Category Archives: Greater Midwest Foodways

Pizzeria Uno and the Mysterious Origins of Deep-Dish Pizza

Posted on by
The only photo of Riccardo and deep-dish pizza known to exist (March, 1945)

Presented by Peter Regas
PizzaHistoryBook.com

View presentation on Facebook and YouTube.

Who invented deep-dish pizza? Is there a more controversial question in Chicago food history? There’s little doubt the pizzeria at 29 East Ohio Street in Chicago- originally named “The Pizzeria” later renamed “Pizzeria Uno”- served the original deep-dish pizza. But despite decades of debate and speculation, no one has definitively identified who created the pizza style that now has a market niche worth hundreds of millions of dollars and that -rightly or wrongly- branded Chicago, as a deep-dish pizza town. Continue reading →

Ossoli Cookbook: A fundraiser for the first public beach in Highland Park, Illinois

Posted on by
Presented by Highland Park Public Library’s Cookbook Club
with Highland Park Historical Society and Us!
 
 
We are encouraging people to prepare a recipe from this antique community cookbook and discuss the results. This cookbook is available online via the University of Illinois. Certainly you are welcome to sit in on the discussion and not have cooked anything!

Continue reading →

Thoughts on the Origins of Pizzerias in America and Chicago

Posted on by

Presented by Peter Regas
PizzaHistoryBook.com

View Presentation on Facebook and Youtube.

In the past, the historical consensus was the first licensed pizzeria in America was opened in 1905 at 53 Spring St. in New York City by a young Italian immigrant named Gennaro Lombardi. However, in 2019 at the U.S. Pizza Museum in Chicago, Peter Regas challenged that consensus with a talk titled “Filippo Milone and the Forgotten Pizza Makers of New York City.” Continue reading →