3142: (City)-Style Pizza

2025-09-16T17:51:47Z

2001:569:7EEA:AE00:A401:5908:7240:EB68: Remove redundancy

{{comic
| number = 3142
| date = September 15, 2025
| title = <City>-Style Pizza
| image = city_style_pizza_2x.png
| imagesize = 480x314px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you want to see true audacity, do an image search for 'Altoona-style pizza.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a BOT WITH SAUSAGE AND ANCHOVIES. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
Many varieties of {{w|pizza}} in the US are named after a city — usually where the style originated or was popularized, such as {{w|New York–style pizza}} and {{w|Chicago-style pizza}}. A New York-style pizza is characterized by a thin, but not hard, crust. In contrast, Chicago-style pizza, or Chicago deep-dish pizza, is notoriously thick.

This comic contains a chart that compares the tastiness of pizza styles with the size of the city in the name. They generally span a broad range, but poor-tasting styles are mostly found only in small cities. The suggested reason is that these are due to restaurant owners in small towns who are bored and make up strange styles of pizza as a prank on visitors. According to [[Randall]], New York-style pizza is near the top of the tastiness axis. New York happens to be the largest city in the US, and it's also where pizza was first brought to the US by Italian immigrants.

The title text mentions an {{w|Altoona-style pizza}}. Created in the Altoona Hotel in {{w|Altoona, Pennsylvania}}, it contains American cheese on Sicilian crust, as well as bell peppers and salami. The “true audacity” of this style may include that people may not consider it pizza, and some may even see it as a sandwich. Also, the vast amount of cheese relative to pizza may horrify some people.{{citation needed}} It is noteworthy that a remarkable spike in Google searches for Altoona-style pizza was observed at the publication date of this comic, as can be observed on [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fg%2F11nmt6q5kp Google Trends].

The original comic's title has an encoding error in terms of HTML rendering, and it was copied to this wiki page. It reads "<City>-Style", which is interpreted by web browsers as containing an HTML tag and rendered as "-Style".

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[A graph.]
:[The x and y axes are unmarked. They are labeled: ]
::[X axis: Tastiness of "<city>-style pizza"]
::[Y axis: City size]

:[A shaded region is shown, initially covering nearly the whole y-axis on the left. The region's top area barely changes. The region's bottom area changes with a curve upwards to the right.]
:[Arrows point around to various locations in this shaded region, indicating an otherwise-unmarked subregion.]

:[The region is labelled: ]
::Various controversial regional specialties

:[An arrow points to a medium-high y-value at the absolute rightmost x-axis. It is labelled: ]
::New York up here somewhere

:[An arrow points to a low x and y-value. It is labelled: ]
::Towns with bored restaurant owners who have come up with a fun prank to play on visitors

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category: Food]]
[[Category: Charts]]

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3142: (City)-Style Pizza