Saturday, April 21, 2018

Hot Dogs



I found this photo online of the original Ted's hot dog stand. I remember going there a few times with my Grandparents and the thing I remember the most was the sand flies who seemed to get on everything. You had to eat in the car lest you'd be ingesting this annoying little bugs.


The hot dogs I most remember from Buffalo were from the cafe that served Texas Red Hots in downtown. My grandmother would take my brother and I to a movie and the after show treat was hot dogs. I still remember the chili sauce (but not really a chili dog). It was a hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon, which probably led to my later love of greasy spoon dining. You can't beat authenticity. Then there was the desperate hot dog meal of my teens, grill a hot dog over the gas burner on the stove and eat it on a slice of white bread.


The classic Buffalo hot dog (as served by Ted's) is grilled over an open flame. The meat itself is a combination of pork and beef, pork being the first thing on the ingredients list. You can get the regular version or the foot long always served with fries. Condiments are up to you, and if you want you can douse the fries in vinegar instead of ketchup. That makes them pommes frites like the French Canadians eat. No poutine thank you.


Now imagine when I moved to Chicago I was confronted with a hot dog that my Mom termed a "boiled weiner". Chicago dogs are usually all beef and steamed or yes, boiled in a vat of water. The trick is to not overcook the dog so that the casing still has a bit of a snap when you bite into it. The proper Chicago dog is dressed with mustard, chopped onions, relish, tomato, a pickle slice and little "sport" peppers. The dog is served on a poppy seed bun and the finishing touch is celery salt sprinkled on the top of. The thing you will not find on a Chicago dog is ketchup because that is considered heresy. The tomato is the closest think you'll get to red stuff on the dog. Ketchup on the fries is A-OK and you won't find a bottle of vinegar anywhere.


My favorite Chicago hot dog joint was Tony's. Tony began selling hot dogs from a cart, and when he decided to go big time he moved his cart into a store front and sold food outside the front window. I survived on Tony's dogs and greasy fries through most of college. Two other things you find served in Chicago that you won't find in Buffalo are Polish sausages and Tom Tom tamales. Tom Tom tamales bear no semblance of actual Mexican tamales, but they're often the first tamale many Chicagoans were first familiar with before actual authentic Mexican tamales hit the scene.


The Polish is usually not steamed but cooked over a open flame grill, or just tossed into a deep fryer to get the crusty blackened casing so beloved by connoisseurs a cased meats. Served on a steamed poppy seed bun its usual dressing is grilled onions, mustard, sport peppers and a pickle.


The Chicago dog had its origins on Maxwell Street, an open air market of Jewish peddlers, often referred to as a "thieves market". The two purveyors of the dog that conquered Chicago are Jim's and the Express Grill who not only popularized the humble tube steak but also set the color palate for every hot dog stand in the city, red and yellow. One thing you won't find on a original Maxwell dog is relish or tomatoes. Onions (raw or grilled), mustard and sport peppers. Fries of course, nothing fancy. The additional elements have been added by other hot dog peddlers over the years to create what has become known as the classic dog. Some have added so many ingredients that the hot dog has been overwhelmed by the salad bar that's been tossed on top of it.


Almost every hot dog stand in the city advertises that they serve "Original Maxwell Street" food. There is also the grilled pork chop sandwich served with fried onions on a couple of slabs of white bread. Eat your heart out Buffalo we know how to live large.


The other sandwich Chicago claims as its own is the Italian beef, sweet or hot peppers, dipped or dry. I'll take a beef on weck any day with a dab of horseradish. I will be making my annual trek back to Buffalo (well, Depew actually) to visit Mom and family. We always go to Ted's.