Chow Down Chicago: Good Eats from the Windy City

Gingerbread has been around for a very long time, and this ancient treat has been thought to be medicinal, lucky, romantic, magical, and even evil. Here are some highlights from the long and sometimes strange history of gingerbread. According to some food historians, the first recipe for gingerbread dates to 2400 BC Greece. Some believe gingerbread was introduced to Western Europe in 992 AD, when the Armenian monk Gregory of Nicopolis moved to France from Greece and taught Christian bakers how to make it. Gingerbread became a popular treat at festivals in medieval Europe. Gingerbread fairs were held in France and England, where gingerbread was bought and exchanged as a love token. People also ate gingerbread to spark some desired outcome in their lives. Heart-shaped gingerbread cookies were eaten by those searching for love or wanting to ward off evil. Rabbit-shaped gingerbread cookies were believed to increase fertility. Some ladies would give their favorite knights a piece of gingerb...

Chances are that canned pumpkin you got to make your pumpkin pie came from Illinois. Morton, Illinois, a village of about 17,000 people located about halfway between Peoria and Bloomington-Normal and about a 3-hour drive from Chicago, is the “Pumpkin Capital of the World,” so named because 85% of the world’s canned pumpkin is packed in Morton’s Nestle/Libby’s canning plant.  According to Libby’s, the Morton area is perfect for growing pumpkins. Must be that rich Illinois soil. The Libby’s canning plant has been located in Morton for over 100 years.  To celebrate its status as the World’s Pumpkin Capital, Morton holds a Pumpkin Festival every year. The 59 th Annual Pumpkin Festival is scheduled for September 10-13, 2025. This year’s festival was held September 11-14 and featured such activities as a pumpkin pie eating contest, pumpkin decorating contest, pumpkin princess pageant, pumpkin recipe challenge, and pumpkin weigh off. In addition to the standard pumpkin pie, food ava...

If you go to almost any hot dog stand in the Chicago area, chances are you will find the pizza puff listed among the sides. The pizza puff consists of a deep-fried flour tortilla filled with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and usually some type of meat and seasonings. The story of the pizza puff is one of multiculturalism and creativity, two things for which Chicago is well known. The pizza puff was invented in 1976 by Warren Shabaz of the Iltaco Foods company, a supplier of tamales to Chicago hot dog stands. (Iltaco is a shortened version of “Illinois Tamale Company.”) The company was founded by Warren’s grandfather, Elisha Shabaz, an Assyrian immigrant who fled Iran around the turn of the twentieth century. Warren had been getting inquiries from hot dog stand owners about some sort of pizza product that would help them compete with the many pizzerias that were popping up all over the Chicago area. To meet this need, Warren decided to create something similar to a calzone that could ...

Halloween is one of the biggest commercial holidays in the U.S., second only to Christmas. Every year, billions of dollars are spent on Halloween candy, decorations, and costumes. This made me wonder what the origins of the holiday are, and as I did research I found an excellent recipe along the way. Halloween’s roots can be traced back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which was observed on October 31. Samhain (pronounced “sah-win”) marked the end of harvest season and the beginning of winter. It was also a time to honor ancestors who have passed on. It was believed that the veil between the world of the living and the spirit world was almost nonexistent at this time. Samhain was celebrated with bonfires and feasting. Revelers would cook food in honor of the dead and leave food outside their homes as offerings for the spirits. People would wear costumes to ward off ghosts under the logic that if you looked like a ghost, they wouldn’t bother you. Celebrators were also known t...

Fall means apples, and in Chicago, apples bring to mind apple slices. Apple slices consist of apple filling between two layers of dough topped with sugary icing that is cut into squares and sold by the slice or pan. I didn’t realize apple slices were a Chicago thing until recently when Curious City, my favorite podcast about all things Chicago, did an episode on them. A listener contacted the podcast asking if apple slices are a local dessert and the experts’ answer was a resounding yes. However, you might not see them around as much now as you would have in the past. According to WBEZ, many European groups have some type of apple dessert, but apple slices are purely American Midwestern. The exact origins of apple slices are hard to pin down, but the earliest known recipe for them appeared in a 1945 issue of the  Chicago Daily Tribune . A 1957 article in the same newspaper stated that apple slices were Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley’s favorite dish. The heyday of the pastry’s popul...