This Pennsylvania Pizza Style Is The Most Controversial One Yet

Pizza is an easy food to recognize, but it's also a food with lots of variety. New York, Chicago, and California all have their own styles of pizza which look different (and sometimes spur fights and arguments about which is best). However, if you think you've seen it all when it comes to pizza, you should make sure you've had a square of pizza in Altoona, Pennsylvania. 

Altoona-style pizza is easy to recognize: the slices are square, and they always have a slice of melted American cheese on top. Beneath that bright yellow cheese slice, you can see pieces of other ingredients sticking out, such as bell peppers, salami, and tomato sauce. If you compare it different types of pizza and how they're made, Altoona pizza might look slightly shocking compared to a traditional pizza slice, but the dough and tomato sauce are prepared in mostly the same way.

Outside of Pennsylvania, it's often condemned as a crime against pizza, and even Pennsylvania locals outside of Altoona refuse to claim credit for it. However, once you get past its initial appearance, the cheese, peppers, and ham are hardly uncommon ingredients in any pizza (even if the cheese isn't mozzarella). The thick crusts and square shapes also somewhat resemble Sicilian slices, although those are made with more traditional toppings.

A number of unusual foods have been cooked up throughout Pennsylvania's history, including one Pennsylvania drink that tastes like tree bark called birch beer, or an Amish snack which combines apple butter with cottage cheese. This unusual pizza first began to appear in the Southwest Pennsylvania town of Altoona around the 1960s or 1970s. It's usually credited to a chef at the Altoona Hotel, which was well known for serving a "unique" style of pizza. Eventually, it switched from a hotel to just a restaurant, until it sadly burned down around 2013. Thankfully, the demise of the Altoona Hotel didn't mean the end of its bizarre signature dish.

Plenty of other local restaurants have taken up the responsibility of cooking up Altoona pizza for locals and any curious tourists, and despite the complaints about its appearance, the pizzas appear to sell well. Over the decades, it's become such a beloved novelty in Altoona that the city's minor league baseball team, the Altoona Curve, renamed themselves to the Altoona Pizzas for a short period of time. They switched their mascot to a bright yellow pizza square with a mustache during this time. Altoona pizza may be closer to a cheeseburger than a pizza slice, but people who try it are often surprised to learn that it tastes just fine.