Speed-Eating in the Windy City

On Making Sense of Chicago in Two Days of Eat and Greets

In 2012, the writer Anthony Bourdain said, “I am a storyteller. I go places, I come back. I tell you how the places made me feel.” However you may interpret Bourdain’s brilliant and all-too-short life, it’s undeniable that at least on paper, he had the kind of gig that most writers dream of: being sent on assignment to far-flung locales, and getting paid, handsomely, to offer his deeply subjective take on the place. To be a traveling correspondent of food culture, to eat things and tell stories, to capture a place as only the firsthand taste-tester can, is both an opportunity and a responsibility of epic proportions, and of immense research challenges. But if done right, it’s the best kind of service journalism: a window on the world.

When I headed to Chicago this past weekend, in my capacity as a judge for the James Beard Foundation media awards, I thought of it first and foremost as an opportunity to learn about a place with my palate and stomach at the ready. My experience of Chicago is very limited: I’d only traveled there once before on a family vacation (where they made the itinerary, not I), and my knowledge is based mostly in John Hughes’ movies, the television show The Bear, and Nature’s Metropolis, the landmark book by environmental historian William Cronon. In that book, environmental historian Cronon uses the evolution of nineteenth-century Chicago as a way to explore the often blurred boundary between the urban landscape and the natural landscape, and argues that within a sixty-year period, the city emerged as an expression of agricultural, economic, and political innovation, creating the foundation of what we think of modern American industrial capitalism. The wheat fields, the grain silos, the market traders, and the railroads all converged in the creation of Chicago, tying a sprawling network of farmers, merchants, and investors together into an organized and industrial city.

In rereading a bit of Cronon before the trip, I was reminded of the “Sundae” episode of Season 2 of The Bear, chronicling a trip across Chicago taken by chef de cuisine Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri). In an attempt to awaken her palette, she eats her way across dozens of Chicago, starting at Kasama and Lao Peng You (both in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood), then makes her way to Giant, Pizza Lobo, and Margie’s Candies (all in Logan Square), Avec and Elske (in the West Loop), and Publican Quality Meats (in Fulton Market). She travels by the “L” train and on foot, down sidewalks and alleyways, and even over the river, gazing up at the wide range of architectural styles on the skyscrapers for aesthetic inspiration. Her journey attempts to annex the many eras and styles of Chicago cuisine, from the beloved and cheap pizza and noodle joints to the critically acclaimed fine-dining establishments. (Kasama sits at an interesting intersection of the two, in that it offers affordable baked goods by day and a $275 tasting menu by night. It is also the world’s first Michelin-starred Filipino restaurant, a shocking fact given the complex history and flavors of the cuisine.) Only once she has eaten her way through the city (and cleansed her palate with the titular sundae at Margie’s ) can she actually stop to process what has inspired her.

Like Sydney, I see eating while traveling as a way to locate myself in place and taste: to bring together disparate periods, geographies, and communities via their distinct flavors into some kind of coherent comprehension of the whole. Some cities do this better than others (see my old post on how Boston has a long way to go on this front), and some make it harder than others, especially when it comes to transit. My goal to sample true deep-dish pizza, Chicago dogs, and pierogies took a backseat to trying what was new and innovative, particularly if I was going to have any fellow food writers as my dining companions. However, I underestimated the distance between the Chicago institutions I wanted to explore. In New York or Washington, D.C., I’d happily walk from bite to bite, burning calories between samplings and not feeling overstuffed in the process. But when mapping out my route from River North to Logan Square (an almost 2-hour walk), I realized that I’d have to be more efficient, and more strategic, about my samplings. The lists of non-edible activities I’d been given—to seek out a game at Wrigley Field, to visit the Art Institute and stand before a Seurat masterpiece, to finally check out the much-acclaimed DuSable Black History Museum—would all have to be postponed for a future trip if food was going to be my main interpretive point of connection. But I also knew that by making space for tasting my way through the city, I would be experiencing it on intimate and memorable terms. Even if I didn’t get a chance to sample foods from every era of Chicago history, I could find myself at a valuable cross-section.

I don’t think anyone can render a verdict on a place in two days, and if anything, my list of places to visit has only grown since my first solo swing through the city. But in attempting to make sense of what I’ve experienced, I now have several memorable points of reference, starting to give me a sense of just what—and who—shapes Chicago cuisine. The unlikely marriage of feta, fried garlic, and cinnamon on the pasta yiayia at Lula Café in Logan Square. At Gaijin in the West Loop, the contrasting textures of the Osaka-style griddled okonomiyaki (topped with pea shoots, salmon roe, and bonito) and the layered noodles, mushroom, and yuba of the Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. A single bite of Chicago-style hot dog: Vienna Beef and “dragged through the garden,” topped with chopped onion, yellow mustard, and a spicy pickled pepper. Among the many memorable small plates at the Beard Awards reception, the gorgeous bite of hamachi sol kadi wrapped in slices of ripe stone fruit and a spoonful of golden kaluga caviar from Indienne in River North and the “duck and waffles” topped with maple ice cream Dippin’ Dots from Duck Sel (a roaming pop-up in search of a home). But perhaps most surprisingly, the bright contrast of the calamansi lemonade and the egg, cheese, and longaniza breakfast sandwich from Kusama. Though the flavors of the sandwich initially hit me with all the foundational joys of a fast-food breakfast, the contrast of the sharp tartness of the lemonade against the sandwich’s fatty longaniza and plastic saltiness of American cheese felt like a marriage of all culinary impulses. When the convenience food and the fine dining collide, when global flavors meet Midwestern sensibilities, and when a takeout box of Michelin-starred pastries become the most prized possession in your carry-on, then you realize that you’ve found a new culinary destination worthy of admiration.

In my 48 hours of eating through Chicago, my faith in the power of traveling solo, without confirmed reservations or fixed agendas, was renewed, and so too was my faith in the power of food-focused strangers. (Many thanks to the amazing people I got to meet this weekend, both the writers and creators I’ve admired for many years and the new acquaintances who shared gossip, taxis, and dishes with me.) As Julia Child once observed, “people who love to eat are always the best people,” and I couldn’t agree more. But I’d also argue that people who love to eat are also the best travelers, as they know how to leave room for discovery, either solo or in the company of like-minded travelers. They can move a bit more lightly and appreciatively through the world, and aren’t afraid of discovering the best of a place with each bite. Bourdain had this approach to Chicago whenever he visited, saying that a trip to the Windy City, if done right, ends with a “chin smeared with the grease from an Italian beef sandwich, belching mustard from last night’s red hot, dimly trying to remember to whom you must apologize for your previous misadventures. Oh, Chicago, you are indeed, a wonderful, wonderful town.”

Recommended Reading: This is my second time judging for the Beard media awards, and both times I’ve come away with a fresh appreciation for the amazing breadth and craft of the food journalism world. It’s especially great when several of the winners come from outlets I haven’t read at all, and I left this year’s ceremony with two new-to-me resources. The first, Made with Lau, is an intergenerational cooking channel featuring Randy Lau in conversation with his parents about their deep knowledge of Cantonese cooking and history. I’m fascinated by this blend of cooking video and oral history, and am excited to learn and cook from it. The second, Switchyard, is a podcast and magazine sponsored by the University of Tulsa, and its second issue on food was co-produced with the Food & Environmental Reporting Network (FERN). Edited by the amazing journalist Ted Genoways, Switchyard is a very welcome reminder that any story about food is also a story about environment, and I’m excited to reach much, much more from this publication.

The Perfect Bite: See, well, this entire post for more on that. But I also flew into Boston tonight and shared a truly delicious welcome home dinner with family at Rincon Limeño in East Boston. We ordered a ceviche mixto, seco de cabrito, and tacu tacu, and it was all delicious—this, along with Santarpio’s Pizza, is now on our shortlist of pre/post-airport dining.

Cooked & Consumed: After almost two weeks of quarantine dining, I’m happy to have spent some disease-free time in restaurants again. But I’m also quite proud of at least a few dishes we made last week, including a fantastic conchiglie pasta with a sauce of onions, peppers, and the jarred Balkan condiment ajvar, all to great effect. Topped with a spoonful of goat cheese and a sprinkling of fried pepperoni slices, it was a surprisingly satisfying dinner even when we had nowhere else to go.