Symposium will help you learn about the link
From the hot dog to the highbrow, food customs and traditions will be celebrated in various forums this month.
On Saturday, the new Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance will bite into the curious and delicious story of sausage at its inaugural public event: "Stuffed: A Journey of Midwestern Sausage Traditions."
The symposium, jointly sponsored by Vienna Beef Company and Oxford University Press, will bring together sausage producers, scholars and aficionados to ruminate on cased meats' role in building cultural identities, commerce and cuisines.
Anyone interested in learning more about smoked hot dogs, corn dogs, Coney dogs and the best of the wursts is invited to attend. A hot dog lunch will be provided for all attendees. In addition, guests will learn the innards and outs of sausage traditions from across the Midwest.
The event costs $35 and runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Kendall College, 900 North Branch, Chicago. Register at www.greatermidwestfoodways.com or contact Barbara Olson at (708) 788-0338.
Later this month, Chicago gourmands will celebrate the harvest as part of the James Beard Foundation's Taste America initiative.
A half-dozen of Chicago's top chefs will produce dinner Sept. 28 at The Signature Room at the 95th, located in the John Hancock Center. The five-course meal costs $120 per person and includes wine. Cocktails start at 6 p.m.; dinner at 7 p.m. For reservations, call Robyn Richardson at (312) 280-0472.
Then, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 29, Williams-Somona at Oakbrook Center will host a day of culinary activities for the whole family.
Acclaimed chef and author Charlie Trotter will step out of the kitchen to sign copies of his new book, "Spa Cuisine," and May Street Market chef Alexander Cheswick will do a cooking demonstration (with samples). In addition, there will be children's activities and artisanal vendors and bakers celebrating local fare. For details, contact the store at (630) 571-2702.
Taking it to the street: You don't have to be sitting in a fancy Loop restaurant to enjoy Chicago cuisine. And no one knows that better than chef Mike Baruch.
Baruch, a sixth-generation Pole raised on the Northwest side, honors the fare that keeps the city ticking in his book "Street Food Chicago" ($25.95).
Lemon babka, pierogies, stromboli, hummus, kebabs, fried shrimp and meatball sandwiches from neighborhood bakeries, restaurants, church kitchens, friends and family are re-created in the book. Among the hundreds of recipes you'll find Maxwell Street pork chop sandwich, cannoli from Elmwood Park and grilled leg of lamb from Greektown.
Baruch self-published the book (he also released "The New Polish Cuisine" in 2002), so you might not find it at all the big bookstores. You can, however, order it through Amazon.com.
Instruction manual: Ellen Steinberg never knew Irma Rosenthal, at least not personally. But Irma's life and her recipes lovingly flow from the pages of Steinberg's book "Learning to Cook in Chicago in 1989: A Chicago Culinary Memoir" (Wayne State University Press, $19.95)
Steinberg happened across a box in a used bookstore that contained a small notebook of recipes and other effects that she traced to Irma, an American-born, middle-class Chicago bride of Jewish heritage at the turn of the last century. Among the items were recipes the young woman collected in 1898 and 1899 prior to getting married.
Steinberg constructed her book around the more than 80 recipes -- some from family and friends, others clipped from newspapers and magazines -- that made up Irma's "First Cook Book."
There's a lot of conjecture in the book; after all, Irma died in 1966, but through family interviews and research about the era in which Irma lived, Steinberg weaves a warm story. The recipes, many of them just hinting at ingredients and amounts, were re-created by Eleanor Hudera Hanson, former director at Kraft Kitchens.
Berghoff's best: As Octoberfest season gets under way, head to 17 West at The Berghoff and learn recipes that pay tribute to a landmark Chicago restaurant.
At 6:30 p.m. Sept. 20, chef Carlyn Berghoff will demonstrate recipes from her book "The Berghoff Family Cookbook: From Our Table to Yours, Celebrating a Century of Entertaining." The Berghoff restaurant closed in 2005, later reopening as 17 West .
The class, sponsored by Cooking With the Best Chefs, costs $35 ($25 for Best Chef members) and will be held at the restaurant, 17 W. Adams St., Chicago. Limited seats are still available. Register at (630) 980-6800 or www.bestchefs.com.
-- Deborah Pankey