Local Pizza

So there's plenty of pizza around - but what qualifies as local? Baked locally? Dough thawed locally? Unfortunately, I'd guess very few ingredients of any pizza you'll find locally are made from local ingredients. A true shame, and huge opportunity for local farmers - because pretty much everything on a pizza can be local.

Leave it to the innovators at ROMAR greenhouse (Martha and Bob Hamblin and friends) to take a midwest dietary staple and make it from entirely local ingredients. Handmade crust from organic flour (as local as possible), sauces made from a variety of heirloom tomatoes grown on their farm and cheese from hyper-local Gingerbread Jersey. Toppings will vary, but at their recent on-farm tasting event they had 8 kinds and I can't remember them all. The roasted vegetable pizza was killer, with ample carmelized onions (soon to be garlic as the first green garlics of the season are coming on). Other varieties featured clean meat from local farms you'll recognize from the downtown Eau Claire Farmers market - a gyro pizza with lambalot lamb, beef from Little Spring Valley, and elk from Moss Elk.

Want one?

You could make one tomorrow for yourself.

The pizzas from ROMAR are near. For a farmer to make a product like this (frozen most likely) and distribute it legally there are PLENTY of hoops to jump through. Many indeed for food safety, but many other rules tend to favor big companies over small farmers. Anyhow, ROMAR is indeed hoop jumping inbetween weeding, picking, mulching and the unstoppable general farm chores.

And hopefully the pizzas will be available for you in September for the challenge...

(vegetarian pizza pictured)