In so many diverse ways, Chicago is America’s heart. The nation’s waterways, railroads, highways, and air corridors converge on the city by the lake. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, Chicago has played a key role in food distribution throughout the nation. Its notorious stockyards and its massive grain storage towers moved the heartland’s bounty to the coasts and around the world. Immigrants brought their foodways, making the city a melting pot for every world cuisine. Block and Rosing document economic and cultural forces that have made the city a top destination for everyday eaters and earnest gourmets. They inventory unique creations beyond Chicago pizza and other native dishes, illustrating how the city’s cooks have influenced all of America, redefining Italian, Greek, and Mexican cuisine as well as manufacturing grain products, candy, and even popcorn. Through its stellar chefs, Chicago has lately revolutionized restaurant dining. Casual readers and scholars will both find something to savor here.

Booklist

You don't need anybody to tell you Chicago is a food city or to extol the virtues of chicken Vesuvio, deep dish pizza, a jibarito, South Side rid tips or a Vienna Beef hot dog (on a poppy seed bun, of course). Perhaps less well known is how Chicago's cuisine developed, or how the city became the first modern industrial food center, both of which are explored in Chicago: A Food Biography by Daniel R. Block and Howard Rosing.

Chicago Tribune

This book is a well-documented text written by two professors, Daniel Block (Chicago State University) and Howard Rosing (DePaul University), not a gossipy tell-all tale packed with juicy tidbits and anecdotes. In short, the book is both interesting and well worth reading.

ChicagoNow

Everyone is likely to learn something about Chicago food from this book, which has clear documentation and an impressive bibliography.... Given the wide scale of the historical and geographical approach in this volume, a reader who is looking for an overview of aspects of food in Chicago may find it useful to start here.

Digest: A Journal of Foodways & Culture

On Chicago’s South Side, hot dog stands sell ‘mother-in-law’ sandwiches, an American tamale in a hot dog bun with all the fixings. In other neighborhoods, Mexican green and red tamales are sold on street corners and in late night bars, still warm and accompanied by salsa. In the early 1900s, Chicago tamales were quite different from those contemporary American or Mexican versions, made with cornmeal rather than masa and sold by African American men who brought the ‘Delta’ tamale north from its southern origins. Historical details such as these make Daniel R. Block and Howard B. Rosing’s Chicago: A Food Biography shine.... More than a culinary history tour ... the volume offers a fascinating view of the city’s food traditions via community engagement, as both authors are active in neighborhood development and experiential learning.... Certainly a must-read for any Chicagoland resident interested in local food systems, the volume is important on a broader scale, as a way of seeing historical research bolstered by social engagement. Chicagoans will be delighted to learn or be reminded of important details: That their city was once the Candy Capital of the World, the ‘jibarito’ Puerto Rican sandwich originated in Chicago and enormous Asian groceries exist just beyond city limits. But academics and community workers will benefit from seeing historical understandings inform present-day social and political conflicts that play out across the food system. Academics might utilize the volume in courses on community food systems or as an example of an urban historical narrative, as it lends itself to topical selections of chapters for course readings. Such a well-researched book creates opportunities for future urban histories that take up social engagement. We hope that Block and Rosing continue such work and that other authors follow.

Agriculture and Human Values

A fascinating food history of Chicago, revealing the reasons, many unexpected, why this city’s cuisine is so diverse and rich. An essential read for anyone interested in food and culinary history.

Jennifer McLagan, the author of award winning Bitter:A Taste of the World's Most Dangerous Flavor, with Recipes