QC Pizza
Why do we (or anyone) travel? For Christine and me, we are just trying to satiate our curiosity. Making comparisons between places across time provides a method of organizing the knowledge accumulated during travel adventures.
I was shocked and impressed to hear that the Quad Cities have a distinctive pizza style. The Quad Cities lie on the route just between Chicago and Cedar Rapids. Christine and I travel through there regularly on our frequent trips to the Linge homeland.
Eating pizza while on the road is a bit tough. Pizza takes a while to bake, and we're usually too excited to arrive at our destination to wait for pizza. In addition, pizza is a heavy food that as a matter of tradition I tend to overeat. I'm usually sleepy while driving and become even more tired after eating, especially overeating. It's a shame we never tried Quad Cities pizza before because it is one of the best pizza styles in the U.S. We visited Harris Pizza in Bettendorf on Saturday.
Quad Cities pizza is like New York pizza, hand-tossed, but with a stronger tang to the dough, explained by the use of brewer's malt and extra spices in the dough mix, and thicker crust. A food scholar could perhaps explain with more authority how the pizzas compare. Someday I hope to.
In our travels, we try to piece together why everything is the way it is. It is cliched to say that food explains the people and place, but food is part of a place's story. You often find that locally developed food varieties are a result of historical constraints imposed by the place on the people. Although I can't find any Internet sites to confirm this, I am guessing Italians immigrants rode the Rock Island Railroad to settle in the Quad Cities and work in local industry, like the river port and factories. Perhaps they learned pizza-making from their social network connections in New York and modified the recipes to make use of the malt that the local Germans were using in their breweries. I will get myself in trouble by speculating, but I will try to figure out how this style of pizza ended up here like this.
While traveling we often sample (um, I mean overindulge in) international foods and reminisce about how they are in different places. We have sought wine and beer in Europe, Asia, and North America. Pizza is one of those foods that show up all over the world. Some of the most distinctive pizzas I can remember are the wood-oven pizzas of Paris, the Turkish pizzas of Paris, the single serving pizzas of Addis Ababa, the paneer pizzas and Pizza Hut of Mumbai, the hand-tossed pizzas of Ray's in New York, Imo's soggy square slices in St. Louis, the crispy crust of Lou Malnati's deep dish in Chicago, duck pizza in Singapore, Canadian pizza in Singapore (not that good, but passable for an American-style pizza), pizza from a vending machine in Madrid, and my sincere apologies to all of the pizzas I am now forgetting. I am happy to add Quad Cities pizza to this list.
I was shocked and impressed to hear that the Quad Cities have a distinctive pizza style. The Quad Cities lie on the route just between Chicago and Cedar Rapids. Christine and I travel through there regularly on our frequent trips to the Linge homeland.
Eating pizza while on the road is a bit tough. Pizza takes a while to bake, and we're usually too excited to arrive at our destination to wait for pizza. In addition, pizza is a heavy food that as a matter of tradition I tend to overeat. I'm usually sleepy while driving and become even more tired after eating, especially overeating. It's a shame we never tried Quad Cities pizza before because it is one of the best pizza styles in the U.S. We visited Harris Pizza in Bettendorf on Saturday.
Quad Cities pizza is like New York pizza, hand-tossed, but with a stronger tang to the dough, explained by the use of brewer's malt and extra spices in the dough mix, and thicker crust. A food scholar could perhaps explain with more authority how the pizzas compare. Someday I hope to.
In our travels, we try to piece together why everything is the way it is. It is cliched to say that food explains the people and place, but food is part of a place's story. You often find that locally developed food varieties are a result of historical constraints imposed by the place on the people. Although I can't find any Internet sites to confirm this, I am guessing Italians immigrants rode the Rock Island Railroad to settle in the Quad Cities and work in local industry, like the river port and factories. Perhaps they learned pizza-making from their social network connections in New York and modified the recipes to make use of the malt that the local Germans were using in their breweries. I will get myself in trouble by speculating, but I will try to figure out how this style of pizza ended up here like this.
While traveling we often sample (um, I mean overindulge in) international foods and reminisce about how they are in different places. We have sought wine and beer in Europe, Asia, and North America. Pizza is one of those foods that show up all over the world. Some of the most distinctive pizzas I can remember are the wood-oven pizzas of Paris, the Turkish pizzas of Paris, the single serving pizzas of Addis Ababa, the paneer pizzas and Pizza Hut of Mumbai, the hand-tossed pizzas of Ray's in New York, Imo's soggy square slices in St. Louis, the crispy crust of Lou Malnati's deep dish in Chicago, duck pizza in Singapore, Canadian pizza in Singapore (not that good, but passable for an American-style pizza), pizza from a vending machine in Madrid, and my sincere apologies to all of the pizzas I am now forgetting. I am happy to add Quad Cities pizza to this list.
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| Thinking about Quad City pizza. |
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| Behold Harris's fine pie. Notice it's cut into rectangles, a distinctive QC pizza slice shape. |
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| An unassuming location for such excellent pizza. |
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