City of Big Shoulders Food
By Jim Shahin
We are wandering around what we believe is the Chicago neighborhood of Wrigleyville, searching for a classic Chicago-style hot dog. Although you can find fine franks all over town, we’re told that in Wrigleyville, you can’t swing a dead scrap heap of unidentifiable meat parts without hitting a good hot dog joint.
“There’s a hot dog place on every corner in Wrigleyville,” one Chicagoan tells us.
After walking for blocks and blocks and coming across many X-rated shops but not a single hot dog restaurant, Jessica asks, “Do you think we’re in Wrigleyville?”
I spot a cop car parked at the corner. Jessica goes over, taps on the window, and asks the female officer behind the wheel whether we’re in Wrigleyville and where we might find a hot dog.
Turns out we’re in Boystown, not Wrigleyville. The cop gives Jessica directions to Wrigleyville and to one hot dog place in particular.
Jessica and I start heading in the opposite direction of where we had been walking. After about six or seven blocks, the cop pulls up beside us, rolls down the passenger-side window, and leans across.
“You’re walking?” she asks, a note of incredulity in her voice.
“Yes,” we say, vaguely wondering if we’ve broken some kind of no-walking law.
Her eyebrows knit slightly and her lips crease, commingling personal concern and professional assessment.
“It’s too far to walk,” she says, “especially in this heat. Hop in.”
Hop in?
Jessica and I look at each other. Are we in trouble?
“I’ll take you,” she says.
Amid a chorus of thank-yous, we slide into the back seat, flabbergasted.
As the cop drives, she tips us to other restaurants.
“You like Mexican?” she asks. “Great place right there. See it? On your left. They make their own tamales. Indian? Phenomenal Indian on Belmont — five bucks, something like that. All you can eat. Incredible stuff. Want a great sub? Hero’s, on North Western. Huge. Good meat. Fantastic place.”
Along the way, I work on a theory that the friendliness of a city is directly proportional to the passion its citizenry has for its food. Chicago is Exhibit A — it loves its food, and it is famously friendly. Where else would you get a police escort to a hot dog joint?
I test my theory on other cities. Philly comes to mind. It’s a tremendous eating town — the fabled outdoor Ninth Street Italian Market, lusty Italian-American restaurants, conquering street food (cheesesteaks have taken over the world). Then I remember its sports fans — harsh, curt, rude. A lot like the town itself. I say this as a native of the area, and, I might add, with no small degree of hometown pride.
Maybe Philly is an anomaly. I consider the friendliness of the grandest of all food cities: Paris.
Okay, next theory.
Do cities start looking like their food, just like pet owners who come to resemble their dogs?
In Chicago, there is slight variation, but generally speaking, the iconic hot dog is served on a poppy-seed bun and with a slather of mustard, a bit of glow-in-the-dark green relish, onion, a dill-pickle spear, some tomato wedges, a few zesty sport peppers (whatever those are), and a dash of celery salt. The city’s equally iconic deep-dish pizza is, classically, a gooey lava of tomato sauce, cheese, sausage, green peppers, mushrooms, and onions. Although, to be sure, more can be added.
This is Big Shoulders food (my apologies to Carl Sandburg).
Chicago, brawny and excessive, looks like its food.
So does Philly, a working-class town; its famous cheesesteak is a proletarian delight. Paris does, too, its stylishness embodied on each of its carefully sauced plates.
Hmmm, I think, I like this theory. But I make a note to go back to it, because right now we’re pulling up to the curb in front of a hot dog joint on Clark Street, not far from Wrigley Field. Hence, the name of the neighborhood: Wrigleyville.
We emerge onto the stifling hot summertime Chicago sidewalk. Everybody looks at us with the same question in their eyes: “Why are those two getting out of a cop car?” I feel part criminal, part stoolie, part VIP.
As we start toward the restaurant, the officer calls to us.
“Hey,” she hails. “No ketchup. Chicago dogs don’t have ketchup.”
As I open the eatery’s front door, I glance up the street at the cop car vanishing into the distance, like something out of a fairy tale.
Some cities are more serious about their food than others. Chicago is one of those cities.
And that’s no theory. That’s a fact.
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