Chow Down Chicago: Good Eats from the Windy City

The Chicago area is located on the ancestral lands of indigenous tribes such as the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, Fox, Kickapoo, and Illinois Nations. The name  Chicago  comes from  shikaakwa,  a word for “wild onion” used by the Miami and Illinois peoples. Indigenous people in the Chicago region faced many hardships after Europeans arrived in the area. By the early 1800s, the number of Native Americans in the region was severely diminished due to disease and warfare brought by the Europeans. A series of treaties forced the tribes to cede their land to the American government. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 proposed the relocation of indigenous tribes west of the Mississippi River, and several more relocation efforts would happen in the following years. Through the late 1800s to the early 1900s, Indian children were taken from their homes and sent to boarding schools with the mission to assimilate them into white society.  During th...

  Giardiniera is a vital piece of Chicago culinary history. Giardiniera means “female gardener” or “mixed pickles” in Italian, and it refers to a mixture of vegetables marinated in oil, vinegar, or both.  According to the Chicago Tribune , giardiniera originated in Italy as a way to preserve vegetables during the winter months. The Italian version of giardiniera usually consists of onion, celery, zucchini, carrots, and cauliflower pickled in vinegar. It is not spicy and is eaten as an antipasto or with salads.  Giardiniera came to Chicago along with the wave of Italian immigrants in the late 1800s. Chicagoans put their own spin on the condiment by adding spicy peppers to the vegetable mix and marinating it in oil. Chicago-style giardiniera is usually made with serrano, or sport, peppers and some combination of celery, bell peppers, olives, pimentos, carrots, and cauliflower marinated in vegetable, soybean, or olive oil. Some recipes also use crushed red pepper flakes....