This particular combo of ingredients tells the story of early 20th century immigration to Chicago - especially to the Maxwell Street Market area, around Halsted Street and Roosevelt Road. The answers add up to more than just delicious food trivia. They wanted to know who invented it, when it was invented and why it’s so strongly-associated with the city. Several Curious City fans - including Jill Westerfelhaus, Gus Lopez and Nina Diehl - have sent in questions over the years about this taste combination. They dished their dog out to lucky customers once it had been documented for the annals of history.It all starts with a snappy all-beef wiener, one that gets nestled in a steamed poppy seed bun and topped with yellow mustard, chopped onions, neon-green relish, two slices of tomato, a dill pickle spear, two sport peppers and a final whoosh of celery salt.īut how did this peculiar group of ingredients come to define Chicago-style hot dogs? For those keeping score at home, however, their dog came in at 43 feet (per ABC 7 Chicago) and dethroned Conan's creation, even if it was to no great fanfare. This whopping wiener was not officially recognized as the world's longest Chicago-style dog, and neither was the slightly larger one put together by Midwest grocery chain Mariano's in 2018. It was topped with all the requisite ingredients, of course, in staggering amounts: three pounds of pickle spears, one pound of sport peppers, two pounds of relish, four pounds of fresh tomato slices, four pounds of raw onions, two pounds of mustard, zero pounds of ketchup, and a respectable 1/8th pound of celery salt (via YouTube). This behemoth red hot measured a frankly amazing 40 feet long, with a poppy seed bun to match. Somewhere along the way, the standard seven toppings so prevalent today became the preferred formula.Ĭonan O'Brien discovered the joy of Chicago-style hot dogs while filming in the city in 2012, and became so instantly enamored that he was inspired to commission a giant version from Vienna Beef. Other vendors followed suit and started offering hot dogs topped with plenty of fresh and pickled veggies and condiments. The addition of fresh vegetables brought some genuine nutritional benefits to boot, and took almost no extra time to prep and pile on.įluky's dubbed this a "Depression Sandwich" - signaling its inherent value as a properly bulky bite and casting its vote early as to that eternal question of whether a hot dog is or is not a sandwich. You'll notice that lineup is a little different from the current combo of toppings, but the basic idea was to bulk up the meat-in-a-bun meal so customers could truly satisfy their hunger on no more than a nickel or two in those lean times. That's when they began selling a 5-cent hot dog capped with mustard, pickle relish, onions, a dill pickle, hot peppers, fresh tomatoes, and lettuce (as described by Block Club Chicago). Now-defunct Chicago eatery Fluky's is credited with kicking off this piled-on toppings tradition during the 1930s. Nothing's stopping you from enjoying a vegan Chicago-style hot dog if you don't eat meat, but diehard fans would argue you'd be missing the point. Today, slow-smoked, natural-casing Vienna beef hot dogs are still the gold standard for a Chicago-style dog. Vienna Beef became an institution (and they bought David Berg, Chicago's original hot dog company, in 1992). so, basically, it's a genuine tube steak. Whereas most hot dogs today are made from various trimmings for the protein quotient, all-beef hot dogs must contain only muscle tissue from a cow. ![]() Chicago's meatpacking industry was notoriously unsanitary, but kosher butchering practices were thought to put a much greater emphasis on cleanliness. Furthermore, Thrillist suggests that 19th-century public perception was not only that these beefy wieners tasted better, but that they were safer to eat. All-beef hot dogs have a deeper, meatier taste that can take heavier spicing than more delicate pork and poultry dogs without being overwhelmed (that's before you even get to the toppings).
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