Imo's Pizza: Distinctive it stands

As a foodie, I sometimes feel as if there is that jump never taken, that food never tasted and that opportunity missed to try something that everyone else seems to love. Usually, this missed chance is accidental, just simple oversight on my part, but sometimes it is willful and stubborn.

A long, long time ago, I attended SEMO and took part in their student work program. For me, this translated into janitor work. Every shift, I showed up to clean the bathrooms and take out the trash, and this included the Towers dorms. They had these minuscule trash cans on every floor in the shower room and inevitably, what did not fit into the trash cans was put on the floor. Stacks and stacks of pizza boxes. Towering, wobbly mountains of greasy cardboard, uncaringly placed, leaking crumbs and old onions and sometimes even leftover pizza. And the pizza boxes were always from Imo's Pizza. If I've collected one Imo's box, I've collected 10,000. Though I was in college myself, I vowed to never, ever try Imo's Pizza due to my association with the cleanup those boxes represented.

So now it is decades later, and I'm looking through my choices for my next foodie article. My eye and brain catches on Imo's Pizza. "Authentic St. Louis-Style Pizza!" the internet blurb shouts at me, and I shy away from it like a spooked horse. But for some reason, I force myself to stop, consider and read through the menu. Huh. I wondered if those college students knew something I didn't. Was it convenience that caused them to consume tons of the stuff on the regular, or was it something different, something that set Imo's apart from other pizza? It was finally time to find out.

I wanted a variety, so I ordered the Square Box Deal with the Great Tastes of St. Louis. Sounded promising. I chose a Deluxe Pizza (sausage, mushrooms, onions, green pepper, bacon and Provel cheese), with toasted ravioli, Provel bites and seasonal Pumpkin Spice Cinnamos. I didn't modify the pizza at all, although I wanted to, because the website said this was the "original and favorite specialty pizza," and I wanted to give it a fair shake.

So we pick up the order, bring it home, and open the box. I swear I heard a triumphant choir. This box was one of the most eye-pleasing arrangements I've seen. The pizza has a thin, really thin crust, with generous toppings, crowned with real strips of bacon. Whoever put this pizza together was an artist, because the strips of bacon fell in perfect diagonal lines, with an artful green pepper peeking through at regular intervals. I loaded up my plate with one of everything.

Imo's Pizza's Square Box Deal, the tastes of St. Louis packed into one beautiful box.Submitted by Rebecca LaClair

I tried the pizza first, obviously. I'm so glad I didn't modify the pizza. Normally, I'd nix the onions, but these were paper thin, cooked through and had attained that nicely roasted richness that transforms a tangy onion into a thing of flavorful beauty. The bacon was thin, the sausage was mild, the mushrooms were decent-sized and meaty. But the cheese ... that was something different: creamy, buttery, not stringy like mozzarella and lacking that stiff cheese mouthfeel. It was a complement to the tomato sauce, blending with it and providing a solid base for the heavier meat flavors to rest. It was delicious.

I had to look up what Provel cheese is, because I had no clue. Wikipedia told me that it is "a white processed cheese product particularly popular in St. Louis cuisine, that is a combination of cheddar, Swiss, and provolone cheeses." Like Velveeta, but made of actual cheese. It seems that many have a love/hate relationship with Provel cheese. "It's a processed cheese," some would say with a derisive sneer. But I dare to say that it is delicious when used correctly. Smooth, a little smoky and spread thin on that pizza slice, it was different and unassuming and totally Midwestern.

The rest of the box held its own. The toasted raviolis were really quite good, and the Provel bites gave me a purer taste of that much maligned cheese. The Pumpkin Spice Cinnamos, little fried biscuits drizzled with icing, warmed my fall-craving soul.

If, you have spurned Imo's for decades and never tried it, reconsider. This is pizza that is truly unlike any of the other chains, and a part of our robust and humble regional cuisine.

Find Imo's Pizza at 1008 N. Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau, or at certain Rhodes 101 Convenience Stores.

Pizza can be art, as proven by this Deluxe Pizza from Imo s.Submitted by Rebecca LaClair