- Sep 13, 2002
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Like I've been saying, this culinary treat is starting to sweep the nation as the recognition of its tasty awesomeness continues to spread!!
This Midwest Region You've Probably Never Heard of Makes the Best Pizza You've Never Tried
David Landsel
The obscure pizza traditions of the Quad Cities region—belonging to both Iowa and Illinois—deserve a whole lot more attention.
DAVID LANDSEL
May 30, 2018
With its crispy, chewy crust rich in molasses, scissor-cut strips, a small avalanche ofmozzarellaburying generous amounts of lean sausage meat, and a conservative amount of spicy, fragranttomato saucehiding out way down at the base, a proper Quad City-stylepizzais not something you forget, once you've tried it—the question is, will you ever get to have one in front of you?
There are two major obstacles that must be overcome before you get to stuff your face with one of America's most interesting pizzas. We may begin with the fact that many Americans have never even heard of the Quad Cities, and even if they have, odds are they've never been there. Roughly two and a half hours west of Chicago, facing each other on opposite banks of the Mississippi River, the Quad Cities are Rock Island and Moline, Illinois, both looking north to Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa.
Home ofJohn Deere, and for years Alcoa, nowArconic, the Quad Cities region is a place of commerce, of industry; for a lot of people who've been here, it's often nothing more than a quick stop along I-80, somewhere in the middle of a multi-day, cross-country excursion.
And while there are certainly more ways than stuffing your face to connect with the local culture—the David Chipperfield-designedFigge Art Museumin downtown Davenport, for starters—a good Quad Cities pizza is one of the very best reasons to pump the brakes as you come through, one of the very best reasons to make a bit of time for a place that doesn't get a whole lot of attention. Oh, and then there's the fact that Quad City-style pies are mostly still enjoyed right here, and no place else. With just a couple of exceptions, if you want to try this pizza, you kind of need to come here.
David Landsel
The good thing is, once you arrive, you can't really move for pizza choices, but perhaps no address is quite so widely known asHarris Pizza, a classic, family-owned business with four locations around the area. Like many Americans, all my visits to the Quad Cities have been on road trips, and my latest stop was no exception. This time, however, I stopped off to dive deeper into the regional pizza lore, taking the time to sample a variety of different local pies. Better still, I managed to convince operations manager Rich Meeker from Harris Pizza to let me into the kitchen, to see how the sausage pizza is made. Between the lunch and dinner rush, we met up at the Bettendorf shop for a tutorial.
"Our version starts with a custom molasses and malt blend that goes into all of our dough, which, by the way, is never frozen," Meeker tells me, wasting no time in tackling a lump of dough, old-school style, stretching and throwing and working it out to roughly 16 inches, leaving it to rest for a moment on a cornmeal-dusted wooden board.
The way the dough is made, he says, it provides a nutty kind of sweetness to the pizza. Having molasses in the mix gives the crust a naturally deep, toasted look after just eight or so minutes in a 500-degree oven.
For a proper Quad City-style pie, the tomato sauce, too often barely concealing a wealth of added sugars in other American styles of pizza, comes in spicier than you might be expecting, bringing a welcome kick to the mix.
Once a conservative amount of sauce is added, in comes the sausage—a custom natural (no preservatives) blend seasoned lightly with fennel, red and black pepper that is finely ground on premises, cooked down and then drained, leaving an already lean blend even leaner, because that's the way they've been doing it for the longest time.
"None of our meats are ever frozen, they're always fresh—we try to use the best quality meat that we can buy, especially when it comes to the pork," says Meeker, estimating that their average sausage use each year runs in the neighborhood of about 179,000 pounds. A pound of sausage is said to end up on every pizza; a large Harris sausage pie can weigh around four pounds—because of the lean blend, and the draining process, there's no soggy, greasy mess at the bottom. (If there is, you've chosen the wrong pizza parlor.)
This Midwest Region You've Probably Never Heard of Makes the Best Pizza You've Never Tried
David Landsel
The obscure pizza traditions of the Quad Cities region—belonging to both Iowa and Illinois—deserve a whole lot more attention.
DAVID LANDSEL
May 30, 2018
With its crispy, chewy crust rich in molasses, scissor-cut strips, a small avalanche ofmozzarellaburying generous amounts of lean sausage meat, and a conservative amount of spicy, fragranttomato saucehiding out way down at the base, a proper Quad City-stylepizzais not something you forget, once you've tried it—the question is, will you ever get to have one in front of you?
There are two major obstacles that must be overcome before you get to stuff your face with one of America's most interesting pizzas. We may begin with the fact that many Americans have never even heard of the Quad Cities, and even if they have, odds are they've never been there. Roughly two and a half hours west of Chicago, facing each other on opposite banks of the Mississippi River, the Quad Cities are Rock Island and Moline, Illinois, both looking north to Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa.
Home ofJohn Deere, and for years Alcoa, nowArconic, the Quad Cities region is a place of commerce, of industry; for a lot of people who've been here, it's often nothing more than a quick stop along I-80, somewhere in the middle of a multi-day, cross-country excursion.
And while there are certainly more ways than stuffing your face to connect with the local culture—the David Chipperfield-designedFigge Art Museumin downtown Davenport, for starters—a good Quad Cities pizza is one of the very best reasons to pump the brakes as you come through, one of the very best reasons to make a bit of time for a place that doesn't get a whole lot of attention. Oh, and then there's the fact that Quad City-style pies are mostly still enjoyed right here, and no place else. With just a couple of exceptions, if you want to try this pizza, you kind of need to come here.
David Landsel
The good thing is, once you arrive, you can't really move for pizza choices, but perhaps no address is quite so widely known asHarris Pizza, a classic, family-owned business with four locations around the area. Like many Americans, all my visits to the Quad Cities have been on road trips, and my latest stop was no exception. This time, however, I stopped off to dive deeper into the regional pizza lore, taking the time to sample a variety of different local pies. Better still, I managed to convince operations manager Rich Meeker from Harris Pizza to let me into the kitchen, to see how the sausage pizza is made. Between the lunch and dinner rush, we met up at the Bettendorf shop for a tutorial.
"Our version starts with a custom molasses and malt blend that goes into all of our dough, which, by the way, is never frozen," Meeker tells me, wasting no time in tackling a lump of dough, old-school style, stretching and throwing and working it out to roughly 16 inches, leaving it to rest for a moment on a cornmeal-dusted wooden board.
The way the dough is made, he says, it provides a nutty kind of sweetness to the pizza. Having molasses in the mix gives the crust a naturally deep, toasted look after just eight or so minutes in a 500-degree oven.
For a proper Quad City-style pie, the tomato sauce, too often barely concealing a wealth of added sugars in other American styles of pizza, comes in spicier than you might be expecting, bringing a welcome kick to the mix.
Once a conservative amount of sauce is added, in comes the sausage—a custom natural (no preservatives) blend seasoned lightly with fennel, red and black pepper that is finely ground on premises, cooked down and then drained, leaving an already lean blend even leaner, because that's the way they've been doing it for the longest time.
"None of our meats are ever frozen, they're always fresh—we try to use the best quality meat that we can buy, especially when it comes to the pork," says Meeker, estimating that their average sausage use each year runs in the neighborhood of about 179,000 pounds. A pound of sausage is said to end up on every pizza; a large Harris sausage pie can weigh around four pounds—because of the lean blend, and the draining process, there's no soggy, greasy mess at the bottom. (If there is, you've chosen the wrong pizza parlor.)