My First Time
Janet Kuypers
06/07/11
there are some towns known for their food...
New Orleans has it’s Po-Boy
Philadelphia has it’s Philly Cheese Steak
and if you’re in New York
and want to carry food out on a street
you better get a pizza slice
fold it in half
and eat it with one hand
And if you’re in Chicago
(and you can’t eat a deep-dish pizza
with one hand in the street)
you better get a Chicago-style Hot Dog
with yellow mustard, relish (the bright green kind),
hot peppers, tomatoes, onions, celery salt
and a pickle on top
I lived in Chicago all my life
frequented the tops of sky scrapers
visited legendary blues bars
but even when I was a meat eater
I never had a Chicago Hot Dog
just ketchup, please
I’ll take the pickle on the side
and I don’t even like hot peppers
but as we left the Planetarium today
I passed a Chicago-style hot dog vendor cart
and they listed Vegetarian Hot Dogs
as a choice for the Chicago Hot Dog
I passed it,
then I stopped.
walked back
and asked for a Vegetarian Hot Dog
with everything except the hot peppers
(and no,
ketchup is not included
when you say “everything”)
and when I got my paper-wrapped
Vegetarian Chicago Hot Dog
I was tempted to pull the pickle away
and they had to remind me
no,
that’s a part of the Chicago Hot Dog
so I put it all together
took a bite
then I took another
and another
and I thought,
I’ve been missing out
on this fantastic Chicago tradition
all my life
I heard the Chicago Hot Dogs
started during the Depression
because it was something cheap
you could sell it on the streets
and it was a full meal:
meat, bread, vegetables
all at a reasonable price
and I thought,
we Chicagoans had it all figured out
with a gooey, deep dish pizza
when you had the time to sit down
as well as a way
to make any hot dog taste awesome
when you wanted a treat on the street
Copyright © 2011 Janet Kuypers.
All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.
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