizza,
(06:00):
even though they look like a pizza, are separate from pizza.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Right now, oh, they you still calling them a pizza.
I'm sorry, I might have missed the point on that.
So even if they don't have the ingredients that you
just talked about a second ago in defining pizza, even
if they don't have those ingredients, you would call them
pizza absolutely.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
So the way that pizza works is it's unlike prior flatbreads.
Pizza is made by putting enough topping onto the dough
so that it will weigh down the dough during a
high temperature baking process. So lots of flatbreads are made
by sprinkling herbs onto a dough and then baking. But
pizza is different because there's a substantial amount of weight.
(06:38):
And before the tomato, that was lard. When the tomato
joined the party in the late eighteenth century, and then
cheese came a couple decades later, and then eventually things
like early nineteen hundreds, mid nineteen hundreds pepperoni.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
You know, Okay, I get it, I get the argument,
I get the argument. I want you to. I just
the only reason I'm kind of rushing a little bit
it is because I want you to get in the
Slice Out Hunger, the nonprofit you're hosting the big, big,
huge pizza party. Talk about that.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Oh my goodness. Yeah, this Sunday, We've got a big,
huge pizza party fundraiser and it's happening at Peer six
in Brooklyn Bridge Park at Fornino, and we've got thirty
some odd pizza makers lined up. You buy a ticket
and you get in for a ninety minute session unlimited pizza,
and all the money you will raise from it is
used to purchase pizza from independent pizza shops to be
sent to shelters and soup kitchens.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
And you can learn more at Slice out Hunger dot org,
slash pizza on the pier. Right, you nailed it.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Slice on hunk dot org. All the info and the tickets.
It's fifty bucks in advance, sixty on the day of
the event.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Scott Wiener. Thanks so much. Scott's Pizza Tours, so it
is pizza after all. Darn all notified. John Stewart or
you can you know him. Thanks a lot, Scott
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Always good to chat with you.
You know I should mention this if you're wondering where
(00:01):
Natalie is today. Well, Natalie is one of the best
moms I've ever met. She dotes over her two kids,
and her daughter is graduating from college today and that's
a holiday in the Vacca household. So I hope she
has a great day today. And in for her is
Chris Switzer. And Chris doesn't talk too much. Not too
(00:25):
much now, No, Chris is very quiet. And Chris is
responsible for a lot of the sound you hear on
the air and putting together the recaps and getting the
talkbacks on the air, And so we appreciate you being
here today. You can pipe in anytime you want.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Okay, I mean, I don't know how Natalie does it,
all the stuff she has to do behind the scenes
and then talking to you at wine. Hey, I'm more
praising her than whining I got on. She's just you know,
she's super at her job.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So she is. She's super her job, but she's a
mom first, and so we all understand why she's not
here today. And congratulations congratulations as well to her daughter. Yeah,
to Nicole, thank you for that. I was trying to
come up with the name so it was pretty obvious.
I guess, huh, Well.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Some of us are multitaskers like Natalie's.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
True. Yeah, it is amazing what Natalie does every day.
It is pretty amazing.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
It is.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I watch her and it is wild. She's got one
headphone like can on one ear, the other one pushed back.
She's typing, and then she'll grab the mic and say
something with you.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
She's just it is incredible. It is. She basically runs
the show and I just sit here and watch and
I'm allowed to talk every once in a while. And Chris,
you can whatever you want. You just pop in whatever
you want.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I'll pop in a little a little more frequently.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah. Please, if you have an opinion on anything, just
go ahead. You're not going to I can tell Vipa Namy.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
We'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
How about deep dish dish pizza? Is that a pizza?
Is dish deeps dit deep dish deep dish pizza? Is
that a pizza?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I don't think so, But I think we have somebody
better to answer that question.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, he's coming up. But you know what, we have
the King, Yes, the King, we have John Stewart. John
Stewart went on, I don't know if you've ever seen
it online, but John Stewart went on like a ten
minute ramp on the fact that deep Dish pizza is
not pizza.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
This is not pizza.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
This is tomato soup and a bread ball.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
This isnt above ground the Marinara swimming pool for rats.
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
He went on and on. It got worse than that.
That was the part I could play, But he ended
it with this, which I think maybe the definitive argument.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
For so I know I'm right.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
You call it Chicago style pizza. You call it deep
dish pizza, stuffed pizza. You know what we call it? Huh?
You know we call this You know we call this pizza.
Now listen, we're going to go to Scott Wiener, who
is with run Scott's Pizza Tour as he also teaches
classes on pizza, and we'll get a definitive answer from him.
(03:10):
But I will admit this. I live for seven years
in Chicago and I like deep Dish pizza. I used
to go to Gino's East all the time and eat it.
I don't know if it actually qualifies as pizza. I
understand the argument, but I think it's delicious. So Scott,
how are you, how do you do? How do you
(03:30):
feel about deep dish pizza?
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Well, obviously I've got a lot of feelings.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Love that you just played that John Stewart quote.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
I love it. So I ran into John Stewart at
John's Pizza on Believable, maybe two years ago, and I say,
excuse me, I hate to interrupt. I know you're eating this.
I would just want to thank you for your service,
thank you for what you've said about pizza. And then
I said, even though I disagree with him, and I
think it is absolutely pizza, even though it's not the
(04:03):
thing that he or you identify as a pizza. So
let me just flip it on you for a second. Okay,
what how do you define pizza? What is required for
something to be pizza?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
To it to be for it to be flat, to
it not to be kicked cooked in a special pan
or oven, and to it to be easy to take
down the street and eat while you're walking. How about that?
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Okay, So Sicilian and Detroit style are not pizza to you?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
No, you can you can still carry them. I can
carry them down the street and eat them.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
But they're not flat, they're not thin.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, they're not this. They're not I love the way
he described it, soup and a bread bowl. They're not that.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Have you ever been to Have you ever been in Naples, Italy?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yes? I have, as a matter of fact, just recently.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Great. When you're walking along Vietrivinali, it's like the most
famous street with all the pizzai is. You'll see all
those remember all those little takeout windows. There's like a
little right on the street. They've got things that look
exactly like maybe not so much Ginozi's, but Giordano's and Nancy's,
where it's a crust on top and a crust down below,
and then in between two separate layers of cheese and toppings,
(05:15):
just like a stuffed pizza in Chicago, which is a
subset of deep dish, and they call it a pizza.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
There in the birthplace of pizza.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, is it.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Really I'm gonna argue with you about this. Is it
really the birthplace of pizza because they didn't even have
tomatoes when they were eating what allegedly was a pizza.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Yeah. Absolutely, the birthplace of pizza. And that's just because
there are tons of dishes that are dough with something
on it. That predate the pizza of Naples, but never
in the format that's in Naples. And in fact, we
only really start calling it pizza historically when that tomato
joins the party, which doesn't happen until the late seventeen hundreds.
So I would argue that other things that resemble pizza,
(06:00):
even though they look like a pizza, are separate from pizza.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Right now, oh, they you still calling them a pizza.
I'm sorry, I might have missed the point on that.
So even if they don't have the ingredients that you
just talked about a second ago in defining pizza, even
if they don't have those ingredients, you would call them
pizza absolutely.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
So the way that pizza works is it's unlike prior flatbreads.
Pizza is made by putting enough topping onto the dough
so that it will weigh down the dough during a
high temperature baking process. So lots of flatbreads are made
by sprinkling herbs onto a dough and then baking. But
pizza is different because there's a substantial amount of weight.
(06:38):
And before the tomato, that was lard. When the tomato
joined the party in the late eighteenth century, and then
cheese came a couple decades later, and then eventually things
like early nineteen hundreds, mid nineteen hundreds pepperoni.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
You know, Okay, I get it, I get the argument,
I get the argument. I want you to. I just
the only reason I'm kind of rushing a little bit
it is because I want you to get in the
Slice Out Hunger, the nonprofit you're hosting the big, big,
huge pizza party. Talk about that.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Oh my goodness. Yeah, this Sunday, We've got a big,
huge pizza party fundraiser and it's happening at Peer six
in Brooklyn Bridge Park at Fornino, and we've got thirty
some odd pizza makers lined up. You buy a ticket
and you get in for a ninety minute session unlimited pizza,
and all the money you will raise from it is
used to purchase pizza from independent pizza shops to be
sent to shelters and soup kitchens.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
And you can learn more at Slice out Hunger dot org,
slash pizza on the pier. Right, you nailed it.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Slice on hunk dot org. All the info and the tickets.
It's fifty bucks in advance, sixty on the day of
the event.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Scott Wiener. Thanks so much. Scott's Pizza Tours, so it
is pizza after all. Darn all notified. John Stewart or
you can you know him. Thanks a lot, Scott
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Always good to chat with you.
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.