Cultural Analysis for Chicago Style Pizza

Running Head: CULTURAL ANALYSIS

Cultural Analysis for Chicago Style Pizza

August 31, 2007

Cultural Analysis for Chicago Style Pizza

Steve Kafka’s Chicago Style Pizza stands an excellent chance of success in the Czech Republic. The culture, though similar to the United States, offers some distinct advantages for the pizza purveyor, as do the economic incentives and cost of living in the Czech Republic

Pizza was invented in 1522 when tomatoes were brought to Italy from Peru. The peasants of Naples “added the new tomatoes to their yeast dough and created the first simple pizza … [with] flour, olive oil, lard, cheese, and herbs.” (Stradley, 2004). Five centuries later, in 1943, Ike Sewell invented the “Chicago-style deep-dish pizza (a pizza with a flaky crust that rises an inch or more above the plate and surrounds deep piles of toppings)” at Pizzeria Uno. (Stradley, 2004). The deep-dish pizza is markedly different from traditional European styles, which normally feature a thin, crispy bottom crust and little or no crust around the edges. The Chicago style pizza is a close cousin to the bread-heavy diet in Central Europe.

Major Differences and Incompatibilities Between U.S. and Czech Cultures

Both Czechs and Americans gravitate to eating three meals a day, though the Czechs often add a midmorning snack that Americans tend to eat, if eaten at all, in the afternoon as a reminiscent of Britain’s afternoon tea. Czechs seldom dine out, though that is almost a ritual in the US. However, Czech men do not cook as a rule and a food that makes a convenient carryout could be a welcome commodity. Beer is a common accessory in American pizza restaurants and, in the Czech Republic, “drinking and toasting are common for formal and informal events. An empty glass is always refilled.” (Czech Republic / Eating, 2007). This would make pizza a companionable food for Czechs.

Young people in the Czech Republic “tend to date in groups; they enjoy going to movies or the...