PLENITUDE.

Otherwise known as the pizza aisle at Woodman's.

A frozen pizza section in Wisconsin. pic.twitter.com/YDMOL4b7o3

— Michael Bradley (@MikeBradleyMKE) October 13, 2022

Many of those pizzas are prepared in Wisconsin, or originated there.  "Twitter users were dumbfounded when Milwaukee resident Michael Bradley shared a video of thousands of pizzas inside what appears to be a Woodman's grocery store last week."  Although some of the brands are now manufactured elsewhere, there is proper Wisconsin mozzarella on many of them.

Unfortunately, a crunchy thin crust is difficult to adapt to freezing and transporting, which keeps the Milwaukee style pizzerias going.

The pizza’s history can be traced back to the original location for Caradaro Club, a restaurant which opened in the Third Ward in 1945, and which served customers for over 30 years before the building was destroyed by a fire in 1979. It was there that owners John Caravella and Joe Todaro developed the signature crust for Milwaukee’s very first pizza, establishing the benchmark for the Milwaukee style.

Over the years, Caravella and Todaro hired a variety of folks to work at the pizzeria. Among them was Jim Balistreri (founder of Balisteri’s) and Gino Pazzano, whose uncle Antonio Fazzari eventually bought the Caradaro Club business (later founding Calderone Club, which his son, Gino Fazzari carries on today).

Milwaukee-style pizza is differentiated primarily by its crust, which is crackery-thin (as thin as 1.25 mm) and crisp. That crust is often presented in an oblong shape, rather than round. The style is also reflected in the sauce, which is no frills (often comprised of just tomatoes and salt) and applied with a deft hand, providing just enough sauce to flavor the pizza.

In addition to those qualities, Milwaukee-style pizza is nearly always cut into “tavern-style” squares, rather than triangles. And if you want to go full-on Milwaukee, you’ve got to order your pie topped with cheese, sausage, mushrooms and onions. It’s a local classic.

Yes on the cheese, sausage, mushroom, and onion, which, unaccountably is almost never on offer in the frozen pizza section, there's usually green pepper or black olive thrown in.

No on those pathetic little squares, the good memories I have of the Caradaro Club carry-out notwithstanding.