When The Daily Show Learned Chicago’s Best Pizza Is Made in a County Jail, They Went Full-on Shawshank Redemption
If you hate deep-dish pizza, you’ll definitely enjoy The Daily Show’s segment on the subject, which includes multiple scenes of correspondent Ronny Chieng hurling it into walls … and onto cars … and into the river. The Daily Show is in Chicago this week, and no visit would be complete without exploring the Windy City’s unique (and some would say, terrible) take on pizza. But Chieng’s quest to find a slice of beloved thin-crust pizza led him to an unusual culinary destination: Cook County Jail, where prisoners learn how to make pizza under the tutelage of Chef Bruno Abate.
The program is part of “Recipe for Change,” which aims to rehabilitate detainees “through culinary, fine arts, and life skills training while reinforcing the value of work and personal responsibility.” When Chieng asked Sheriff Tom Dart what made him want to be a “hero sheriff” instead of the Joe Arpaio variety, Dart explained that helping inmates learn a skill is less expensive than incarcerating repeat offenders. Chef Abate, who has his own healthy distrust of deep-dish pizza, teaches the jail’s chefs cooking techniques that will be useful when they are released. (According to the Chicago Tribune, some of his students even go on to work at Abate's restaurant, Tocco.)
The thin-crust pizza at the jail is only served to inmates, but Chieng thought the rest of Chicago deserved a chance to try it, so he went full Shawshank Redemption and staged a jailbreak to bring it to the masses.