How the Chicago Hot Dog Became the City’s True Icon

A beef sausage, chopped fresh onions, some tomato wedges, a juicy dill spear, mustard, relish, celery salt packed into a steamed poppyseed bun and absolutely no ketchup in sight: this is the Chicago Hot Dog.

Chicago Tribune restaurant critic Louisa Kung Liu Chu can't remember the exact first time she ate a Chicago Hot Dog - "it's such a formative experience, probably around when I was four or five years old" - but she knows where she got it: Jimmy's Red Hots. A small box of a diner that serves hot dogs in a simple, no-seating set-up, Jimmy's serves the Depression Style dog (a simpler version without the poppy seed bun, tomatoes and pickles, but wrapped up in a blanket of fries) and dates back to the 1950s. In order to highlight the brimming flavour of their fresh ingredients, ketchup was strictly banned.

"I grew up by Jimmy's hot dogs in Chicago on the northwest side, and it still exists. It's one of the oldest hot dog stands," Chu recalls. "There's mainly two Chicago-style hot dogs, one which has been sort of more popularised in modern day press with the seven essential toppings, and the other one is a little bit more spare, known as the depression dog."

Everyone who grew up in Chicago has a hot dog origin story - one that often brings back memories of childhood, revealing what part of the city they grew up in and what communities they formed part of. The Chicago Hot Dog isn't just a mere tourist fable, but an authentic part of city life: "It is an identifier of where you're from in Chicago," says Chu, stressing that the hot dog's low price point makes it the most ubiquitous food choice the city, more so than the deep dish pizza or Italian beef sandwich. "The hot dog is the most accessible."

Like any urban legend, it's difficult to say with absolute certainty how the Chicago Hot Dog has come to be. We know this much - pork sausages themselves arrived with German immigrants in the late 19th century, before a second-wave of Jewish European immigrants developed all-beef, kosher alternatives.

A landmark moment came at Chicago's World Fair in 1893, two Austro-Hungarian immigrants, Emil Reichel and Sam Ladany, debuted their Vienna Beef sausages to much acclaim, opening a restaurant the year after, before becoming a supplier to hot dog vendors across the city. To this day, Vienna Beef continues to be the main supplier of the beef sausages essential to Chicago Hot Dog.

When the Great Depression hit in the late 1920s, the hot dog became part of Chicago’s DNA - not only as an affordable meal for struggling families, but also as a new business lifeline for struggling food sellers, who converted their produce carts into hot dog stands. Each added their own produce to the mix, hence the appearance of the relish, mustard and onions, all likely coming from Chicago's growing European population.

"Then you have the spicy sport pepper - and that is somewhat of disputed origin, possibly through Mexican immigrants, possibly through Black Chicagoans who came up during the Great Migration, who had a connection to Mexican immigrants in the south," says Chu.

That accounts for the Depression Dog - yet the Chicago Hot Dog kept evolving through the 20th century. A Polish-born immigrant developed the poppy seed bun, and in the post-WW2 era, the "dragged through the garden" toppings appeared - tomatoes, pickles and celery salt (the area around Chicago, with sandy soil and fertile plains, made them ideal for celery growing in the early 20th century, hence the salt addition).

"The oldest Chicago Hot Dog stand is an icon of resilience"

Unlike the mass franchises that have become synonymous with U.S.' fast food culture, many of Chicago's beloved hot dog establishments are still independent family-run, and have been owned by generations of Chicagoans. Chu points to one as an example:

"The oldest Chicago Hot Dog stand/restaurant is an icon of resilience: Dave's Red Hots, and it's now run by four generations of Black women. It started off as a Jewish immigrant-owned restaurant." Chu traced back four families - each running and developing the restaurant.

"Now Dave's Red Hots still exists in the same neighbourhood, near the same corner where it first opened. That to me is a great example of the persistence and resilience that can exist around the Chicago-style Hot Dog culture."

While reddit-ers have mourned the loss of certain iconic establishments over the years -Murphy's Red Hots, Hot Dougs, UB Dogs, and the Gold Coast at Midway all closing - Chu insists that Chicago's independent, family-run Hot Dog scene is thriving. Even the Hot Dog stands at massive Home Depot chains are independent: "There is a specific vendor at certain Home Depots - Fixin Franks - use locally-made Hot Dogs by Makowski's, now a fourth generation woman-owned sausage maker," explains Chu.

"They have not only sourced locally, they are doing them exceptionally well. It's remarkable you got these secret, exceptional Hot Dogs at certain Home Depots, and that's one of the many things that could only exist in Chicago."

The Chicago Hot Dog has found a way to exist across Chicago's turbulent history - and is many ways a product of it. The staple has fed the hungry in times of extreme poverty, and continues to be a shared love among diverse communities in a deeply segregated city.

"You have disparate elements that hold their own identity. They don't exactly blend together, but when you take them together in one bite, they make sense together."

"Like many places, Chicago has segregation, which is geographic. Typically Black Chicagoans in the South and West side, and white Chicagoans on the North side," says Chu.

She points out the symbolic weight of the beloved snack: "You have seemingly disparate elements that hold their own identity, like that sport pepper, or pickle spear. They don't exactly blend together, but when you take them together in one bite, they coalesce and make sense together. To me, (this) understanding of how cultures co-exist seems to be really evident on hot dog."

So next time you take a bite of what is possibly the world's most loaded Hot Dog, take a moment to savour the culinary staple's layered cultural history alongside it's delicious, robust taste. And whatever you do, never forget the holy rule: no ketchup, ever.

Louisa Kung Liu Chu is Chicago Tribune's food critic. She also co-hosts a food podcast with Axios reporter Monica Eng called Chewing.