The world of Internet food creations is a deliciously beautiful, creative, fucked up and incestuous cess pool of stolen ideas. Today, the Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field and by association, Giordano's ("Chicago's Best Pizza") have joined the ranks of those pillaging and raping online food creators.
Popular food blogger and food troll, The Vulgar Chef, created a recipe paying homage to the Chicago-style hot dog and the Chicago deep dish pizza and uploaded his to his YouTube account on June 12, 2016.
His creation was aptly titled the, "Chicago Dog Deep Dish Pizza."
Take a bit of this bread recipe, a dash of this photography angle, swap out one ingredient for another, and there you have it, something completely original.
Now, in celebration of National Hot Dog Month at Wrigley Field, Giordano's Pizza and Vienna Beef claim to have collaborated on a near replica of the Vulgar Chef Chicago-Style hot dog deep dish pizza that is now being sold at Wrigley Field from July 15 to July 20.
This is a very specific, outside-the-box food concept that just seems too unique to be coincidental. The Vulgar Chef addressed this on his blog.
"And now the Cubs want to run a train on ol’ KyKy because they haven’t won a World Series in about 300 years and are looking to pull out a fucking “W”. According to Eater Chicago, NBC Chicago, Sports Illustrated, ThePostGame, USA Today, AOL, and a handful of other cunts, this years main attraction at Wrigley Field – other than watching the train wreck that is the Cubs franchise – will be none other than a Deep Dish Chicago Dog Pizza….a recipe I dropped a month and a half ago." — The Vulgar Chef
The Vulgar Chef's version is made with a bed of cheese-fries, handmade pizza dough, topped with mustard, tomatoes, sport peppers, relish and pickles. He commented in the description box, "My apologies for the lack of onion and poppy seeds, but at least I have the neon relish and sport peppers."
We reached out to Henson Consulting, Giordano's public relations representation, to see if anyone would comment on the similarities between The Vulgar Chef's Chicago Style and Wrigley Field's new celebratory menu item.
The representative responding to our inquiry gave us the most boilerplate response you could ask for.
However, this isn't the first instance of recipe plagiarism that the Vulgar Chef has experienced. Nope, not even the first time this year.
The Vulgar Chef's version of Mac N' Cheetos was something that Burger King broke the internet with a few weeks ago. The Vulgar Chef created Mac N' Cheetos and uploaded his YouTube video on September 30, 2015. Burger King's released their version nearly a year later, on June 27, 2016.
In a world where Facebook was essentially created through a case of stolen intellectual property — at least the Winklevoss twins had a paper trail — there's little people like the Vulgar Chef can do to protect themselves against multi-billion dollar companies stealing their original ideas for marginal gains.
Last year, the Houston Astros introduced a fried chicken and waffle cone, a concept that was first created in 2012 by another food blogger, Nick Chipman of Dude Foods. While the waffle chicken cone was not an exact replica, Chipman threw shade toward the Astros when he said, "...any chicken and waffle type dish needs to be served with syrup, not honey mustard."
Nevertheless, it's safe to say that we can at least condemn Wrigley Field, The Cubs and by association Giordano's Pizza to the bottom-feeding ranks of corporate analytic junkies. They join the likes of Burger King, who seem oblivious, or at least semi-allergic to Google searches, where they'd discover their 'Amazingly creative and original way to bring in foodies,' has already been created by someone else.
Maybe then, it isn't ironic that the Vulgar Chef's trademark is, "#EatLikeShit."
