Italian Beef - A Socio-Culinary History, November 15 @ 7 PM

Chicago Foodways Roundtable

From ‘Peanut Weddings’ to ‘Beef Stands’:
The Socio-Culinary History of Chicago’s ‘Italian Beef’


Italian beef sandwich from Al’s Beef in Chicago, a picture courtesy of Dominic Armato

Presented by Anthony F. Buccini, PhD


Italian Americans have contributed a considerable number of portable fast foods to regional and local cuisines around the United States, some of which have become extremely popular at the national level. One such food which, despite its frequent discussion in recent food-related media, has remained very much a local dish is Chicago’s ‘Italian beef’. As a sandwich filled with thin slices of roasted beef, this product at first blush looks to be an Italian-American take on the mainstream Anglo-American roast beef sandwich, and popular food writers have accordingly sought its origins in terms of some single ‘inventor’ whose culinary and entrepreneurial stroke of genius came to be imitated by other small entrepreneurs and thus the dish gradually became established throughout the city and ultimately its suburbs. The idea of seeking an individual responsible for the invention of a given dish is common but often misguided, and in the case of Italian beef it is especially so. My own analysis of the issue of the origins of Chicago’s ‘beef sandwich’, based in part on my knowledge of Italian and Italian-American cookery and in part on decades of interactions with older lifelong residents of the Taylor Street neighbourhood, where Italian beef first arose as a fast food, indicates, however, that today’s messy sandwich is a commercial reflection of a festive dish which itself derives directly from a traditional method of preparing meat; in essence, this dish was brought to America by immigrants from southern Italy and more specifically from Naples and its surrounding area. Of particular interest here are the socio-culinary and economic aspects of this bit of Italian-American food history.

Anthony F. Buccini studied at Columbia University (B.A.) and Cornell University (Ph.D. 1992, Germanic Linguistics); he also studied and later conducted research as a Fulbright Scholar at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He taught for many years in various capacities at the University of Chicago (Germanic Languages and Literatures, Linguistics, the College); his current research focusses on Mediterranean and Atlantic World foodways. Buccini is a two-time winner of the Sophie Coe Prize in Food History (2005, 2018). https://anthonybuccini.com

Tuesday, November 15, 2022
7 p.m. Central Time
Via ZOOM

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A gentle reminder this program is tomorrow evening.

Anthony Buccini once was an avid participant on LTH with the screen name Antonius.

This presentation was made earlier this summer at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Drink. The theme this year was portable food.

Regards,
CAthy2

Will it occur today?
Or will it be postponed again because the presenter dropped and broke his iPhone, which is how he was intending to present this Zoom conference?
And can we get LTHF member eating while walking in on this; because he really really, really really should be participating in it?
{People - if you really want to host Zoom conferences, please, please have a desktop computer.}

pudgym29 wrote:Will it occur today?
Or will it be postponed again because the presenter dropped and broke his iPhone, which is how he was intending to present this Zoom conference?
And can we get LTHF member eating while walking in on this; because he really really, really really should be participating in it?
{People - if you really want to host Zoom conferences, please, please have a desktop computer.}

It was up to EatingWhileWalking to apply.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0E0CxX0_ik



Podcast on From ‘Peanut Weddings’ to ‘Beef Stands’: The Socio-Culinary History of Chicago’s ‘Italian Beef’

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From 2008 until mid-2013, Culinary Historians programs were recorded by WBEZ via Chicago Amplified. Since then, we have recorded our programs hosted on soundcloud.

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These run the length of an introduction plus presentation with questions, but no food samples for anyone until we meet in person once more.

Did North Shore food experts just create the world’s best Italian beef? See for yourself on Saturday.
Food podcaster and artisan butcher shop join forces for ‘The Bear’-inspired collab

Kevin Pang's podcast on Italian Beef via America's Test Kitchen.

I am listening for the first time. It appears there are commercials.

And Tony Buccini is included!