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THE FOODCULTURA CLARION Kosher : Eating In and Out THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION

Chicago kosher ways degustation at the Gray Center Lab. By Rachel Abrams

By Evan Williams Why is kosher food in Chicago so bad and Chicago’s kosher food gem Romanian ucts handled by (Chalav Yisrael and ball or a , so limited? This is the question I began my Kosher Butcher located in West Rogers Pas Yisrael respectively), but often these they tend to go to a rather than I recall M&K Poultry most by what ked out from a cool shelf under harsh from such direct ingredients can be. chicken propped against a pi- project asking, and the truth is, that despite Park. These stores are always busy and products are simply another example of a . This leads to a lot my family calls “the smell of money.” light. The idea of the animal waswas detadeta- That’s why the couple came back, llow of Loops; another photo having multiple parts, it is not a particular- provide a fascinating insight into the ko- how companies are able to capitalize on of confusion about what is and isn’t ko- ly difficult question to answer. The lack of sher . When you walk in on a Sun- this captive and often quite wealthy audi- sher, and the differences between kosher Snack in the front, squawking ched from the sandwich. What M&K again and again, for that little of showed our chicken, dismembered quality kosher restaurants in Chicago es- day afternoon, you can see anyone from ence. You will also find uniquely kosher style and kosher. Kosher style seems to in the back. The squawking went on offered was the unification of the ani- some other place, some other age. We and painstakingly reconstructed, ex- sentially boils down to a lack of eating out products that don’t exist on any other mar- represent a that like home mal and the sandwich, it represented to selected a chicken, said goodbye to hibiting the kind of homely care the until a customer arrived, and then it culture among Kosher keeping people, a ket. Some are imported from , while and elicits warm feelings and full bellies, didn’t. I was there with two class- us on that first visit an absurd proximi- N&R, and left with the bird in a paper preparation of a entails; a final lack of interest in “kosher cuisine” among others are made right here in the US. while kosher certified generally implies mates to learn about live butchery, ty to death that spoiled our appetites.appetites. bag, still warm. photo places chicken nuggets alongsi- non-kosher keepers, and the manipula- low quality, high prices, and lack of op- to speak with its practitioners, to in- de mashed potatoes and peas, tion of the Chicago Rabbinical Council Kosher grocery stores and products pro- tions. I turned these notions on their head terview its clientele, to examine, I Waiting to turn off the squawking The most provocative part of the visit and pickles on the side, a quintessen- through their monopoly on kosher food vide a wonderful insight into the unique with what I call “Treif Style”, treif being thought, a segment of the American with a pointed finger, we met -a ma wasn’t the unusual experience of - tial childhood meal from an unfami- certification in the Chicago area. Kosher “cuisine” of kosher-keeping people, and the word for non-kosher and the population free from the cognitive rried couple, R&N, regular custo- ching your dinner die, it was uncove- liar source. restaurants have a captive audience who the micro industry that is kosher food. colloquial term for food that does not bear dissonance that afflicts many - mers. We chatted, nervously, about ring the distance in any two people’s are essentially willing to eat and pay for This is why in my quest to better under- kosher certification. What I prepared was consuming individuals. our research and about the caged food nostalgia. Food is weird. Me- As an addendum to the project, we whatever is available to them due to the stand the kosher food landscape in Chi- a completely kosher bacon cheeseburger, chickens. We traded stories of lived- mory is weirder. captured audio footage of the M&K limited options in the kosher space, but cago, I chose to cook with and showcase with beef bacon from Romanian, kosher Despite having grown up in a commu- farm experience, and asked finally if kill floor. In conversation with the non-kosher keeping patrons, with a wide Kosher bacon cheeseburger. Chicago kosher food products for my fi- ground beef, and vegan . I brought nity of livestock farmers, 4H legacies, the pair would help us pick a poultry. In a series of photographs, we linked idea of nostalgia and the we variety of high quality options at a range nal project. in all my own cooking equipment to en- and FFA leaders, live butchery was en- They obliged, walking us through the the minimally-processed and unfami- prepared bridging individual nostal- of prices, are not willing to pay 20 dollars ultra-orthodox women and their ten kids sure that the food was kosher enough that tirely foreign to me. Like most AmeAme- traits to look for in a ripe bird. All the liar with the colorful, highly-proces- gias, it draws out the common form for a pastrami sandwich or 17 dollars for stocking up on food for the coming weeks, For this project I prepared two different I would eat it, but the goal was for the rican consumers, my meat came from while, N shared stories of the fresh sed foods of our own Gen Z nostalgia. of it all, and is a reminder that these a limp Greek . In communities like to men who don’t even wear a yarmulke items representing two different parts of food to be the complete opposite of what the supermarket in plastic casing, bac- figs she’d eaten growing up, the fresh A photo we playfully called Toucan variations can and do exist at the same Skokie and West Rogers Park, where the in public, filling their carts with kosher Chicago kosher foodways. The first item is expected from kosher or even kosher ked by white or black styrofoam, pic- meat, how sentimental a meal made Sam in Repose had our head-on, raw time within any community. vast majority of the religious Jews in the meat. Although there is less of a restau- is a stuffed with two items that style cuisine. Chicago area reside, a fair number of ko- rant culture among kosher-keeping Jews I rarely see outside of the kosher food sher restaurants have been able to succeed, in Chicago, there is certainly a definitive section: Silan, a date , and Food is central to Judaism and sharing but each one leaves something to be de- eating-in culture. The kosher sections and spread. Challah is the most recognizable home cooked meals is a huge part of the sired, whether in ambiance, food, or pric- kosher grocery stores in Skokie and West Jewish food on the planet, and is likely Jewish experience, and even more so the ing. The restaurants know the demand ex- Rogers Park are filled with hard to find the only thing many people know about kosher keeping experience, because most ists and understand that they need only do kosher ingredients like Parmesan cheese, kosher or Jewish food. By taking an ul- things we want to eat are not easily acces- the bare minimum to have the support of , and gummy candies. If you tra recognizable item and it with sible from stores and restaurants, so we these captive communities. walk through the aisles, you will also find niche products found broadly in kosher have to make them ourselves. I personally kosher brands of products that already communities, it brings to light certain have taken this on as a challenge and often While kosher restaurants may often feel bear a kosher symbol in their name brand questions I have been asking throughout try to find recipes that I can “Kosherize”. empty, or it may be unclear how they form, like ketchup, , and yo- my project; who is kosher food made for? While the lack of shrimp paste may make continue to pay their bills, one place gurt. It’s important to note that these “ko- Is kosher a cuisine? And if it is, what de- my Thai food inauthentic, and I’ll never that is never lacking are the kosher gro- sher brands” are uniformly terrible, and fines kosher cuisine? know what a real cheeseburger tastes like, cery stores. Chicago and its suburbs are no one who shops at all in a conventional I take these limitations as an opportunity served by two full-service kosher grocery supermarket buys them. Sometimes the The second item I made is a riff on ko- to explore the culinary that is ac- stores, as well as two Jewel-Osco’s and a kosher brands are catering to those who sher style. The association between ko- cessible to me, and satisfy my cravings Mariano’s in which there exists full ser- adhere to an even tighter set of stringen- sher food and Jewish food is strong but with home cooking when the restaurant Butchery process. Interior of the M&K Poultry Kill Farm. Paige Resnick, Nora Burkhardt and Evan Williams presenting M&K Live vice kosher grocery stores, and of cies, consuming only milk or prod- not always correct. When people crave options are limited. Poultry at the Gray Center Lab. Editorial Extra, extra, read all about it! and ! emulsified cheese began to match the household budgets Deep dish mysteries! Food for the Gods! Frankenfish! The “strillions” and “strong liquor” that the good Rever- of the majority of African Americans. By 1928, Kraft Friendship Cake! Traif-style bacon cheese burgers! Live end Cutler found so objectionable have been fairly con- Foods launched Velveeta and, in 1937, came up with the butchery! The Chicago Foodcultura Clarion rings out for clusively identified as and parmesan1, which Jef- 19 cent boxed version of instant mac ’n cheese in the a third time. ferson had encountered during his diplomatic service in midst of the Great Depression. Feeding a family of four pre-revolutionary and his travels in Italy, where he per package, and soon to be put on the WWII rationing For those who happen to have encountered an issue in first seems to have tasted and came to love pasta (which he cards, Kraft’s mac ‘n cheese began its meteoric commer- their local Reader box for the first time, let me explain: consistently refers to as “macaroni” in his writings). But cial ascent, coupled with a race towards the culinary bot- The Chicago Foodcultura Clarion was born out of a col- the third president of the not only had his tom. That Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society unloaded laboration between the Barcelona/Miami-based multi- agent William Short ship parmesan on a regular basis, but vast amounts of heavily subsidized surplus in the disciplinary artist Antoni Miralda and your editorialist, had acquired a Neapolitan pasta machine, a diagrammatic form of processed cheese upon welfare recipients and a University of Chicago professor of anthropology. The sketch of which he committed to his writings, along with into school only accelerated the process. midwife was the University of Chicago’s Gray Center for a highly improbable recipe for how to make “nouilly á Art and Inquiry who supported our joint efforts with a maccaroni”2. But then again, according to his slave, Isaac, The rest, we might say, is history. With Marx we could generous grant from the Mellon Foundation. Its immedi- Jefferson never went into the “except to wind say that people make their , but not under condi- ate outgrowth was a course on “Foodcultura: The Art and up the clock”. Instead he would have relied upon his en- tions of their own choosing: The recipes once prepared Anthropology of Food and Cuisine” that Miralda and I slaved cook James Hemings to make his mac ’n cheese. by Black cooks like James Hemings and published by taught in the U of in the fall of 2019 where we sent James Hemings was the older brother of Sally Hemings, white housewives like Mary Randolph converged in the students out to explore the truly fantastic diversity of the mother of Jefferson’s unacknowledged enslaved chil- seeming paradox of a racially unmarked industrial com- Chicago’s culinary . Our initial goal was to show- dren3. You see, when Jefferson first went to France as fort food that evokes childhood memories among Ameri- case the results in a symposium and pop-up exhibit at the minister plenipotentiary of the newly founded American cans both white and Black. A “crossover” dish bridging Chicago Cultural Center in the spring of 2020. But then Republic to the court of Louis XVI, he took his slave otherwise quite distinct culinary and social formations. you all know what happened. James Hemings along and apprenticed him to a Parisian . Hemings was literate, eventually spoke French better Of course, the bill of fare in this issue of the Clarion is Miralda and I had always wanted our project to reach than his master, and became so skilled in the culinary arts decidedly neither industrial nor homogenized. On the out beyond the confines of an elite institution like the that, in 1796, Jefferson promised him his freedom under contrary, it is entirely artisanal, always unpasteurized, University of Chicago, and so we decided to retool our the condition that he train another (enslaved) chef for him. and deliberately diverse. In many ways, the overarching project towards the venerable institution of the Chicago It was an offer Hemings could not refuse, but in Jeffer- theme is immigration: whether of Afro-Cuban deities, Reader. Its publisher, Tracy Baim, kindly agreed to let us son’s mind his cooking had become indispensable. To be Asian , or dishes like polpette in umido. You will run some 3000 copies of the Clarion as an insert every sure, Jefferson eventually emancipated him, and reacted read about the labor of love that goes into the feeding now and again, and Miralda and I found ready and enthu- with distress when he heard that James Hemings had com- of the oricha on Chicago’s Southside (themselves immi- siastic collaborators in Peter Engler, Eric May, and Paige mitted suicide in 1801. But poor James, in many ways, grant gods, first from Africa to Cuba, and then on to the Resnick, and that’s why you are holding issue number had made a bargain with the devil: There was no place United States, large parts of Latin America, and Europe three in your hand right now—if you were lucky enough for a free Black French chef in the world that the likes of as well); the woes of kosher-keeping Jews who moved to a hold of it, that is. Thomas Jefferson had forged in early 19th century Virginia. to Chicago from New York City and find their culinary choices severely restricted by the stranglehold of Chica- The genre of the editorial generally entails a preview of It is likely that the recipe for macaroni dressed with go’s Rabbinical Council’s certification policies; a chef’s coming attractions. But it can accommodate a good story cheese that Jefferson’s daughter in law, Mary Randolph, heroic struggle to establish “Shanghai bass” on the menu or two. In our last issue, I mused about what Nelson Al- published in her cookbook The Virginia House-Wife in of the Palmer House Hilton; the nostalgia evoked among gren and Simone de Beauvoir might have eaten for dinner 1824 was none other than James Heming’s. If so, does it immigrants by Chicago’s live butchery venues; and then when they first met and madly fell in love with each other mark an instance of cultural appropriation?4 In a , some: an interview with Bridgeport activist and culinary on Chicago’s Near West Side in 1947. This time, I’d like yes, for Hemings’s culinary genius remained unacknowl- pioneer Ed Markowski, the mysterious origins of deep to step back a little further in time and ruminate about one edged. But what is it that was being appropriated here? dish , and art work by Eric May and Hyun Jung Jun. of the less emblematically Chicagoan, but nowadays genu- An African American chef de cuisine’s version of a Pa- ¡Que aproveche! Enjoy! inely all-American dishes, mac ‘n cheese. Its origins are risian-inflected version of an ancient Alpine or Mediter- surprisingly uncontroversial. The first generally agreed- ranean peasant dish mixing dairy products with starches? upon mention of something resembling the contemporary Nor do we really know how and through what channels By Stephan Palmié dish comes from the Reverend Mannasseh Cutler who of communication mac ‘n cheese entered an emerging reminisced about a dinner at Thomas Jefferson’s White African American culinary tradition that, by the second 1. “American Cheese Products” were then still more than a century in House in 1802 as follows: half of the twentieth century, came to be known as Soul the future (currently defined by the FDA as containing at least 51% of cheese). Food. The proximity of pasta-consuming marginalized 2. See Thomas Jefferson’s macaroni machine sketch at https://www. “Dined at the President’s – ... Dinner not as elegant as Italian immigrant communities to African Americans in monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/macaroni when we dined before. [Among other dishes] a pie called Post-Civil War American cities such as New Orleans is 3. That James was also the son of Jefferson’s father in law with an macaroni, which appeared to be a rich crust filled with enslaved woman, and so not only the half-brother of Jefferson’s wife often thought to have played a considerable role in this Martha, but also the uncle of Jefferson’s children with Sally Hemings the strillions of onions, or shallots, which I took it to be, story. But it was not until 1916 when the Canadian resi- throws a glaring light on the kitchen at Monticello, and the gastro-se- tasted very strong, and not agreeable. Mr. Lewis told me th dent of Chicago James Lewis Kraft patented the “Process xual worlds of late 18 century Virginia more generally. there were none in it; it was an Italian dish, and what ap- 4. Martha ’s heirloom manuscript Booke of Cookery is lar- peared like onions was made of flour and , with a of sterilizing cheese and an improved product produced gely based on 16th and 17th century English foodways, but she, too, may particularly strong liquor mixed with them.” by such process” that the price of pasteurized and soon well have cribbed some recipes from her enslaved cook Hercules Posey. THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION

Italy—, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria—there are many preparations of pasta asciutta dressed in a tomato in which the meatballs are cooked and served in the bowl with the pasta. But, crucially, the meatballs are tiny, cherry-sized or smaller, polpettine and thus these dishes conform perfectly with tradi- tional conventions. The festive nature of this style of dish is made manifest by their traditional inclusion of special forms of fresh pasta, e.g., pasta alla chi- tarra in Abruzzo, sagne torte in Puglia, etc. In the core region of Campania, polpettine appear first and foremost in baked pasta dishes, al forno. A classic version uses ziti and a simple, quick in By Anthony F. Buccini which the meatballs are briefly cooked after being fried, with further ingredients (scamorza, hard-boiled Though I am an Italian-American, I have never eat- Abiding and deep mainstream eggs, etc.) added to the sauced pasta before . en the most emblematic dish associated with Ital- prejudice toward southern Also necessarily containing polpettine is the afore- ian-Americans, ‘.’ Grow- Italians and, at least initially, mentioned lasagna alla napoletana, one of our most ing up in North Jersey, where Italian-Americans a language barrier inhibited festive dishes, laden with cultural associations and are very numerous, and in a family where we ate assimilation, but many south- eaten only on a couple of well-defined occasions per our traditional foods almost every single day of ern Italian immigrants also year. Indeed, for me personally, one of the objections every year, I of course consumed regularly both chose to resist assimilation to to ‘spaghetti and meatballs’ is aesthetic: A dish with spaghetti in various ways and meatballs in various the mainstream with regard to polpettine seems festive, and spaghetti, as wonderful ways, but the two never once appeared together on some domains of life and this as they are, seem too ordinary for the pairing. our family table and the absence of this dish in my was especially so in family life life has continued on as I approach the end of mid- and the culinary culture which Polpette—ordinary sized meatballs, traditionally life. When occasionally confronted with the dish was inextricably linked to it. not spheres but flattened for easier pan- and in institutional or other contexts, I have spurned it, To a far greater degree than typically smaller than their American counter- though not specifically because a combination of with some other immigrant parts—are also associated with pasta, though not pasta and meatballs is inherently objectionable but groups, culinary culture be- necessarily so. The main association comes via a rather out of an awareness that any sort of ‘Ital- came a central pillar of ethnic kind of sauce for pasta in which the meatballs are By Phillip Foss cooked, often along with braciole (stuffed, rolled ian’ food made by unknown people of unknown pride and identity. Nonethe- It was back in 2010 when Asian carp I knew of. I later learned that unlike could conceive. People were eating it culinary background is likely to be at best a disap- less, socioeconomic realities slices of veal or beef) and/or . Following first dragged my high-striving - culi our indigenious bottom feeding fish all and enjoying it, and the attention pointment and possibly a form of gustatory torture. have worked against the long- convention, however, the sauce dresses the pasta, nary mind into the deep end. The that eat anything on the water’s bed, started flowing in. In other words, had I been presented this dish in Spaguetti and meatballs. term stabilization and preser- but the are served thereafter as the secondo. invasive , brought into the Asian carp are filter feeders, fueling the home of an Italian(-American) friend or relative vation of this Italian-. Intermar- Polpette are also traditionally made outside of any southern U.S. to clean algae in catfish themselves off the algae in the water. After the Chicago Reader article came here in the States or Italy, I would have tucked into Like language, music, religion, dress, etc., cuisine riage with non-Italians has played a part but more association with pasta and can appear in umido farms, flooded over into main water- As we all are what we eat, the out, Phil Vettel, the then food critic with it, bemused yet appreciative, but in all my years on is a cultural domain, which is to say it is not simply significant are the many forces in American society (fried and then cooked in a simple tomato sauce) or ways and quickly worked their way of the American carp is more acrid the Chicago Tribune, wrote glowingly this earth, that situation has never come to pass. a set of ingredients, dishes, meals, cooking proce- that work against the maintenance of a tight family simply fried and served with lemon wedges. Pol- north. The fish reproduce voraciously and muddy, while the invasive spe- about our experiment. In the next cou- dures, etc. Rather, it is a set of ideas, of rules and and neighborhood association, the context needed pettine are also used in a soup with escarole (now and overtake pretty much every eco- cies is more mild and vegetal. So far, ple months, I appeared on Fox News, As the emblematic dish of Italian food in America, preferences, of beliefs, regarding the regulation of for the transmission of traditional culinary knowl- erroneously called here ‘wedding soup’). For me, as system they enter. They had already so good. WGN, the Today Show, and went on ‘spaghetti and meatballs’ has received a certain how, what, when, and why one properly eats within edge. Some Italian-Americans have consciously an Italian-American, all of these uses of polpettine arrived in waterways, and an Asian carp fishing trip with a jour- amount of attention from food writers of different a given cultural community; the ingredients, dishes, and willingly assimilated to mainstream culinary and polpette have been common fare since earliest there was great fear that they would But as my knife dug deeper into the nalist from The Wall Street Journal. sorts, from the academic to the journalistic to the etc. are the physical manifestations of that underly- culture but for many more the break in generational childhood… but not ‘spaghetti and meatballs.’ eventually enter Lake Michigan, fish, the dilemmas began. On account amateur food-enthusiast. Though some are knowl- ing body of shared mental constructs that resides in transfer of culinary culture has been an unintend- causing much greater ecological and of the thick bones that run nearly My ego quickly inflated from my fif- edgeable enough to see connections to traditional the minds of members of that community. This body ed consequence of the demands of participating in economic damage. the entire length of the flesh, it was teen minutes of fame, and I doubled southern Italian dishes, there is nonetheless a con- of culinary knowledge is, like language, learned and American socioeconomic institutions and the con- impossible to remove the bones and down on the fish, deciding to offer sensus opinion that the dish is uniquely Ameri- in most communities throughout history the prima- comitant weakening of family bonds, the loss of the There was much discussion around a keep the fillet in one piece. This meant it for sale on our menu. Not surpris- can and many make the claim that this ‘Italian- ry locus of the transmission of this knowledge has crucial family- and group-internal discourse about potential solution, and food journalist that I wouldn’t be able to serve a typi- ingly, we didn’t sell a single order American’ preparation evinces shock and horror been the family and proximate, allied families who food on which, by definition, traditional culture de- Mike Sula of the Chicago Reader was cal ‘’ style portion most diners on the first night. in native Italians. For example, in the context of all share similar living conditions; the predominant pends. The newer generations—the second or third asking why nobody was considering were used to. So contrary to the laws a discussion regarding culinary appropriation and transmission has been from parents and grandpar- or fourth American-born, varying by family and eating the problem. So he reached out of supply and demand, the low yield I was in the office with my sous chef to several chefs around town to see of usable meat actually made our cost after service and we were discussing authenticity, a justly renowned food scholar, Ken ents to children through explicit instruction and location—who identify as ‘Italian’ but who have how they might dish it up, and I was per portion closer to the range of the the of the name. Albala, wrote of this dish: “We say spaghetti and modeled behavior along with the sensory experi- acquired little or nothing of their ancestors’ cuisine among them. I was the chef of Lock- pricier salmon or . meatballs is Italian-American, worthy of respect in ence of the children themselves. In the United States beyond a few recipes for individual (mostly festive) wood Restaurant at the Palmer House “What if we just changed it?” I its own right, though it makes ‘real’ Italian people dishes, might be more appropriately referred to as and now in many other ‘modern’ societies, culinary at the time, and had no idea how thor- But when I put the fish to the fire for offered. shudder in horror.” Similarly, the journalist Corby knowledge is increasingly transmitted to a far less ‘Americans of Italian descent’ rather than ‘Italian- oughly this invasive species would the first time, I loved it. In fact, aside Kummer, in an Atlantic article of 1986 intended degree in this traditional manner than elsewhere: Americans.’ This development, parallel and related invade my life. from the aforementioned obstacles, Examples of this are plenty: to teach us all about pasta—an effort which now American culinary discourse is largely oriented out- to the loss of Italian dialects as ‘heritage language,’ I would be willing to even put it on roughy was once known as mudfish. might be regarded as a bit of culturally appropria- side the family and proximate social group, open is typically fairly abrupt and we should therefore Fusilli napoletani con polpettine. At first I turned my nose up at the our menu. Sensing the media wind- Black cod isn’t even in the cod fam- tive hubris—starts off with a header “An inquiry to ever-expanding influences through media and not speak of Italian-American cuisine changing so notion of eating Asian carp, probably mill that might come with cooking ily. Most notably, Patagonian tooth- into a few fundamental questions: How did spa- impersonal discourse and experience (e.g. in res- much as of ‘culinary death,’ just as we speak of ‘lan- like you just did. The carp I knew and serving an invasive species, I dis- fish was a little known species until ghetti and meatballs, a dish no Italian recognizes, taurants). And in mainstream American society this guage death’ in a given community, and of replace- Where and how did this dish, in violation of a basic of were bottom feeders with an oily, cussed my thoughts with hotel man- its name was changed to Chilean sea become so popular here?…” I have yet to find a has been an increasing trend since the 19th century. ment of it by the mainstream cuisine. rule or convention of both Italian and Italian-Amer- yellow flesh, used to make the gefilte agement, and they gave me the green bass. Then it became incredibly popu- well-informed discussion of the topic. ican culinary tradition, arise? We do not know but I fish I disdained eating growing up as light. We all agreed nobody would lar, expensive, and overfished to near The great wave of (overwhelmingly southern) Ital- So then, what is it about ‘spaghetti and meatballs’ would suggest the following possibilities. a Jewish kid in Milwaukee. So I was actually order it, so the plan was to extinction. Native Italians are notoriously proud of their tra- ian immigrants that came to the States between 1880 that allegedly induces shock and horror in native skeptical at best, but accepted the give it away as a complimentary ditional cuisines and vociferously object to the and 1924 were mostly peasants and non-elite urban Italians? First, we must wonder who these shocked In the period of mass immigration, many Italian challenge. course at the beginning of the meal. “Why don’t we call it Shanghai violence that outsiders perpetrate on them—gar- dwellers and the culinary culture they brought with and horrified Italians are and it is my suspicion that men came alone to the States to earn money (and bass?” he suggested. lic in all’amatriciana? cream in alla ? them was very much traditional in nature. In the old they are of either of two types. Many Italians (like many ultimately returned to Italy) and, being with- But when I cut into the invasive carp I stretched my culinary chops around Those are simply not admissible variations. But country their poverty had dictated limited consump- many other peoples) bear a cultural prejudice against out family, they resided in cheap boarding houses for the first time, I was taken aback the fish, preparing it in as many ways My eyes lit up. Sure, it’s completely so too are Italian-Americans who grew up in a cu- tion of muscle meats, fresh fish, and pasta—these America, especially in connection with things cu- which also served meals—spaghetti with polpettine by the color and firmness of the flesh; as I could; we served it as a tar- illegal to change the name of a fish linarily traditional setting—loose in were foods typically only consumed by most on fes- linary, and an Italianate but non-Italian dish from was likely a favorite, but conceivably the placement it was a clear and vibrant white, and tare, carp-accio, broiled, fried, crab without FDA approval. But it felt like a lasagna alla napoletana? Grated cheese on lin- tive occasions, which might include Sundays if one America would naturally engender a negative reac- of larger polpette together with the pasta arose in resembled sea bass more than the carp crusted, just about every way you a legitimate solution, and shouldn’t guine with clam sauce?—unacceptable violations were not terribly poor. The attraction of America tion. One must also wonder whether these horrified this no-frills setting of cheap eats for hard work- the end justify the means? of taste and tradition. In point of fact, culturally was primarily economic and the greater purchasing consultants are northern Italians, for meatballs eaten ers. Whether this be true or not, I suspect that the conservative native Italians and Italian-Americans power Italian-Americans had naturally led to an in- together with pasta is a decidedly southern Italian real establishment of serving spaghetti and large, I was on a mission to show everyone that they were wrong about this fish, have always agreed on a great many fundamental creased ability to enjoy the aforementioned trium- thing. To be sure, from a traditional southern Italian round meatballs together as a hearty one-dish meal so I just did it, typing up a new menu culinary issues and if one aligns the two groups for virate of festive foods, a natural development soon standpoint, a plate of spaghetti topped with large, occurred in the next stage of Italian eateries, when for our next service on the spot. regions of origin in Italy, the agreement extends to paralleled in southern Italy itself amidst increased round meatballs is also strange and objectionable the intended audience was as much or more non- myriad details of particular preparations as well. but hardly a source of horror in itself: Legitimate Italians than single paesani—indeed, Italian-Amer- prosperity in the mid-twentieth century. In the U.S., Our ‘Frankenfish’ took on a new life icans with families long remained particularly dis- All would agree on issues of meal structure—(an- a degree of leveling of southern Italian regional dif- horror might be evinced if the tomato sauce is of as Shanghai bass, and it began to tipasto/) primo/secondo/salad (/)—as well ferences took place and all the newcomers were the over-garlicky or kitchen-sink American style inclined to eat in restaurants of any sort. In essence sell extraordinarily well. Our server as general contours to the weekly meal plan and subjected to similar new environmental conditions or if the pasta is overcooked or if the meatballs are then, I posit on the part of early Italian-American checked in with every portion sold, the basics regarding which special events one cel- of life in America; out of these processes, there be- rubbery and excessively and peculiarly seasoned, restaurateurs a conscious effort to adapt an inex- and every plate came back cleaned ebrates at table and how one does so. When some gan to develop for a time for a time a new sort of as American takes on polpette often are. But with pensive meal of their tradition to the conventions of and with compliments. Nobody com- forty years ago I travelled to my grandfather’s southern Italian (s) in the Northeast the components all properly prepared according to mainstream American cuisine, where meat was the mented on never having heard of the hometown in Italy to reestablish a several decades and Midwest centers of Italian settlement, neglect- tradition, what is objectionable about the American center of a meal and appeared together on a plate unusual bass varietal. long hiatus in contact between the American and ing some of the elements of cucina povera and mak- dish is simply this: For Italians, when one eats pasta, with its starchy accompaniment. Bigger meatballs, Italian branches of the family, I was flabbergasted ing former holiday dishes more quotidian in nature, the pasta is the featured item in a separate course— exotic but tasty spaghetti, a nice one plate meal. I’m not sure how long I would’ve at how similar—in many respects identical—the but the of their un-American cuisine remained. it is not a side-dish to meat, as Americans often con- kept up this stunt, but the hotel soon cuisine with which I grew up sume it, and when pasta co- In this sense, ‘spaghetti and meatballs’ is Ameri- pulled the plug. It wasn’t on account was to what my cousins en- appears with meat, the meat is can, a product of cultural interaction in the U.S., of renaming the fish; instead they joyed. The major differences part of the dressing, processed but given the older, traditional southern Italian as- had grown uneasy with the atten- were their stricter adherence in such a way that one can eat sociation of pasta with polpettine and polpette, the tion it brought, believing that I was to seasonality and access to a forkful that contains both dish—if properly made—can hardly be regarded becoming known as the “carp chef.” better versions of many ba- elements of the dish, without with shock or horror, at least not by someone with a Although I was a little bitter, in time sic ingredients, both of which recourse to the use of a knife. southern Italian culinary culture such as myself, for I saw they were right. The fish (and are related to the fact that If pasta is dressed with a sauce whom it remains merely structurally objectionable. fame) had become an obsession. they live in direct contact made with substantial pieces For Americans of Italian descent, whose culinary with a particularly rich agri- of meat, the meat is set aside ‘grammar’ is American, it seems normal and genu- cultural countryside and the and served apart as the second inely Italian. one in which our shared cui- course. sine came into existence. For Anthony F. Buccini, Jerseyman by birth but long-time resident example, their home is where Against widespread belief, of the Taylor Street neighborhood, is a historical linguist, dia- the buffalo roam, but not too pasta and meatballs are closely lectologist and food historian. His work in this last field focuses far, as they must be milked associated in traditional south- on Mediterranean and Atlantic World cuisines and he is a two- time winner of the Sophie Coe Prize in Food History. Phillip Foss is the chef and co-owner of each day for the production ern Italian cookery, but always Michelin starred EL Ideas and the brand of exquisite and in conformity with the just new concept, Boxcar . In late ricotta, even better than the mentioned conventions. To 2019, he self-published Life in EL, a genre bending graphic novel with his cousin and excellent cows-milk analogs this day, in the outlying regions Illustration by Eric May comic artist, Timothy Foss. available in Jersey. of the old Regno of southern THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION

Amalá Ilá (savory cornmeal topped with a spicy tomato and okra sauce) for the orishas Changó and Olokún. By Elizabeth Perez In Chicago (& Beyond)

I learned about sacred food on tral African-inspired religions, sheet cake to mark Ashabi’s cate etiquette that governs the lier. I was fortunate beyond any Devotees nurture the orishas in the South Side when I moved they were miniature versions “birthday”—her ritual rebirth orishas’ celebrations. Foods expectation that the initiated order to be nourished morally to Hyde Park in 1997 in search of the Haitian and Cuban bo- in 1986 as an ordained priest brought into contact with the elders of Ilé Laroye, a predom- and materially by them. Other of a master’s degree at the Uni- tánicas I grew up around in of the deities called orishas. orishas get charged with a vital inantly Black American house gods and ancestors around versity of Chicago Divinity South . I met prolific Her well-wishers enjoyed the primordial energy called ashé. of worship, allowed me to ob- the world want food, too. Of School. I wanted to study holy diviners, as generous with their equivalent of a Sunday supper: The first time I walked into serve and prepare for rituals in these, the orishas may bear the Sopa borracha and cappuccino (traditional Cuban soaked in sugar women with power and au- time as they were skilled in the well-seasoned meat with fra- Ashabi’s bungalow, I knew Ashabi’s home as part of my greatest resemblance to Hindu , , and sometimes rum) for Oshún. thority—women in leadership reading of oracles with Yorùbá grant rice, fluffy dinner rolls, more than Chirino’s “Mr.,” doctoral dissertation research. deities, with their penchant for roles, unafraid to lift their voic- and Kongo . I bought so and savory greens. but not much. I suspected that I wound up making food, and sweets (and sometimes meat, es in both prayer and protest. many saint-emblazoned pillar T.V. and movie portrayals the centrality of the kitchen as in the case of goddesses who cake, or Entenmann’s Louisi- I left Chicago in 2010. Since candles and wands that There would definitely have of Santería were distorted to transformed the way I under- receive chickens, goats, water ana Crunch Cake. But the most then, I’ve had the opportuni- These women turned out to I lost count, but I didn’t find a been clusters of , , make “voodoo” seem savage stood religion—including the buffaloes, and more). The two sumptuous meals were reserved ty to work in sacred be the rule, rather than the ex- community. pears, pineapples, , and and primal, the better to feed role of women in it. traditions also share a prac- for the orishas and visitors un- in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. ception, in religions that are other fresh fruit on Elegguá’s al- racist fantasies of African in- tice of giving foodstuffs to the affiliated with Ilé Laroye. One These experiences bore out my among the most stigmatized That is, not until I stepped into tar. In a comic “salsa pop” num- feriority. I never asked myself As in other transnational Afro- deities and obtaining an edible of my earliest fieldnotes reads, book’s arguments about gay today: Haitian Vodou, Afro- the South Side home of Eleg- ber from 1991, “Mister Don’t what happened once the scenes Diasporic religions, every ma- blessing in return. “Everyone was hungry and men’s stewardship of kitchens- Cuban Lucumí (also called guá, the Lucumí deity of thresh- Touch the ,” Cuban- of sacrifice were over. jor Lucumí ceremony entails wishing the food could be eaten paces. What I didn’t foresee is Santería), and their sister re- olds, crossroads, and commu- American musician Willy Chiri- the preparation of dishes for Most Lucumí culinary tech- but forget it!” how the internet would come ligions throughout the Ca- nication. In my scholarship, I no sets his song at a feast for Elegguá and Changó belong the deities, ancestors, and other niques derive from precolonial Flan (-flavored egg with caramel sauce) made for Oshún. to normalize catering for the ribbean and Latin America. refer to this house of worship as Changó—the deity of thunder, to a pantheon that probably practitioners. Some Afro-Dia- Yorùbáland (encompassing Cooking for elaborate rituals orishas as a culinary specialty. Enslaved Africans carried Ilé Laroye, meaning “the house justice, virility, and the drums— did not accompany the first sporic religions have deemed swathes of modern-day Ni- could be an agonizing task, the and spores of these of Laroye”—one of Elegguá’s to whom the banana in question enslaved people to land on kitchen managers valuable geria and Bénin). In Chicago, Their menus feature plenty of The women of Ilé Laroye put making for sore hips, stiff In 2011, Nydia Pichardo (Ibae) traditions across the Atlantic praise names—in the Yorùbá pertains. The song’s joke turns Cuban shores in 1518. They enough to bestow official titles practitioners benefit from the corn, cornmeal and hominy, the same love into plucking, necks, and hand cramps. Prac- debuted the Adimu Network, Ocean, in a which language. I had been introduced on a buttinsky’s obliviousness. nevertheless became the domi- on them. In Lucumí, the most presence of West African mar- hinting at the indigenous con- butchering, and roasting for the titioners usually undertook it as “the first video internet website began a hundred years before to its founder, Ashabi Moseley, “Tempted by folklore” and cu- nant group of African spirits exalted term is alashé. kets on the South and North tribution to Black Atlantic cul- orishas as their foremothers put labor of love after a full day of dedicated to the preservation 1619 (the year enslaved Afri- by Miguel W. Ramos, a se- riosity, he shows up uninvited in Cuba. By the time devo- Sides. The members of Ilé Lar- tures. And the orishas’ craving into dressing “the gospel bird” teaching, nursing, shopkeep- of Lukumi sacred food herita- cans first arrived in the British nior Lucumí priest, respected and mistakes a display of sacred tees brought the orishas to the Afro-Diasporic gods have dis- oye shopped for ingredients for sugar tells a tale of racial- and cooking other Church food. ing, bank-tellering, call-center- ge.” With gorgeous photogra- colony of Virginia) and ended a scholar, and prolific author. I food for a buffet. United States almost a century tinct preferences and aversions. on S. Commercial Ave. and E. phs and instructional clips, it th th ized appetites in the Spanish Ashabi sometimes consulted ing, or construction—to name decade after the Civil War. happened to arrive at Ilé Laroye ago, they had been objects of For example, their sacred ani- 87 and E. 89 Streets, stack- colonial world. Even on the the stylings of The a handful of occupations repre- remains a rich informational on the anniversary of Moseley’s When the party-crasher snatch- legal prohibition and academic mals are differentiated by type, ing their baskets to the brim South Side, their desserts have African-American Heritage sented in Ilé Laroye. resource. A much larger collec- Although my parents are Cu- initiation, an elaborate rite of es a piece of Changó’s favor- investigation. They went on to color, sex, and age. A complex with guinea pepper, red palm tropical flair, likedulce de coco Cookbook: Traditional Recipes tion of videos can be viewed ban, nobody in my family passage that confers status and ite fruit, the host faints, one of flourish in Puerto Rican and mythological system explains oil, plantains, frozen banana ( candy) and caramel & Fond Remembrances from And it wasn’t only cisgender on YouTube, at the Nydias- had ever been initiated in an obligation in equal measure. the guests gets possessed, and majority-immigrant communi- why the orishas consume cer- leaves, tubers prevalent in Ca- flan. Although most members Alabama’s Renowned Tuskegee women at the stove. As I write MiamiKitchen channel. Pi- Afro-Diasporic religion. Once another hops up to perform a ties in Miami and New York. In tain things or don’t—why, for ribbean cuisine (like cassava of Ilé Laroye hail from fami- Institute by Carolyn Quick Til- in Religion in the Kitchen: chardo is the late wife of Obá in Chicago, I started spend- I don’t remember what I ate cleansing rite. Their reactions Chicago, the Lucumí tradition example, a certain manifesta- and malanga), white yam flour lies propelled north during the lery. She also drew inspiration Cooking, Talking, and the Mak- Ernesto Pichardo, whose 1993 ing afternoons in Puerto Rican on that fateful day in 2001, are absurdly exaggerated, but a took hold after the Mariel boat- tion of the orisha Oshún abhors (iyan), and black-eyed pea Great Migration, the house from her Caribbean travels to ing of Black Atlantic Traditions Supreme Court case won reli- and Mexican botánicas, those but there was surely food in taboo has been violated. lift of 1980, a mass emigration watercress and Oyá never eats flour (moin-moin). ran on Cuban , and the make chicken, goat, (NYU Press, 2016), gay men gious practitioners in the Uni- religious supply stores dotting abundance: a rainbow of color- of over 125,000 Cubans. ram (why, if truth be told, she alashés poured their into and Jamaican escovitch fish. (I have cooked alongside women ted States the right to perform the North Side and Pilsen in ful treats that symbolize Eleg- The banana-grabber isn’t only never wants to catch even a Senior initiates trained new- steaming platters of Puerto Ri- bragged to my fieldnotes once and run sacred Lucumí kitch- animal sacrifice. Pichardo’s al- the late 1990s. Often run by guá’s playful side, along with ignorant of Changó’s divin- Ashabi’s Havana-born mentor whiff of its gamy odor). comers to recognize and repli- can arroz con gandules on spe- when my improvised ens. In fact, while no one would chemical archive lives on after practitioners of West and Cen- a white-frosted ity—he’s unaware of the intri- had arrived over a decade ear- cate the orishas’ favorite tastes. cial occasions. met with her approval, deny that the kitchen is wom- her tragically untimely death in since being asked by Ashabi to en-centered—notwithstanding 2019. cook was like having Yo-Yo Ma the presence of straight cisgen- request a little dinner music.) der men—the “kitchenspaces” Just last year, I had the pleasure of Afro-Diasporic religions of meeting one professional “Love offerings” for post- have been queer spaces where alashé, Chef Joel “El Cangri,” ritual repasts might be home- their most hallowed traditions after Ashabi raved about his made cobbler, pound are preserved and passed on. cooking. I shadowed him in a tiny basement kitchen dur- ing an initiation (often called “ocha,” an abbreviation of kariocha). Based in New York, Chef Joel has an impressive In- OsHÍNSHÍN stagram and Facebook follow- ing based on his motivational A do-it-yourself approach to orisha worship has unfortunately be- messages and tutorials that come prevalent on social media and video hosting sites like You- showcase his culinary versa- Tube. The senior members of Ilé Laroye would not condone any tility. Joel proudly puts “Chef sharing of recipes that might encourage this DIY trend--and dis- Alashe” and “Orishas Kitchen” courage seeking the guidance of initiated practitioners. For my on his business cards, along- own practice, I rely heavily on Miguel W. Ramos’ excellent Ad- side “Latin fusion food” and imú: Gbogbo Tén’unjé Lukumí (Miami: eleda.org, 2012), and occa- “Cocina [cuisine or kitchen] de sionally consult John Mason’s Ìdáná Fún Òrìsà (Brooklyn: Yorùbá Ocha.” How much higher can Theological Archministry, 1999). This recipe for oshínshín, one of get when you’re Oshún’s favorite dishes, adjusts Ramos’ to my taste: cooking for the gods them- selves? Ingredients: 5 eggs 2 cups spinach, collards, or chard Half a yellow onion, chopped 5 of garlic, minced 1 6-oz can of tomato paste 1 1 tablespoon dry white ¼ cup dried shrimp Five (or more) raw, medium-sized shrimp ⅛ teaspoon sea , to taste 3 tablespoons of oil A tablespoon of red , optional Fresh cilantro

Oshínshín made for Oshún by Lucumí Instructions: practitioners. Rinse the greens thoroughly and set aside. Soak the dried shrimp in warm water (more than an hour is ideal). Shell and devein the fresh shrimp, making sure to remove the tails. In a bowl, whisk the eggs with a fork and stir in .

Heat the oils over medium heat in a medium saucepan. Add the bay leaf and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add the onion, garlic, and dried shrimp and lower the heat. Cook until the onions are translu- cent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, wine, and greens. Af- ter the greens have wilted slightly, about three minutes, add the fresh Elizabeth Pérez is an Associate Profes- shrimp and cook for about two more minutes; Ramos (1999, pgs. sor of Religious Studies at the University 63-64) cautions: “[A]llow a slight change in shrimp’s color, but do of California, Santa Barbara. Her first book, Religion in the Kitchen: Cook- not allow them to become white to avoid overcooking them.” Pour ing, Talking, and the Making of Black beaten eggs over the other ingredients and press them gently against Atlantic Traditions (New York Univer- the greens to incorporate. Remove from heat since eggs will keep sity Press, 2016) won the 2017 Clifford cooking in the hot pan. Keep nudging and turning over the mixture Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Re- with your utensil (a spatula or wooden spoon) until the eggs look set ligion, presented by the Society for the yet moist, about five minutes. with cilantro. Anthropology of Religion, and received Honorable Mention for the Caribbean Altar for Oshún on the anniversary of a priest’s initiation (“ocha”), June 2006, with sincere thanks to Oshún Leye. Combined Shangó and Oshún altars for the one-year “ocha birthday” of two Studies Association’s 2019 Barbara T. priests initiated at the same time, April 2008. Reproduced with the generous Christian Literary Award. permission of Bangboshé and Oshún Yemí. THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION

E The name changed to Maria’s when you re- habbed? When was that?

Ed: It was Kaplan’s until 2010 when my brother and I took over managing it and called it Maria’s Packaged Goods.

E One of my big questions is there’s Ed the activist, the Edmar I was first exposed to. But then you’ve got the entrepreneurial thing. Do those things square up?

Ed: Well you know, the joke I tell people is that I’ve become the person I hated in my 20s. But at the same time it’s probably better I was who I was in my 20s— I have more empathy for a lot of different things most capitalist dudes wouldn’t be interested in.

But also, when you’re an activist you have no resou- rces. But we didn’t have any real budget when we changed up Maria’s. It was Charlie (Vinz), he used some reclaimed wood. My wife designed the chande- liers. My brother laid the floor. I painted, we all did By Eric May the work to start that.

Ed Marszewski is the busiest freak in town—he is the butors each week. And that’s why we had this nice mes” and found a house for rent around the corner Eventually when you have passion, people care and co-director of Public Media Institute (PMI), a nonpro- diversity of voices and people. and moved into it at Armitage and Rockwell. they notice. As you know Maria’s became globally fit that publishes Lumpen Magazine, which is approa- famous for being one of the best bars in America. ching its 30th anniversary. Other PMI programs inclu- So we started seeing what all these different chefs E And you’re about to reemerge there. So you We were in these tv shows that called us the best bar de Co Prosperity, an experimental cultural (and art) were doing in the Quarantine Times—making meal have some love for the Northside? in America, twice! Every magazine on earth heral- center in Bridgeport, and Lumpen Radio. Alongside kits and feeding industry workers, and we decided sin- ded our craft beers and cocktail stuff. And of course his mother Maria and brother Mike, he is the foun- ce our kitchens were closed, let’s reopen the kitchens, Ed: Of course I chose to open up another Marz Maria, herself, getting the recognition she deserved der of a portfolio of celebrated eating and drinking let’s employ some people and make food for the neigh- Brewery a block and a half away from my first house decades earlier as being this woman who was welco- brands, mostly located in Bridgeport—Maria’s Pac- bors. We found out the senior citizens’ homes, their in Chicago. Yeah I always love the Northside, if it ming to all people and made everyone feel safe in her kaged Goods & Community Bar, Kimski, Marz kitchens closed because everyone was quarantined to wasn’t for Quimby’s and Myopic and Wicker Park, dive bar, regardless of the color of your Brewing, and Pizza Fried Chicken . their rooms. The food pantries, they needed meals. the whole scene of amazing people—throw a rock skin or class, you know. And our whole thing was we pay people to work, we and you know someone, I mean the internet was the I’ve been a big fan of Ed Mar (as he’s known around pay them good wages, and we source what we usua- street, right? Those third places got me convinced E What about the “Community to town) since I first picked up issues of Lumpen as an lly source—local produce, local farms, local supplies, that doing these things may be worthwhile and then the Future” concept. You use the term impressionable teenaged freak in the mid-90s, drawn whenever possible, all local stuff to give them money, deluded myself to keep doing them forever. community a lot. to it’s lefty gonzo journalism and trippy art and de- and then we deliver and bring the food to the consti- sign. During the Iraq War years, I marched behind tuents. And bring them really healthy, awesome farm- E : When were the Buddy Years? I wasn’t a regu- Ed: So, 2005 the White Sox are about a megaphone-touting Ed Mar down Michigan Ave- to-senior-citizen home meals. lar but I remember some sweaty dance parties and I to win the world series—a New York nue, protesting against global capitalism. We became remember coming to a Food Not Bombs event and Times journalist comes into the bar to comrades a decade later, co-organizing the MDW E I feel like you’re ideally positioned to be the maybe a stencil-making workshop. Back then I didn’t interview me about the neighborhood. Fair, an alternative art fair showcasing independent person that does this. On one hand you’ve got the or- totally understand what Buddy was. At that point, art, One of the quotes of that article is me art spaces from around the country. I had the pleasure ganizing roots and then you’ve got the businesses, the to me, belonged to stuffy elite spaces. And people ca- saying Bridgeport is the community of Zooming with him recently over a couple of cold infrastructure. And you also know everybody. And I lled Buddy an art space but I’d go there and it was of the future, if the future is the apo- Community Kitchen prep, credit: Rich Klevgard. ones—rapping with Ed is just as head spinning as was curious what community groups you were wor- like a squat. calypse. At that point, the apocalypse his ambition to take on new projects. Somehow in 90 king with? referred to the lily white, racist, white minutes we forgot to talk about the radio station, his Ed: A dump! Well it’s true. That was 2002-2005. I supremacist shithole that Bridgeport “Buddy” store at the Chicago Cultural Center, or his Ed: Yeah the infrastructure, this would not have think we did about 100 events a year, it was insane. was, right? The black hole of segre- E I see all your beers in Binny’s out here new tie dye clothing line. It would truly take an entire happened if we didn’t have these kitchens to use Every Wednesday was improvised lotto. There were gation. So that’s really the apocalyp- in the burbs. It’s like artwork on the shelf – it’s issue of this to capture the multitudes that immediately. So if we didn’t have Marz or Kimski rooftop parties and BBQs. That space, there were se part—bemoaning the bad parts awesome to see Jacob Ciocci art out here. So are Ed Mar. this program wouldn’t have happened as quickly or always 8-10 people living there, it was really tough. of Bridgeport. We started imagining going back to the use of the word “communi- robustly. I actually asked And maybe that was the Freedom Festival. We had what we wanted to see in the neigh- ty,” I wonder what does community mean on our state rep, Teresa Mah, a three or four day festival—the Food Not Bombs, borhood—it was about like, wow lets a beer label in a big store in Geneva, Illinois? which orgs need help now? a show, lots of workshops and talks and par- queer the fuck out of Bridgeport by having more that’s how we wound up in Co-Prosperity. We were And she put us in touch ties. It was an interesting approach, getting hipster freaks and artists move in. looking all over the place and this random customer Ed: Right. When we started doing the brewery na- with a few. And some other kids to become activists. I remember we held Version at my mom’s bar who I’d see Monday nights when I turally we were working with our friends who were orgs contacted us and we Fest during the Iraq War and a thousand people were One of our first media festivals here, the subtitle was worked said, “Eddie, I want to sell the building down artists and designers and weirdos. All these things started doing food for them. arrested in front of the MCA building. And the pu- “Bridgeport, Community of the Future” with the the block.” Like which one, the one with all the shit are distributing ideas—the beer can, the brewery, the And then of course the blic interventions like the Chicago Art parade where Bridgecot Center as its icon, the Epcot Center hove- in the window that’s been abandoned for 20 years? gallery, the magazine, and the radio – it’s all ampli- Love Fridge started and we we decided to have a parade and hundreds of artists ring over a bunch of two flats. It was that interplay So I bought this abandoned building. It’s always fying interesting ideas and stuff that matters to us started putting meals in the showed up. between it being a rough and shitty neighborhood been great to be down here because it’s affordable, and hopefully to make other people care about. That Love Fridges. And then the and us being idealistic artists trying to be open min- there’s a lot of space, there’s a lot of room for things vibe, working with artists and weirdos and freaks is Döner Men were doing their E Is that when you marched on the Merchandise ded. After Buddy, we had to get another space and to happen that you probably couldn’t afford to do hopefully prevalent in most of the things we’re doing. own thing and we were like, Mart? north of Roosevelt Road, you know hey man why don’t you do what I mean? E : Do you have hope for what’s next as we emerge this with us? We’ll try to Ed: No, that was the art war. That was a different from this dark winter we’ve just faced? get some more funding and thing. We attacked by land, sea, and air. E I remember the first brewery pay you to do the meals. So you guys had set up down on Hals- Ed: Absolutely man, living through this year ob- let’s throw all this coin we E Did I ever tell you the anecdote about that—the ted. You were already making deli- viously in some ways chilled me out a lot and then get into these programs and 1st year at NEXT Fair, Kavi Gupta called me up and cious beer back then. also made me believe we’re going to do whatever the try to help as many people had a meeting with me and said “I’m worried about hell we can do and just go for it—do things I’ve been as we can. Mom’s on Marz this Edmar guy” and asked me to keep an eye on you. Ed: Down on Halsted, right, the litt- wanting to do for years, we’re just going to do it, I’m The Marszewski family at Maria’s. came and started doing I must have done a shitty job, because, of course, the le tiny three barrel set up. That was not going to regret things anymore. And how do we stuff. And then we expan- guillotine... 2013-2016. It was pretty good beer. help people have opportunities that they wouldn’t ded to Iyanze, that West I mean for being hand bottled with have normally? Hopefully things work out. E You’ve got a couple of milestones co- African restaurant. I mentioned it to the First Ward Ed: Yeah the guillotine. That was an incredible day. fucking CO. We were completely ming up—the one year anniversary of the Quarantine and they set us up with some senior citizen homes. The art war was organized in the CoPro. We had peo- bonkers. Times and I saw that the Community Canteen is We started providing food for Esperanza school and ple actually do surveillance of the entire area around wrapping up. transitional housing. And we’re working with an or- the Merchandise Mart. Some artists made effigies, ganization in Englewood that’s not a food pantry, but like Chris Kennedy, that got beheaded by the artists Ed Marzewski: Yeah the Community Canteen at Kim- with a neon guillotine in a pick up truck. We had a an interventionist group—whenever a shooting hap- Ed Marszewski at the Life on Marz Community Club. ski will be closing this week. Basically we don’t have pens they come out and talk to the neighbors, try to phalanx of Roman soldiers. We had a catapult. And enough funding to make 4000 meals a week anymore. cool things down and they do it by providing meals dozens of people in Critical Mass on tall bikes dres- We are still asking different foundations for mo- and invite everyone to come out and talk. It’s a really sed up like knights with lances, they came through, ney to keep the program going in some fashion. But unique way of utilizing food to start a conversation or they provided us the cover to escape. There was a we’re cutting off Kimski, because it might re-open. provide some relief, just nourishment to people who flotilla of shitty boats. The blimp broke and didn’t Wherewithal will be going for another month or so. are traumatized. launch for the air attack. And there were a hundred Most of the people are going for another month or so. people doing pillow fights. We were catapulting stu- And then after that we’ll probably continue to make E So we’re kind of going backwards through my ffed animals and water balloons against the building. 300-600 meals out of Kimski and Marz and I’ll just questions, but I do want to go back in time, since I’ve And then other people showed up, artists came out pay for it. But yeah, the Quarantine Times book just been a fan of yours since high school. and attacked us with paint bombs. came out. It’s a pretty great document of how freaked out everybody was. When the shutdown happened, Ed: The 60s! E Back to Bridgeport—you and your brother star- Nick and I were like, shit, we’re gonna have to cancel ted helping your mom out at some point. all the shows for a couple of months. We had some fun- E So, you grew up in Bridgeport? ding allocated for those shows and we’re all freaking Ed: Oh we always worked. My mother had a Korean out and, like, what can we do? So lets start this pro- Ed: No, no one’s from Bridgeport. Unfortunately and Japanese restaurant called the House of Kim at ject and pay everyone who contributes to it. Because due to poor reporting all over the universe, people 109th and Harlem, in a strip mall. So I worked there you know most artists are precarity workers—they’re just assumed we grew up in Bridgeport. So I’m glad as a teenager. My mother built a beautiful restaurant doing multiple gigs—bartenders or waiters or catering, we’re getting the truth. I actually grew up in Ever- with a pond, a turtle, koi fish. She had traditional right? The point was, how can we provide some relief. green Park, but my family moved when I was nine Korean rooms with the wood and paper doors. or ten to Downers Grove, I went to high school there. You could sit on the floor to eat. She grilled kalbi at We were engaged with some foundations at that point And went to University of Illinois for art school but the table. She had a banquet hall, there was a and they’re like “this sounds like a great project, let’s dropped out and went into political science. I thought bar. She then had a beauty shop. We’ve always wor- help you out for a month.” Like yeah, we’ll be done I’d become a lawyer, but instead I believed in alterna- ked for her. in a month, it’ll be fine. And then it’s like, this is ne- tive journalism. verending! And they actually reupped a couple times. E So she’s a real entrepreneur. We were able to pay people, I mean, over $100,000. E So was Lumpen Magazine based in Wicker The idea was to have all creative industry workers, Park in the early days? Ed: Yeah, and so was my father. He was a butcher. including chefs, bartenders, , as He had the bar. My mother took over the bar when well as musicians, artists of all stripes, performers, Ed: After I moved out of Champaign, I moved home my father passed away. That was the 80s. I was a activists, talk about what they were doing. And we briefly, got a job at a brewery, and got fired for trying bar baby. selected seven editors to each select different contri- to form a union. I got an internship at “In These Ti- Community of the Future logo. Ed Marszewski at the Art War, 2008, credit: Oscar Arriola. THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION

By Eric May

By Peter Regas

March 1945: The only known photo of Richard Riccardo in his pizzeria 1949: Then called “Pizzeria No. Una” note how thin deep-dish pizza was Circa mid-1960s: Alice Mae Redmond’s daughter, Lucille (Peter Regas Collection). in the 1940’s (“Chicago by Nite” magazine, “Photography by Morrow”, Conwell, serves a now noticeably thicker modern-day deep- Watson Family Collection). dish slice at Pizzeria Due (Lucille Conwell Collection).

Who invented Chicago deep- in the early 1940s. Hence the do- prepared by one of his Rush it was signed on February 15, original deep-dish recipe was dish pizza? Is there a more con- minant pizza in Chicago is a thin Street bartenders, Riccardo got 1944, almost eight months aft very likely the sole creation of troversial question in Chicago cracker crust sliced with a square violently ill. Angered by the Riccardo. food history? Despite decades “tavern cut.” experience, Riccardo stormed er Sewell said they bought the of debate and speculation, no off to Italy for two or three tavern business and their lease Is the pizza served today subs- one has definitively identified Now back to the deep-dish months. Eventually, Riccar- started. Why would you wait tantially the same deep-dish who created the pizza style that story. Let’s define deep-dish do came back from Italy with eight months to sign a partners- pizza served when Riccardo has—rightly or wrongly— bran- pizza as a pizza cooked in a cir- a new idea for Sewell: pizza. hip agreement after—according opened in the 1940s? There are ded Chicago as a deep-dish piz- cular pan, sauce on top of the But Sewell had no idea what to Sewell—committing capital reasons to doubt it. I found pho- za town with a market niche now cheese, and a modestly thick pizza was. They tried to or- to the partnership? tos of Pizzeria Uno’s deep-dish worth hundreds of millions of crust that’s rich in fat. Typica- der one at the only pizzeria in from 1949, which show dollars. lly the fat used in the and Chicago on Taylor Street, but In addition, liquor license appli- pizzas made in a shallower pan in the pan is a mixture of olive the owner told them he only cations show the original mana- looking noticeably thinner than I was reminded of this question oil and corn oil. There’s little makes pizzas for parties. Ric- ger was not Rudy Malnati Sr., today’s deep-dish pizza. Addi- 12 years ago reading the title doubt the pizzeria at 29 East cardo, a longtime cook, then as Sewell said, but Riccardo’s tionally, in 1945, Riccardo gave “Mysteries of the Deep” on the Ohio Street in Chicago—ori- went into his kitchen and star- cousin Bartolomeo Fico. It turns a deep-dish pizza cover of a tabloid newspaper. ginally named “The Pizzeria,” ted experimenting with pizza recipe that has approximately The article, written by Chicago later renamed “Pizzeria Uno”— recipes. Sewell’s only input to half the fat compared to Pizze- Tribune reporter James Janega, served the original deep-dish the recipe was to tell Riccardo ria Uno’s current dough. This described the efforts of Tim pizza in December 1943. The to “make it a meal” instead of lends credence to the story that Samuelson, then Chicago’s offi- main controversy is who crea- an appetizer. Finally, they ope- legendary Uno pizza cook Alice cial cultural historian, to find ted the original deep-dish pizza: ned their pizzeria with Rudy Mae Redmond told the Chica- the inventor of deep-dish pizza. Ike Sewell, a Chicago-based Malnati Sr. as the manager in go Sun-Times in 1989: “When Tim lamented, “I wish that there liquor executi- December 1943. After Sewell I came to Uno’s the dough was were more written records—re- ve, Richard Riccardo Sr., a fa- retired from the liquor industry terrible… It wouldn’t stretch.” cipes or vintage photographs.” mous Rush Street restaurateur, in 1966, he told various ver- So she said she developed her I was immediately intrigued. or Rudy Malnati Sr., Pizzeria sions of this story to the media own recipe. My interviews with After reading the article, I met Uno’s longtime manager. until his death in 1990. And her now-late daughter Lucille with Tim and agreed to try my that was that. Conwell confirm Alice Mae hand at finding more informa- To tell your story, it helps to likely added more fat to the re- tion to help us solve this deca- be alive to recount it. In this Until one day in 1998, when cipe making it easier to stretch. des-old mystery. case, Riccardo, a part-owner Riccardo’s ex-wife, Mae of the pizzeria, died young in Juel Allen, called Chicago Circa mid-1930s: Ike Sewell. Possibly his Where did Riccardo get the idea Before we look at this deep-dish 1954. By contrast, Sewell died Magazine’s Jeff Ruby and told official photo for Fleischmann’s Distill- to open up the pizzeria? A 1954 ing (Florence and Ike Sewell whodunit, let’s establish some in 1990 in his late eighties as a very different story. Accor- Collection, Northwestern Memorial Hos- Sun-Times article states that historical context regarding the Pizzeria Uno’s owner. As a re- ding to Mae Juel, “Ike Sewell pital Archives). Pizzeria Uno was established “... pizza business. The first docu- sult, Sewell’s origin story be- didn’t know beans about deep- to satisfy pizza lovers who com- mented pizzerias in the world came the dominant narrative dish pizza.” She went further out Rudy Malnati Sr. was the plained because Riccardo’s [on appeared in Naples in the late in newspaper articles on the and said Sewell wasn’t present pizzeria’s third manager taking Rush St.] didn’t serve their fa- 1700s. In the U.S. the first known early days of deep-dish pizza. when Riccardo hatched his piz- over in 1951. Also, telephone vorite dish…” That seems plau- pizzeria appeared in New York Briefly, Sewell’s story was as za idea in 1943. In another un- books and a birth certificate es- sible as tavern pizza was boo- City in 1894 on Mulberry Street. follows: Born in Texas, Sewell published interview I reviewed, tablish the Riccardo family mo- ming on the east coast in 1943. It wasn’t until 1924 that Tom had a longtime dream to open Mae Juel said wartime liquor ved into 29 East Ohio Street in But a more intriguing reason Granato established Chicago’s a Mexican restaurant in Chi- shortages caused them to form late 1942, renting an apartment may be the abandoned tavern first verified pizzeria, on Taylor cago. He approached Riccardo the partnership with Ike only right above the then abandoned Riccardo bought in 1943 called Street. Granato’s pizza, cooked in early 1943 with the idea and after the pizzeria was already basement tavern. Is it credible “The Pelican” was also a pizze- in a wood-fired oven, looked like formed a partnership. Sewell open, stating, “We only had Ike that Sewell discovered the ba- ria, at least from 1940 to 1941. a New York-style pizza with its found an abandoned basement because he was in the liquor sement tavern Riccardo was al- Riccardo may have simply re- wedge-cut thin crust. With the tavern at 29 East Ohio Street business. And we needed the li- ready living right above? opened an abandoned pizzeria repeal of prohibition, pizza star- and, by June 17, 1943, they had quor. It’s that simple.” with pizza ovens and possibly ted to become popular in Italian- leased it. Eventually, Riccardo, Remember that pizzeria on Ta- deep-dish pans still there. American taverns on the east an Italian by birth unfamiliar Since both sources are now ylor Street in 1943 Sewell clai- coast in the mid-1930s. The idea with Mexican food, wanted a dead, the only way to assess med would only make pizza All of this revisionist history of serving pizza in taverns as an meal to taste before they ope- who’s telling the truth is to find for “parties”? The only known doesn’t mean Sewell and Mal- accompaniment to drinks even- ned the restaurant. After eating as many primary sources as pizzeria at that time on Taylor nati were not critical to Pizzeria tually made its way to Chicago an authentic Mexican meal possible and see whose story is Street was Tom Granato’s piz- Uno’s success. Contingency in consistent with those sources. zeria. Tom’s daughter, Marion history leads to some interes- And so, on and off for the last Simone, turns ninety-three this ting counterfactuals. Would 12 years, that’s what I’ve done June and has clear memories of Riccardo’s pizzeria have survi- often with Tim Samuelson’s in- the pizzeria in the early 1940s. ved those early months without valuable help. She told me Sewell’s claim was Sewell and the extra liquor “absolutely not” true. Finally, he allegedly supplied? Would My research largely supports Sewell claims Riccardo went another manager have been as Mae Juel’s version of events to Italy during the summer of successful as Rudy Malnati Sr. and finds Sewell’s origin story 1943 for two or three months. was for more than two decades? implausible and at times ou- Sewell was a highly respected Would Riccardo have opened tright false. For example, I Chicagoan but he really told a a pizzeria if “The Pelican” had found all the Chicago liquor whopper here. The only way for not previously introduced pizza license applications for 29 East an American to go to Italy in the at the little basement tavern at Ohio Street for the period 1939- summer of 1943 was to invade 29 East Ohio Street? Resear- 1955. The critical application Italy with the U.S. Armed For- ching old questions leads to was the first one signed by Ri- ces. For the record, Riccardo new questions. The mystery chard Riccardo on November never served in the U.S. Armed continues. 15, 1943. Riccardo explicitly Forces, and there is no record of states on that application he has him leaving North America du- no partners. This directly con- ring the war. tradicts Sewell’s story that they bought the tavern business and Based on all of these sources, Peter Regas works as a financial statis- leased the space by June 17, I believe Sewell’s origin story tician. Which is another way to say he 1943. I was also able to find the for Pizzeria Uno is substantially stares at a computer screen all day. He has an inexplicable interest in—his sis- original partnership agreement untrue. Crucially, I don’t think ters would say an obsession with—the between Riccardo and Sewell Sewell was Riccardo’s partner origins of pizza. For more information (actually, Sewell’s wife signed when Riccardo initially opened on his research please consult pizzahis- torybook.com. October 1940: Advertisement for “The Pelican” the first pizzeria at 29 E. for him). The most interesting the pizzeria in December 1943. Ohio St. (“Chicago Nite Life” magazine, Peter Regas Collection) thing about the agreement is And if that’s the case, then the THE CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION

By Hyun Jung Jun, edited by Cody Tumblin

I am outside, come out and bring a plate! sual, quiet, and unas- suming, while a tiered It took me 29 years to make my first cake. It was a cake with toasted me- slathered with pre-whipped cream cheese ringue piping can be from Trader Joe’s, mixed with and sugar. It the shining star of an was meant to be a birthday cake of sorts—a joint bir- everlasting memory. thday between my partner Cody and our close friend Even cake can carry Jeff.The cake was as much about their year around the memories within it, its sun as it was about their friendship. I liked the sound sweetness reminding of it—friendship cake. I began to make more and more cakes for us of the forgotten joys that linger under the bitterness. If an- friends—a reason to say hello, an excuse to drop by, to meet up, ything, a slice of cake brings us comfort at the end of a long day, to eat together and catch up. I started a journal, piles of notes and especially when that slice is shared. colorful doodles full of flavor combinations and recipes. This was how Dream Cake Test olive Kitchen began. oil cake with orange drizzle of cake with condensed milk syrup, candied ginger, Cakes are a lands- cape for the dreams orange , lemon we carry. My cakes zest, lime zest, usually embody the and chinese natural world and its five many wonders—pi- ped buttercream but- It’s important to hold terflies dancing in on to the friendships we the summer breeze, have, the small moments swirls of mascarpone that bring us together. and cream anchoring Sometimes people move down forests of ro- away, some even lea- semary and lavender ve us forever. It is a sad sprigs, lazy lakes of thing to lose someone, jam dotted and maybe we can cherish even the smallest moments we have with dried rose petal boats and glistening gold leaf flecks. Some together, even if it is over a slice of cake. I think there is so- cakes become a mountain or a hillside, some an ornate palace mething about being in your 30s that makes the reality of time freckled with bee pollen. A single line of black seeds can feel so much more apparent. Some become a procession of ants marching under the hot sun. of us are getting married, starting families, settling down, looking rhubarb for jobs in other cities. There is patchwork for an upside little stillness in the quiet chaos down cake with of our daily lives and there is so- mething in me that hopes to savor and toasted meringue each morsel of a moment. Most recently, I dreamed of goat milk sponge with a swans bathed in light. Gathe- red together on the water, their drizzle of coffee icing, smooth white curves were ra- a dollop of whipped diant, haloed by thousands of cream,, sunlit refractions dancing on red currants, black the surface of the water. The raspberries, and image was burned in my mind, nasturtium leaves and the next day I found myself drawing swans with piped me- A cake carries significance. It can ringue, gently teasing feathery be the crown jewel (the cherry on peaks into their foamy egg whi- top) of a momentous occasion. te bodies. They soon surrounded But sometimes a single slice can a buttercream cake with a lemon say “hey we haven’t talked in a curd pond on top. Sometimes while, are you free on Friday?” dreams are meant to be shared. A single layer cake can be ca-

CHICAGO FOODCULTURA CLARION Chicago, July, 2021 R is a nonfiction writer, an amateur yet confident cook, and a very E is a Chicagoland-based parent, chef, and recovering artist. Eric is the good eater. She grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, lives in Chicago, Illinois, and has Editor in Chief: founder and director of Roots & Culture, a nonprofit visual arts center in Chicago’s a strong Midwestern accent. She writes about food, culture, and her perplexing Creative Director: A Noble Square neighborhood. childhood. Senior Editors: E E is a multidisciplinary artist who has lived and worked in Paris, New York, Managing Editor: R Miami, and Barcelona, his hometown, since the 1960s. His work has evolved All of the lettering in the Chicago FoodCultura Clarion Issue 3 has been hand- Graphic Designers: R T around food culture, obsessive objects, ceremonials, public art, and community painted by Chuck Willmarth of Southwest Signs. T events. In the year 2000, he created the Food Pavilion for the World Expo held in Hannover, Germany, and subsequently the FoodCultura Museum, in connection Support for The Chicago FoodCultura Clarion is provided through a Mellon IO with the Sabores y Lenguas/Tastes & Tongues and Power Food project. Collaborative Fellowship in Arts Practice and Scholarship at the Richard E worked at the University of Chicago carrying out basic research is a native Bavarian with a Huguenot (French Calvinist) name and and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago. in mammalian genetics. A South Side resident for over forty years, he took an a German accent that he can’t seem to shake, but likes to think of as close to what interest in the often-overlooked cuisine of the area. He has written and lectured the German-born founder of American Anthropology, Franz Boas, might have on topics such as soul food, barbecue, and bean pie, as well local oddities such sounded like. He is the Norman and Edna Freehling Professor of Anthropology at as the jim shoe, big baby, and mother in law. the University of Chicago, works on Afro-Cuban ritual traditions, is the author and editor of a bunch of books, and likes to think with food, preferably .