The Horrifying Monstrosities Sweden Calls Chicago Pizzas

By Melissa McEwen in Food on Mar 9, 2015 4:00PM



A Swedish Pizza with Bernaise Sauce and pieces of beef (Henrik Ismarker/Creative Commons)

Here in Chicago we are pretty proud of our local food, particularly our pizza. But the rest of the world has some very different ideas about the food here. One of the worst offenders is Sweden, where they serve up Chicago pizzas that would horrify most Chicagoans.

The toppings vary but some examples of Chicago pizzas served in Sweden include:

- Tomato sauce, cheese, ground meat, pepperoni, mozzarella, onion ...OK sounds at least pretty normal .and “taco sauce." Sweden is also pretty infamous for bad tacos too and most of the taco sauce is just what we'd consider gloppy pasta sauce.

- Cheese, ham, pieces of beef, mushrooms and Bearnaise sauce. Bearnaise is a close cousin of mayo, but made with butter. It's delicious. Unfortunately in Sweden a lot of store-bought sauces labeled as Bearnaise are just mayo with some spices, which is usually what is put on pizza.

- Ground meat, peppers, onions...and Tabasco. Nothing says Chicago like Tabasco.

- Tuna, crab, shrimp, mushrooms. Reminiscent of the totally non-existent Chicago crab fishery.

- Salami, mozzarella, onion, peppers, tomatos, kebabs and kebab sauce.

This is not to put down Sweden. Swedish pizza is good in its own way, especially if you are drunk, and Sweden has tons of other excellent food. And how can we really judge when many Midwesterners enjoy dipping our pizza in ranch, which is a cousin of Bearnaise?

Plus Sweden isn't the only purveyor of questionable Chicago food. After all, Japan is selling a Chicago Butter Chicken soup.