Pizza Hut this week rolled out a new menu item after more than a year of development, reports USA Today. It's called Detroit-Style Pizza. If that has you wondering what exactly Detroit-style pizza is, you're not alone, reports the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper talks to locals and non-locals alike and concludes that "a lot of people have no clue what it is." For the uninitiated, the newspaper provides some help:
- The definition: It's "a square or rectangular pan pizza with Wisconsin brick cheese spread to the rim, giving the edges of the crust a slightly charred, caramelized taste, but leaving it light and airy in the middle, per the Journal. "Tomato sauce is dolloped on top, rather than beneath the cheese."
- Origin: Legend has it that it first emerged in 1946 at what is now the Buddy's Pizza chain in Michigan when the owner used a steel tray from auto assembly lines to create a deep-dish pie. A post at Eat This, Not That! notes that the Detroit-style trend is actually "sweeping the nation" at the moment, and Pizza Hut is far from the first to unveil a version.