Introduction

Have you tried Chicago's least iconic iconic food? I'm talking about the pizza puff.

Pizza puffs

What does a pizza puff entail? Well, imagine a hot pocket but better. This may seem blasphemous (as a former “hot pocket fiend” [my friends can attest], I understand). However, I personally could fulfill all my hot pocket hankerings with a pizza puff, while I could not fulfill all of my pizza puff hankerings with a hot pocket.

As for ingredients, take a pocket of dough, stuff it with sauce, cheese, and meat, and fry it. Not everyone fries it, but you should, like they do at Harold's Chicken Shack (#88). A pizza roll? No, bigger. A calzone? No, flakier (and rectangular). A panzerotti? No, shut up!

Italco

Unless you're making it from scratch, your pizza puff comes from Illinois Tamale Company. Strange, a decidedly not-Italian company. However, if you think of a chimichanga, it makes sense how they could do stuffed fried dough well. Actually, Italco uses flour tortillas to wrap their pizza puffs. Go figure, the wonders of multicultural cuisine.