Chicago-Style Hot Dog

The Chicago-style hot dog is an all-beef frankfurter in a steamed poppy-seed bun under a fixed set of seven toppings: yellow mustard, bright green sweet pickle relish, chopped white onion, two tomato wedges, a dill pickle spear, two or three sport peppers and a shake of celery salt. The order and the list are not negotiable in Chicago, where the dog is said to be "dragged through the garden", and ketchup is left off by rule; most stands will not put it on an adult's order. The form settled during the Depression, when Vienna Beef, the city's dominant sausage maker since the 1893 World's Fair, supplied carts that sold a loaded dog for a nickel, and the toppings were a way of making a cheap sausage into a meal. It is sold from stands with names like Superdawg, Gene & Jude's and The Wieners Circle, often alongside a Polish sausage and fresh-cut fries, and it is eaten standing up.