Manna From Illinois

Minneapolis and St. Paul are self-confident enough, thank heavens, to recognize that the Windy City has some things to recommend it. Chief among them, the Chicago style hot dog, one of this magazine’s life forces. In recent years, there have been just two vendors in the Twin Cities from whom a hungry fellow can reliably purchase this toothsome delight.

First things first: Understand that a Chicago dog bears little resemblance to your usual ballpark frank. There are a number of highly refined and specific ingredients–a recipe and alchemy that must strictly be observed. First, of course, the dog itself. It must be a Vienna Beef hot dog, with natural skin casing, the kind of high-quality wiener that provides the “snap” which repels the uninitiated and simpleminded. Then there are the toppings. Sport peppers, tomatoes, relish, onion, and yellow mustard. Pickle spear. Celery salt.

Jerry Petermeier, former owner of grubby West Bank institution The Wienery, says the sine qua non of an authentic Chicago dog is the poppy seed bun. It may seem a trifle, but poppy seed buns are actually available from only one local distributor. And without the poppy seeds, in the common vernacular, you got squat.

The other day, Pat Starr was trying to pass off non-poppy seed buns. The Weinery’s current operator is a sturdy and smiling man of thirty-something who takes orders from behind the grill, and shouts greetings to the constant stream of regulars coming in the derelict door. He wears a stocking cap in all weather. “This isn’t really a Chicago dog,” he said apologetically. “But I ran out of buns.”

The next day, Tommy Dennis tut-tutted in mock disapproval. He and his brother Bobby run Joey D’s in South Minneapolis, a “Chicago style eatery” which native Chicagoans treat as a local consulate. Wearing a Blackhawks away jersey over his barrel-shaped chest, Tommy said there’s no single ingredient that makes a Chicago Dog authentic, because “you gotta have it all.”
And it’s all gotta come from Chicago. Pat Starr gets his stuff–the celery salt, the day-glo Chipico relish–from a local distributor that specializes in Windy City fare. But the Dennis brothers rent their own semi and drive it down to Chicago every couple of months. “This is the real deal,” said Bobby Dennis, with a photo of Mike Ditka peeking in agreement over one shoulder, and Stan Makita peeking over the other.


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