In Hot Dog, culinary historian Bruce Kraig posits that the classic Chicago-style dog is a reflection of the city’s early-20th-century demographics, incorporating the tomatoes of Mediterranean Italians and Greeks as well as the mustard and pickles of German and Jewish immigrants. And Bob Schwartz, in Never Put Ketchup on a Hot Dog, suggests that the Louisiana sport peppers and celery salt are the contributions of African-Americans who came north during the Great Migration.
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For eight years, Guerrero-born Blanca Diaz sold Mexican hot dogs from her cart at 26th and Saint Louis, attracting a devoted neighborhood following. Peter Engler, Anthony Bourdain’s go-to guy for street-level intel on the Chicago edition of No Reservations, has pronounced them “shockingly tasty.” Diaz put in 12-hour days, whatever the weather. “It was very sad,” she says, “very hard work.”
In the meantime, on Saturday, September 12, Diaz’s fully licensed Delicias Mexicanas opened in Little Village, with the Mexican hot dog at the top of its menu, where it’s called simply “Hot dog con tocino,” or “hot dog with bacon.” The dog is wrapped in the cured meat and they’re griddled together, allowing the juiciness of the bacon to saturate the sausage. Toppings vary regionally, but at Delicias Mexicanas, the con todo gets grilled onion, both grilled and pickled jalapeños, tomatoes, mayo, mustard, and . . . ketchup. That’s right—ketchup. The one condiment that’s anathema to defenders of the traditional Chicago-style hot dog is standard on this street sausage. And it works beautifully, playing off the crunchy sweetness of the onions, complementing the sourness of the mustard, providing relief from the heat of the jalapeños.
