Hello, and welcome to the first CulinaryWoman Newsletter for the month of March. I know some readers are digging out from yet another snowstorm, so thanks for stopping by.
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Exploring Chicago’s Delicious Hometown Treats
When I lived in Arizona, I went to spring training games as often as I could. One warm winter day, I had tickets to visit the Chicago Cubs’ new ballpark. A bunch of booths were set up on a concourse, including one where you could meet legendary Cubs pitcher Ferguson Jenkins and purchase an autographed baseball, with a donation going to charity.
As I was leaving with my baseball, a representative from Giordano’s pizza called out to me: did I want to enter a contest for a free year of pizza? I initially demurred, since I lived hundreds of miles away from its Chicago source, but he assured me the pizza could be safely shipped.
To my surprise, I won the pizza — two deep dish pies per month for a year. I had no trouble finding takers among family and friends. Everybody, it seemed loved Giordano’s pizza.
Deep dish is easily the most famous dish from the Windy City, with Italian beef sandwiches and Chicago hot dogs right behind. But there are far more specialties from the city of big shoulders. They are detailed in Monica Eng and David Hammond’s new book, Made In Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites from the University of Illinois Press.
It goes on sale Tuesday, but you can pre-order a copy here. Use the code S23UIP for a discount.
Chicagoans know Monica from her work on WBEZ public radio and her co-hosting duties with Chicago Tribune restaurant critic Louisa Chu on their Chewing podcast (a play on their names). These days, Monica works with my former WBEZ colleague Justin Kaufmann producing the Axios Chicago newsletter, where her food journalism is prominently featured.
Inspiration for the book
I talked to Monica about the idea behind the book that she and Dave produced. The book is a product of 3 Fields Press, an imprint that looks at Illinois and Midwestern topics. The titles are meant to explore regional music, arts, national history, technology and with their book, cuisine.
Monica and Dave wanted to focus on dishes that weren’t cliches, and which might not even be known to all Chicagoans. Because it is such a vast city — 228 square miles, stretching 25 miles from north to south, and 15 miles from Lake Michigan to the west - it is a challenge for someone to visit every corner.
Beyond that, Chicago is divided into dozens of neighborhoods, many of which are dominated by a single background, and whose residents might rarely venture elsewhere. North side residents often don’t visit the south side, while south siders’ frame of reference often stops at the Loop.
Monica says the book is an effort to enlighten Chicagoans, and visitors, about dishes that might be right under their noses. I was struck by just how many had roots in other cultures, not a surprise, since Chicago is a city of immigrants from overseas and migrants from other parts of the U.S.
“These are stories of great ingenuity,” says Monica, whose family operated the Eng restaurant dynasty, and “using what we had.”
In their research, Monica and Dave discovered that some foods had become ubiquitous across the city, such as gyros, pizza puffs and Chicago hot dogs, prompting them to wonder, “Should we include those?” she says.
The list of winners
Ultimately, they came up with a list of 50 semi-finalists, and winnowed it down to the winning 30. A key criteria was whether the foods could be easily accessible; they didn’t want to risk having the one place that served them go under and take that dish with them.
In reading the list, I discovered a number of new foods, even though three generations of my family have lived in Chicago. Here are a few that you may or may not know.
Chicago claims to be the home of saganaki, the flaming Greek kasseri cheese. In Greektown and Greek restaurants elsewhere, it placed on a cast iron pan, is doused with ouzo and lit on fire, resulting in cries of “opa!” from diners.
There’s a rivalry between Chicago and Detroit over who actually invented it — I remember saganaki being served in Detroit’s Greektown restaurants for as long as I’ve been eating there, but it’s in the book as a Chicago invention.
A gym shoe (alternatively spelled Jim shoe) is not edible footwear, but a messy sandwich. It is sometimes likened to a gyro on a roll instead of pita, but it substitutes tender roast beef for the lamb/beef gyro meat. Some versions also include gyro meat and corned beef, leading to a triple meat combination.
A gym shoe sometimes includes giardiniera, the spicy pickled vegetable salad, and tzatziki, the yogurt sauce found on a gyro. Don’t throw away your wrapper, you will need to catch the drips.
The big baby hails from the southwest side. It’s a double-patty hamburger on a sesame seed bun, with a slice of cheese between the meat, and the toppings on the bottom except for onions, which are laid on top. The burger is griddled so that it has crispy edges.
If that sounds sort of familiar, you could think of it as the original Big Mac, or a Big Boy burger, although neither McDonald’s nor the various Big Boy chains acknowledged where they got the idea.
Another item in the book is mild sauce, of which I am a connoisseur. Mild sauce is not hot sauce, although you might be forgiven for thinking that it is such. It has a tomato base, with vinegar and a sweetener plus spices such as cayenne pepper, garlic and sometimes mustard powder.
I was first introduced to mild sauce at Calumet Fisheries, the far southside seafood joint made famous in The Blues Brothers (Jake and Elwood jump the open 95th Street bridge right next to Cal Fish). You also can find it at Harold’s Chicken Shacks across the city.
The idea is to take a small container of mild sauce, pour it into a container of fried shrimp or scallops, shake it and then enjoy to sauce coated seafood. At Harold’s, it’s a dipping sauce for hunks of chicken, or you can slather it on white bread and make an ad hoc chicken sandwich.
Just as the TV program The Bear made Italian Beef sandwiches a trend last year, Made in Chicago could turn some of these specialties into social media darlings. “I hope, I hope, I hope,” Monica says.
Check out their book and see how many you’ve eaten — or try some new ones when you get to town.
A Winner For Deux Cookie Dough!
Congratulations to Jessica Chmura! She has won the giveaway with Deux edible vegan cookie dough. As things would have it, Jessica owns a small bakery and pastry shop in central Connecticut called Eight Mile Meadow.
She writes, “I use locally grown and milled flours in my sourdough breads, and strive to educate people about the healthful properties of real bread. Thanks for including me!”
Located in Deep River, Connecticut, Eight Mile Meadow has a wide variety of pastries, breads, pasta types, sauces, gift cards and a cute tote bag. Be sure to check them out.
Thank you so much to Deux for donating the gift pack.
We’ll announce our March giveaway in the next free issue of the CulinaryWoman Newsletter.
Learning to Make Hamantaschen
I’ve always been a fan of hamantaschen, the filled triangular butter cookie that is an annual feature for the Jewish holiday of Purim. Last year, bakers from around the world collectively baked hamantaschen as a fundraiser to support Ukraine. The fundraiser is how I met Nancy Pesses, the proprietor of Challah Creations by Nancy in suburban Metairie, Louisiana.
Many are continuing to do so this year, which is how I learned to make them. I took a class at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum here in New Orleans with Jessica Ragan-Williams. I met Jess when she was a baker at the much-missed Mayhew Bakery, which closed last year.
She is now working with Bittersweet Confections, baking privately and conducting classes like the one held in SoFab’s teaching kitchen. As it turns out, hamantaschen is a relatively easy cookie to make. Here’s a video to walk you through them.
Hamantaschen traditionally come in poppy seed, apricot and prune, but they are available in all manner of flavors. I am getting some from Nancy that feature s’mores, Nutella and blueberry cheesecake.
If you see hamantaschen for sale where you live, pick some up, and if you’re looking for a baking project, give them a try.
Leave Your Potatoes At Home
Mardi Gras is over here in New Orleans, but parade season is not. People are already gearing up for St. Patrick’s Day parades, which will burst forth next weekend, with festivities continuing through the holiday weekend.
It is traditional for float riders to throw food to the crowd, including staples of Irish cuisine such as cabbages, potatoes and corn. (Actually, I’m told that the cabbages are more often handed across to people, since tossing a cabbage might cause an injury.)
But this year, Old Metairie is frowning on the food-as-throws practice. While cabbages and carrots are still allowed, potatoes, lemons and limes are now banned as souvenirs. “It’s strictly a safely thing,” parade president Dan Civello told the Advocate/Times-Picayune.
Instead of gently tossing the starches and fruits, some overly exuberant (read tipsy) riders have gotten carried away and have fired edible missiles into the crowds. “Think about it: if you through a one-and-a-half pound potato like a baseball, you could kill somebody.”
It turns out that the parade pays $44,000 annually for insurance. “Every time someone makes a claim, our premiums go up,” Dan said.
Anyone who breaks the new rule will be banned from the parade and won’t be allowed to come back. Actions, after all, have consequences, even if they can be roasted.
Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman
Last week, after a readership poll, our Wednesday feature was renamed. It is now The CulinaryWoman Reading Room, a place where our paid subscribers can learn about new cookbooks and books about food.
Spring and fall are still the busiest times for culinary publications, but they flow forth at all times of the year. Paid subscribers have begun getting my tips on recently published books and upcoming books that our readers might enjoy.
I encourage publicists and authors to contact me if they have an upcoming book. I’ll be happy to consider it for the CA Reading Room. You can reach me at culinarywoman at gmail dot com. Please also let me know if you’d like your book to be part of a giveaway. Our readers have recently received new titles including Gateau, Bread Head and The Big Texas Cookbook.
You can follow me on Instagram. My main account, where I promote items in the newsletter and my writing activities, is at michelinemaynard. My New Orleans activities are at micki_in_nola.
I hope are staying safe and well in our unpredictable weather. Allergy season is on its way in New Orleans and across the South, so be prepared. I’ll see our paid subscribers tomorrow with Red Beans and Advice, and our free newsletter readers next Sunday.