3142: (City)-Style Pizza

2025-09-16T12:52:52Z

ExatonTM: Corrected transcript description of arrow for "New York up here somewhere": rightmost x-axis, not leftmost

{{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}} are named after a city, usually where the style originated or was popularized; for instance, {{w|New York–style pizza}} and Chicago-style pizzas. According to [[Randall]], {{w|New York-style pizza}} is near the top of the tastiness axis. New York happens to be the largest city in the US. It's also where pizza was first brought to the US by Italian immigrants. A New York-style pizza is characterized by a thin, but not hard, crust. Another famous pizza is the {{w|Chicago-style pizza}}, or Chicago deep-dish pizza, which is known for being 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.

The title text mentions an {{w|Altoona-style pizza}}. Created in the Altoona hotel in 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 narrow it down to something similar to a sandwich. Also, American cheese and Sicilian crust are very different, and probably aren't compatible. Also also, the vast amount of cheese relative to pizza may horrify some people. 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 as containing an HTML tag and rendered as "-Style".

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[A graph is shown. The x-axis is marked:]
:City size
:[They y-axis is marked:]
:Tastiness of "<city>-style pizza"
:[A shaded region is shown, initially covering nearly the whole y-axis at the lowest x-values. At the last x-values, the y-values are medium-medium high. Arrows point around to various locations in this shaded region, indicating an otherwise-unmarked subregion.]
:Label: Various controversial regional specialties
:[An arrow points to a medium-high y-value at the absolute rightmost x-axis.]
:Label: New York up here somewhere
:[An arrow points to a low x- and y-value.]
:Label: 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