This Beloved Chicago Pizza Creation Is Hard To Find Outside Of The Windy City

Chicago is home to quite a breadth of homegrown culinary creations. You've got the Great Depression-era hot dog, the fried plantain-based jibarito, and Italian beef sandwiches. Yet few Windy City food categories pack the richness of pizza. Chicago-style pizza is more than just deep dish, with the thin-crust tavern style, and stuffed variety forming the famed trifecta. Not to mention the city is home to a lesser-known spin-off, too: the pizza puff.

Emerging in the late 1960s and popularized in the 1970s, the item consists of a deep-fried flour tortilla stuffed with mozzarella, tomato sauce, and meat — most traditionally beef sausage. Folded into a square, or occasionally crimped together like a large empanada, a pizza puff is a handheld delight poised for the nighttime. While a few eateries are noted for house-made renditions, most iterations are sold at the city's widespread hot dog stands and casual counters.

Such standardization arises because Chicago's pizza puffs frequently come as a frozen package from Iltaco Foods, a longtime producer of the snack. Sold at an affordable price throughout the city, it's a nostalgic staple akin to Vienna Beef, evincing Chicago's fierce food loyalty. And while the snack is available for purchase online and can be found in select grocery stores nationwide, it remains largely a Chicago-insider secret that requires some serious dedication to track down.

The pizza puff's history delectably encapsulates Chicago's food traditions. The dish's origins intertwine with Iltaco, the company that initiated the item's production in 1976. Short for Illinois Tamale Company, Assyrian immigrant Elisha Shabaz started the business in 1927. It was his grandson who came up with the concept, inspired by the blossoming pizza industry at the time.

Unfortunately, more of the dish's creation story is lost to history, although it can be assumed the pizza puff cleverly merges several popular street snacks. The food's folded, crackly tortilla is reminiscent of thin phyllo, which is popular in Assyrian cuisine. Many also cite a resemblance to panzerotti: Italian deep-fried, crunchy dough filled with tomato sauce and mozzarella.

Not to mention, the dish's composition reflects Chicago food culture. Most renditions use sausage, long a popular meat in the Windy City, though there's also the gooey delights of melted mozzarella. Plus, Chicago residents love a sandwich, explaining the pizza puff's handheld joys. In addition to Iltaco's version, creative renditions appear around the city, experimenting with both the size and fillings (like the use of burrata!). Yet the pizza puff's real magic rests in its reliability, an on-the-go dish tucked away from the buzz of the pizza scene.