PETER SAGAL, HOST:
We want to remind everybody they can join us most weeks back at the Chase Bank Auditorium in beautiful downtown Chicago, Ill. For tickets or more information, just go over to wbez.org, or you can find a link at our website, which is waitwait.npr.org. Right now panel, time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Mo, the Great Barrier Reef, the Taj Mahal - there are UNESCO cultural heritage sites. They're the world's greatest treasures, part of our heritage. Now, officials in Italy are applying to have what named to the list?
MO ROCCA: Something in Italy that they want protected...
SAGAL: Yes.
ROCCA: ...By UNESCO.
SAGAL: Yes.
ROCCA: OK, well, it's obviously not going to be something that is obvious. I mean, it's not going to be like, St. Peter's or...
SAGAL: Oh, I see you've listened to the show.
ROCCA: ...Uffizi.
SAGAL: No, it's not going to be that. I'll give you a hint.
ROCCA: OK.
SAGAL: It's especially valuable to world's culture when topped with pepperoni.
ROCCA: OK, the world's first pizza parlor.
SAGAL: No not. It's pizza itself.
ROCCA: Pizza - pizza.
SAGAL: Pizza itself.
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SAGAL: UNESCO provides protection for the great cultural institutions. There is something called the intangible cultural heritage list. And the Italians want to put Neapolitan pizza on it. But in order to do that, you have to show that whatever it is that you're trying to protect is under threat. And pizza is totally under threat from Pizza Hut and Domino's...
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Oh boy is it.
SAGAL: ...And the city of Chicago, which has been trying to drown real pizza in 8 pounds of melted cheese.
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SAGAL: But mainly...
POUNDSTONE: You know...
SAGAL: ...Pizza's under threat from all the people that want to eat it.
POUNDSTONE: I ordered a pizza at a Chicago...
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: ...Restaurant one time. And it had this enormous list of ingredients that you could have on your pizza on the menu. And on the list was cheese and tomato sauce. And so I said to the waitress - I go really? If I don't say cheese and tomato sauce, that doesn't come on my pizza? And she said no. I said so if I say mushroom pizza, you'll just bring me a crust with mushrooms on it? And she said yes. And I said well, OK then - cheese, tomato sauce and mushrooms, please. She brings me the pizza - I swear I'm not making this up - I bite into it, it had walnuts in it.
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POUNDSTONE: So I call her back over and I go there are walnuts in my pizza. And she goes yeah, we put walnuts in the pizza.
ROCCA: You had...
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ROCCA: You had to tell them when you don't want walnuts.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah. Chicago should be arrested by Italy.
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