Kevin David Creative

Gene & Jude’s. The Superdawg Drive-In. Your grandma’s house after running through the sprinkler on a sweltering summer afternoon. No matter if you like them boiled, steamed or grilled, there is no match for the working-class hero of hungry toddlers, ravenous ballpark patrons and occasionally awkward family graduation parties alike, the humble hot dog.

According to an article posted by Mental Floss, Americans will eat a 7 billion hot dogs between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Frankly speaking, that’s a lot of wieners! Popular among competitive eaters, the record for most hot dogs eaten in 10 minutes is 75 by consummate consumer Joey Chestnut at the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4, 2020.

But the dogs that Chestnut wolfs down are just a canvas for what would become a starry nitrate masterpiece that leaves no tip of the tongue unturned. Traditionally, a Chicago-style hot dog is a steamed kosher-style all-beef, natural-casing hot dog on a steamed poppy seed bun, topped with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, neon green relish, hot sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt. A meal fit for everyone from girls to goats.

Even New York’s own beloved chef and unparalleled gastronomic globetrotter Anthony Bourdain once called the Chicago dog “the finest hot dog on the planet. There, I said it, and I meant it.”

But then there’s the condiment police pulling you over for breaking the unwritten rule that ketchup doesn’t belong on a hot dog, lest you lose your Northside citizenship if you dare add one more element to a separated meat tube. As Clint Eastwood once said in the 1983 Dirty Harry movie Sudden Impact, “You know what really bothers me? It’s watching you stuff your face with those hot dogs. Nobody, I mean nobody puts ketchup on a hot dog!”

Okay, Clint. But what do our leading experts in education have to say on this controversial topping topic? According to Professor Emeritus in History at Roosevelt University in Chicago and the author of Man Bites Dog: Hot Dog Culture in America and Hot Dog, “A Chicagoan wouldn’t put ketchup on a hot dog, and the reason is it destroys the balance of it in terms of flavor and texture,” said Kraig. “It’s a specialized thing with balance, and ketchup would kill it.”

As someone who has eaten the equivalent of a several Amazon fulfillment center’s worth of hot dogs that have been “dragged through the garden,” a supposedly common local turn of phrase that I’ve never heard anyone actually say, go ahead and add ketchup if you’d like. I don’t personally, but I do mix soy sauce and wasabi together when eating sushi and purposely melt ice cream in the microwave (so glad to get that off my chest). We all break culinary rules to taste. Chicago’s still standing tall, broad shoulders confidently pointing toward Portillo’s where Jim Belushi’s autographed 8 x 10 wry smile will shine forever, with or without ketchup.

(It’s not a sandwich either. Grow up).