I find it rather strange that cities, towns, and regions have over time become associated with various types of food. Philadelphia has its eponymous cheese steak and Chicago its deep-dish pizza, the “Chicago Dog,” and its recently repopularized Italian beef sandwiches. St. Louis, Memphis, and Kansas City are famous for their barbeque. Montréal has its smoked meats and poutine and Halifax its donair kebabs (regular readers of this blog may recall my prior posting about these). There is New Orleans po’ boys and etoufe, Baltimore and its crab cakes and blue crabs, DC’s half-smokes, and Maine its lobsters, oysters and chowders. Don’t forget Boston’s baked beans and brown bread, New York’s deli sandwiches and bagels, Buffalo wings, Cincinnati chili, San Francisco’s ciopino and Tampa’s Cuban sandwiches (I have written about these, too). There is Seattle’s Pacific salmon and Dungeness crab, and Nashville’s hot chicken. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. Many places offer their own versions of pizza, steak, tacos . . . you name it . . . and there are certain local standards as to what constitutes a genuine cheese steak, a deep-dish pizza, or even something as American and ubiquitous as the hot dog (wiener, weenie, frankfurter, or frank).
Hot dogs in their many local variations have been served throughout the United States since the late 19th century, and now they have adapted to the tastes of other countries, as well. Just about every region of the US has its own particular hot dog style; some are more interesting than others. Here in the DC area the so-called half-smoke is the local version popularized by the iconic Ben’s Chli Bowl in the U Street Corridor. Similar to the standard hot dog, but usually larger, spicier, and with more coarsely-ground meat – often half-pork and half-beef – they are served with herbs, onions, and chili sauce. Just up the road Baltimore-style hot dogs consist of a kosher beef sausage that is fried with bologna slices and served on a split-bread bun with a dill pickle spear. California-style hot dogs have long offered a different twist on the hot dog, and I can’t help but recall the dogs served up by Tail of the Pup when I was a young lad in LA. There are hot dogs with bacon, or dogs with jalapenos and sauerkraut, as well as veggie dogs. On one of my first visits to the Pacific Northwest I was introduced to the “Seattle Dog,” a relatively recent offering consisting of a Polish sausage nestled in a hoagie roll and topped with cream cheese and sauteed onions. Peppers and sauerkraut are often added along with yellow mustard. A bit farther to the north, Vancouver, in Canada, has its “Japadog,” a chain of street food stands serving Japanese-style hot dogs, including variations on traditional Japanese foods like tonkatsu, teriyaki or yakisoba. Anyone who watched MASH on TV will recall Corporal Klinger (Jamie Farr) praising Tony Packo’s famous Hungarian Dog in his and Farr’s hometown of Toledo, Ohio. It is a blend of beef, pork and garlic that is quartered and then fried and served with mustard, onions and a special chili sauce.
How can I write about hot dogs without mentioning the New England “red hot?” It has been said that you know you have crossed into Maine when you go to the local market and the hot dogs on display are a bright, almost neon red. They are not called hot dogs here. They are red snappers, pure and simple. Oh, you can get the regular hot dogs at grocery stores, but why when you can enjoy a red snapper instead? Red because of their obvious hue, and snapper because of the sharp snap they make when you bite into one.
This past summer I read food writer and editor Helen Rosner’s “The Unbreakable Rules of the Chicago Dog—and When to Bend Them” in The New Yorker (July 3). Recounting the now familiar story of how the hot dog came to the Windy City in the late 19th century, Rosner writes that “this food of convenience evolved into a holy cultural object, until the act of building a proper Chicago dog demanded a degree of attention and care that verged on the liturgical . . . Among the devout, none of the dog’s nine individual elements is unimportant, and any deviation amounts to sacrilege.” I should be clear on one important point. Although Rosner grew up in South Side Chicago, she moved east for college, resettling in New York City where she continues to live and write. She understands what a true Chicago Dog is and should be, yet she has learned to bend the rules to approximate it with unauthentic ingredients. “Work with what you have, adhere to the blueprint as best you can, and you will build something beautiful: a hot dog dragged through a garden of earthly delights. And then, five bites later, it’ll be gone, and you can make yourself another one.” That’s fine. Just don’t call what it’s not. Being a native Chicagoan myself, however, I stand by the rules for a true Chicago Dog.
Hot dogs made their first recorded appearance in Chicago at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, but the true Chicago-style dog was invented several decades later during the Great Depression when street cart vendors at the Maxwell Street Market came up with a way to offer a delicious hot meal served on a bun for only a nickel. Perhaps the best known of these purveyors was Abe “Fluky” Drexler who first opened his street cart at Maxwell and Halsted Streets just west of the Loop in 1929, offering the so-called "Depression Sandwich" - a hot dog with yellow mustard and “dragged through the garden” . . . relish, onion, pickle spears, sport peppers, lettuce, tomatoes wedges, with a dash of celery salt and a side of French fries A cosmopolitan meal. Skip the meat and it only cost two cents. Fluky added several more carts and business was good until World War II and the rationing of meat forced three of his four locations to close. The remaining stand closed in 1955 and did not reopen again until early 1964 as a brick-and-mortar establishment on North Western Avenue. It quickly became the largest hot dog joint in the city. There are still joints in and around Chicago that feature the so-called Depression Dog topped with crispy fries with mustard, onion and peppers. Not a true Chicago Dog by any standard but still a good meal, especially served with a cold beer.
So, what make a Chicago Dog unique and why? In the Windy City the expression “the Chicago 7" * have a special meaning. It refers to the key ingredients added to a boiled or steamed dog (never grilled) nestled in a steamed (never toasted) poppy seed bun: yellow mustard, “electric” green sweet relish, chopped white onion, dill pickle spear, hot sports peppers (there is no other acceptable variety), two slices of fresh tomato, and the pièce de réistance, a dash of celery salt to bring it all together. “Finesse matters,” Rosner writes. “A Chicago-style hot dog is an aesthetic creation as much as a culinary one.” More important than anything else, there is one unspeakable and unbreakable rule of a true Chicago-style hot dog. You should never, ever, ever put ketchup on it. If you do, you might as well pack up and leave town.
Putting ketchup on a hot dog is referred to in some local quarters as an occasional “affliction” of young people who do not know any better. Put ketchup on it and a kid will swallow anything. It has also been said that the only people who put ketchup on hot dogs are mental patients, and Texans. Any sane adult should understand that ketchup is the quickest way to ruin an otherwise perfectly good Chicago Dog . . . or any hot dog for that matter. There is no alternative. There is no compromise. When it comes to a hot dog, ketchup is streng verboten. Why do you need it when you have slices of fresh tomato lining the edges of the poppy-seed bun? Even Anthony Bourdain, the late chef, food reencounter, and dye in the wool New Yorker, agreed that the Chicago Dog is “the finest hot dog on the planet. There, I said it, and I meant it. Now f**k off.” High praise, adding "I think there is a time and a place for ketchup, and I don’t think the hot dog is one of them.” What more needs to be said on this score?
In a city where the local hot dog is king, Chicagoans have their favorite place that prepares it just right to their particular tastes. Some are loyal to Portillo’s which now has a number of outlets across the city and scattered about northern Illinois. My favorite was just a half an hour from my family home in suburban Park Ridge. Wolfy’s, at 2734 West Peterson Avenue, was relatively new when I first discovered it in 1968, and in the years since it has become an iconic landmark on the Far North Side. What a treat to drive down Peterson and see that large frank skewered on a giant fork (even more impressive at night when illuminated in neon). It offers all of the proper ingredients and it just seemed to taste better than any of the others offered throughout the city. The kosher all beef Vienna brand franks (established in Chicago in 1893 introducing its hickory-smoked hot dog at the Columbian Exposition) are served either steamed or charred. Your choice! The Chicago Tribune “Sunday Magazine” ranked for perhaps the first time in 1974 the city’s top hot dog emporia. Wolfy’s was number one and so it remains in this native Chicagoan’s heart.
More recently in Condé Nast Traveler (November 2022), Rosner touches on something that rings true for me. “Whenever I go home – no matter how long I live elsewhere, Chicago will always be home,” Rosner admits. “Chicago has its own rhythms and moods, its own hierarchies and customs . . . it took leaving Chicago for me to truly love it, to really understand its grit and beauty.” It has been a while since I was last in my hometown, and it has been ever so long since I enjoyed a true Chicago Dog. I have eaten many wonderful hot dogs before and since, and each one is worthy of praise for one reason or another. But they were not Chicago-style hot dogs without the “Chicago Seven” . . . accept no substitutes! And regardless of where I might order a hot dog, I remain true to the gospel . . . no ketchup!! Ever!!
[[ * Since the late 1960s, the “Chicago Seven” has normally referred to the defendants charged with conspiracy to incite a riot, and other charges related to anti-Vietnam War and counterculture protests in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Certainly not Chicago’s finest hour . . . this from one who still recall’s the sting of tear gas along Michigan Avenue. Thankfully it now refers to something that continues to bring culinary favor to the “City of the Big Shoulders.”]]
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