Welcome to Chicago, Hot Dog Town, U.S.A.
Eric KimThe standard form of the Chicago hot dog is available at stands all over town and binds the city together.Credit...Dane Tashima for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.
Just don’t even think about asking for ketchup.
The standard form of the Chicago hot dog is available at stands all over town and binds the city together.Credit...Dane Tashima for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.
- Published July 21, 2022Updated July 22, 2022
Painterly and bright, the tattoo depicts a poppy-seed bun cradling a shiny frankfurter, which is topped with a squiggle of yellow mustard, neon-green sweet pickle relish, chopped white onion, two tomato slices, a pickle spear, pickled sport peppers and celery salt. You can’t see the celery salt, but it’s implied. There is, perhaps most significantly, no evidence of ketchup to be seen. (More on that later.)
“Dragged through the garden” is how Chicagoans lovingly refer to this saladlike outfitting.
“I just look over to my shoulder and I smell it,” like a scratch-and-sniff sticker, said Ratanavanich, 40, who uses the pronoun “they.”
Ratanavanich’s tattoo is a reminder of where they come from: royalty. Since 1979, their family has owned Al’s Drive-In, a popular hot-dog stand in Maywood, a village just outside the city, where locals can get a Chicago dog and American Chinese food in one order.
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“This is the development of a family, or what family can look like,” said Heidi Ratanavanich about Al’s Drive-In, their family’s hot-dog stand in Maywood, Ill.Credit...Anjali Pinto for The New York Times
The hot dog comes in a freshly steamed bun, piping hot — so hot that you might have to blow on it before taking a bite. “Come as you are or Eat in your car,” reads the sign above the restaurant, which has been around since 1955.
Even in the Midwestern summer heat, Al’s dogs hit the spot. Chicago is indisputably a hot-dog town, and there may be no better time than summer to feel that sunshine in your hands.
The Chicago dog has a special place in the city’s heart: a humble, affordable food that anyone can enjoy, across cultures, creeds and proclivities. With French fries, it’s lunch; on its own, a snack. A source of civic pride, the Chicago-style hot dog is a nexus for many people’s relationship to a city they so adore.
Therein lies its magic: In its architectural specificity, the Chicago dog has been largely standardized and agreed upon, making it a unifying force that binds the city together. Everyone has their favorite spot, sure, and of course there are subtle and delicious differences among the many stands, but the product itself never strays too far from the canonical design.
So what makes a great one?
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Raised on the North Side of Chicago, Jeff Greenfield runs Redhot Ranch, which specializes in a minimalist Chicago-style hot dog often referred to as the “Depression dog.”Credit...Anjali Pinto for The New York Times
For Jeff Greenfield, the owner of Redhot Ranch, it’s the natural casing of a Vienna Beef hot dog. That particular brand, he believes, provides the quintessential snap, yielding to a juicy frank bursting with well-balanced flavor.
In fact, you’d have to look hard to find a Chicago dog in the city that’s not made by Vienna Beef, a local company founded in 1893 by Emil Reichel and Samuel Ladany, immigrants from Austria-Hungary. According to Tom McGlade, a senior vice president of marketing at Vienna Beef, there are more hot-dog stands in the Chicago area serving the brand than there are Wendy’s, Burger King and McDonald’s locations combined.
So many of these stands display the vibrant logo on their signage as a badge of pride and authenticity that you might think the company was a favorite sports team.
Mr. McGlade, 62, added that the brand’s omnipresence might have to do with its relationship with the vendors. By staying regional and supporting small businesses, Vienna Beef has made itself a primary player in the story of the Chicago dog.
At RedHot Ranch (where Vienna Beef-themed umbrellas shade the picnic tables outside), the hot dogs are boiled in old-fashioned ceramic crocks. Mr. Greenfield, 68, loves a chargrilled dog as much as the next person, but says the old method yields the best flavor. Boiling the franks in water preserves their juiciness, letting you taste them as they are.