User:Chckn nug/St. Louis cuisine

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St. Louis cuisine is the culinary culture of the Greater St. Louis area, which comprises and completely surrounds the independent city of St. Louis (its principal city) and includes parts of both the U.S. states of Missouri and Illinois.

St. Louis cuisine
A number of foods are specific to, or known to have originated in St. Louis.

Mayfair salad dressing
Chef Fred Bangerter and The Mayfair Room's head waiter, Harry Amos, created Mayfair salad dressing in 1935. This recipe was created at the Mayfair Hotel in downtown St. Louis. The Mayfair Room, Missouri's first five-star restaurant, first served Mayfair dressing. The original recipe of Mayfair salad dressing is still unknown, but there are several different versions of the dressing that are still served in St. Louis.

St. Louis-style pizza
Main article: St. Louis-style pizza

St. Louis has a variation of pizza which features provel cheese, a very thin crust, and is often square cut. Imo's Pizza is a well-known seller of St. Louis-style pizza.

Provel cheese was created specifically for pizza in the 1940s. While there are debates about the cheese's origins, the strongest claim is that Wisconsin's Hoffman Dairy partnered with a local St. Louis restaurateur, Tony Costa, to invent the cheese. Provel cheese is a blend of cheddar, swiss, and provolone cheeses, in addition to preservatives, flavorings, and liquid smoke. The FDA has categorized the food as a "pasteurized process cheese," indicating the blend of multiple cheeses, low moisture content, and other facts. Ed Imo bought Costa's Grocery, giving him the sole rights to sell Provel Cheese. Imo's Food is the exclusive distributor of Provel, which is manufactured and trademarked by a Kraft Heinz subsidiary.

Frozen custard concrete
Ted Drewes is a family-owned frozen custard company with three locations in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1959, a local by the name of Steve Gamber asked Ted Drewes Junior to make a special shake "as thick as [he could] make it." Each day, Steve would ask Ted Drewes Jr. to make the malt thicker. One day, Mr. Drewes was fed up with the 14-year-old and turned the malt upside down, saying, "is this thick enough for you? If it falls out, it's free." Thus, the concrete was born; a malt or shake so thick that it is served upside down.