Chicago-Style Pizza

. . . The real question, though, is why George is coming to
Chicago and not getting together with the local gang. Do we have
cooties or something?

Chicago-style pizza or pie typically refers to a deep-dish pizza style developed in Chicago, United States. Chicago-style pizza has a crust up to three inches tall at the edge, slightly higher than the ingredients, which include large amounts of cheese and chunky tomato sauce, acting as a large bowl. Besides deep-dish, the term also refers to stuffed pizza, another Chicago style. Both styles of pizza are usually eaten with a knife and fork. While in Chicago most pizzerias also serve thin-crust pizza that is generally also in a style characteristic to the city, the term Chicago-style pizza is mainly used to describe the deep-dish style of pizza away from the Chicagoland area.

snip...

The deep-dish pizza differs in a few key ways from what pizza is typically known as: the crust is thick and -- as the name suggests -- is deep, so as to resemble a pie more than a flatbread; the toppings are assembled in reverse, with the cheese being on the bottom layer, followed by any additional toppings, and then the sauce.[3]

snip...

By the mid-1970s, two Chicago chains, Nancy's Pizza, founded by Rocco Palese, and Giordano's Pizzeria, operated by brothers Efren and Joseph Boglio, began experimenting with deep dish pizza and created the stuffed pizza.[6] Palese based his creation on his mother's recipe for scarciedda, an Italian Easter pie from his hometown of Potenza.[7] The Boglio brothers had worked for Palese as cooks and split off on their own in the early 1970s. Chicago Magazine articles featuring Nancy's Pizza and Giordano's stuffed pizza popularized the dish.

Stuffed pizzas are often even deeper than deep-dish pizzas, but otherwise, it can be hard to see the difference until it is cut into. A stuffed pizza generally has much deeper topping density than any other type of pizza. As with deep-dish pizza, a deep layer of dough forms a bowl in a high-sided pan and the toppings and cheese are added. Then, an additional layer of dough goes on top and is pressed to the sides of the crust.

At this stage, the thin dough top has a rounded, domed appearance. Pizza makers often poke a small hole in the top of the "lid" to allow air and steam to escape while cooking, so that the pizza does not explode. Typically, but not always, tomato sauce is ladled over the top crust before the pizza is baked. wiki