A Love Letter to the Chicago-Style Hot Dog

Why the Chicago-style hot dog, dusted with celery salt and dragged through the garden, is the best hot dog in America
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Chicago-style hot dogAlison Roman

I see you. Hot dog in your left hand. Bottle of mass-market ketchup in the other. Can of PBR gathering condensation on a concrete ledge, on which rests a mason-jar bouquet of peonies in bloom. The day is beautiful. And yet, as you invert that candy-red bottle and allow its sludgy contents to creep over an innocent charred sausage, it's obvious that you're woefully ill-equipped for hot dog consumption, your life is missing something, and—let's just get it out there—the world is a messed-up place. Because obviously: You've never had a Chicago-style hot dog.

There is more to a hot dog than the taste of nothing, seasoned with salt and corn syrup. There is an entire world of flavor out there, and that magical ecosystem is called the Chicago-style hot dog. It begins with the bun, sowed with poppy seeds and rendered—via gentle steaming—cuddly and puffy like that one pillow that just perfectly supports your neck while you sleep. With the addition of a crunchy dill-pickle spear, it gains heft, seriousness, a certain charming-yet-frustrating ungainliness. With neon-green relish, it threatens to go too far. But a generous drizzle of yellow mustard and a tidy sprinkling of finely chopped onion brings it back to earth. It goes completely rogue and senseless with a few wedges of tomato. With a dusting of celery salt, it brings deeper meaning to the word genius. It peaks with the agony of the sport pepper, spewing its pickle-y liquid everywhere and igniting your mouth with a bracing tidal wave of holy-god-that-is-spicy. And it's nothing at all without the all-beef hot dog at its core, a lace-thin exterior brought to crispness via a quick dip in boiling water, encasing a tube of fine-grained, juicy meat. Damn. This is food, not baby snacks. This is real adult life, not a fourth-grader's soccer-themed birthday party. This is Beethoven the composer, not Beethoven the dog.

Pause. Step away from the ketchup. Take a long, slow drink of that PBR. Summer'll be gone before you know it. Eat a Chicago-style hot dog.

The 9 Steps to Chicago-Style Hot Dog Heaven

1. Hot Dog
The holy grail of Chicago-style hot dogs in the Vienna Beef Natural Casing dog. Veneration of this particular frankfurter runs so deep that there is an even a map charting where in Chicago one can procure a dog of this fashion. I definitely worshiped at the altar of the Vienna Beef Natural Casing for a period, but after eating many, many, many hot dogs, I ultimately decided that the "snap" of a dog is determined more by how it's prepared than by its ingredients. Nurture over nature, if you will. How to properly cook a hot dog is a whole 'nother can of nitrates. Traditionally, Chicago-style dogs are boiled, not grilled. (That would be a char dog.) Grilling the sausage would definitely provide another layer of flavor and ensure a crisp/charred exterior, but...have you read the above? Does this thing need more flavor? Plus, the beauty of Chicago-style is that the crunch comes from the accoutrements—not the sausage itself. (This might be a nice compromise.)

2. Bun
What Martin's potato rolls are to East Coasters, S. Rosen poppy-seed buns are to Chicagoans. The pro move here is that you don't toast the bun; you steam it. This allows the contents of the hot dog to kind of meld together into a beautiful cauldron of bliss. (Just don't over-steam it, or it will become gummy.)

3. Mustard
Yellow mustard. Nothing fancy. No Dijon. No whole-grain. There's too much other spice here; it will offset the balance. In my fridge right now, I have Plochman's.

4. Onion
Dice a white onion finely enough that it's sprinkle-able (but not to the point of minced, wherein it would lose some of its textural crunch), and use restraint when topping the dog.

5. Relish
The more unnatural and alien-looking, the better. Vienna Beef makes a version.

6. Tomato
Cut into thin wedges to try to ameliorate the awkwardness. If you are doing this during the time of year when tomatoes taste like water, apply the Superdawg rule: Substitute pickled green tomatoes.

7. Pickle
Traditionally, a classic dill pickle is called for, but mostly it's got to be snappy: That's really all that matters.

8. Sport Peppers
Two or three on the dog will suffice; leave them whole. Vienna Beef makes a version of these, too.

9. Celery Salt
Not just for Bloody Marys, this salt-and-ground-celery-seed powder adds a certain...je ne sais quoi.

As far as I know, there are no hard-and-fast rules as to how a Chicago-style hot dog is assembled. (Feel free to weigh in in the comments if you know otherwise.) Use logic: You want the mustard, relish, and onion to come into close contact with the dog, so add those first. Then nestle in the pickle spear on one side and the tomato wedges on the other. "Garnish" with sport peppers and hit the whole thing with a few dashes of celery salt. That's what we refer to as "dragged through the garden," and none dare call this salad.