Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee: which city has the best encased meat?

Breanna Tinsley (0:00)

This is CuriosiD, where listeners ask the questions and WDET answers them.

For this CuriosiD, we're partnering with WBEZ and WUWM to explore our Midwest connections in the limited series Curious Midwest. On this episode, listener Jen Greenwood tells us about her love for hot dogs.

Emily Files (0:21)

I joke that I'm half hot dog.

Breanna Tinsley (0:23)

Jen grew up just north of Chicago, spent summers in Michigan, and went to school in Milwaukee. Her time in all three places got her wondering.

Emily Files (0:32)

But why are these hyper-specific encased meats associated so strongly with those three cities?

Breanna Tinsley (0:38)

I think it's kind of fun. In Chicago, it's the Chicago dog, in Milwaukee, the brat, and in Detroit, the Coney dog. Each one is different, but their origin stories are connected. Historian Bruce Craig says Germans brought their sausage culture with them when they immigrated to America in the 19th century.

And from there, each city took the sausage and made it their own. How different are they? And what's the best way to eat these encased meats? To find out, we make a stop in each city.

Emily Files (1:08)

I'm Emily Files in Milwaukee. To see just how much Wisconsinites love a brat, look no further than a parking lot outside of a ball game. There are brats on grills across the stadium parking lot, slowly turning from pink to brown and nicely charred.

LA. Jong is a big fan. How often during a Wisconsin summer are you eating a brat?

Erin Allen (1:32)

Almost every weekend.

SPEAKER_4 (1:34)

That's like no lie.

Erin Allen (1:36)

Almost every weekend. I mean, even in the wintertime, we're cooking it on the grill too.

Breanna Tinsley (1:40)

Yeah, so brat is like a staple thing of Wisconsin.

Emily Files (1:43)

Just like beer, brats came to Wisconsin with that massive number of German immigrants and were popularized by people like Frederick Usinger, who arrived in the late 1870s.

SPEAKER_5 (1:54)

He learned to become a sausage maker, and at 18 years old, he immigrated to the United States.

Emily Files (2:01)

This is his great-grandson, Fritz. He's the fourth generation to run Usinger's Famous Sausage, one of Milwaukee's oldest brat makers. He says brats can have different combinations of coarsely ground meat, pork, beef, veal, in a natural casing. It's blended with spices, usually pepper, sage, nutmeg, and coriander. The best way to cook a brat is on the grill.

Lots of Wisconsinites parboil it in beer first, but Fritz says that corrupts the flavor. As for what toppings, that also depends on the person, but one thing brat lovers agree on, the sausage is the star.

Not sure if you can say the same for the Chicago dog.

Erin Allen (2:50)

I'm Erin Allen in Chicago. Food journalist Steve Dylinski is ordering a dog at the Wiener Circle, and those seven holy condiments make up Chicago's famed garden on a bun.

Steve Dylinski (3:02)

Yellow mustard, neon green relish, chopped white onion, a couple sizes of tomato, pickled spear or peppers, and a dash of celery salt.

Erin Allen (3:11)

Yes, for the Chicago dog, it's more of an ensemble than just one main character, but the meat shines too.

Steve Dylinski (3:18)

It's got to be pure beef with garlic and spices, lightly smoked. It's typically sheep casing, and you need that casing because it gives you that snap. When you bite into a hot dog, I think you need to have the snap.

Erin Allen (3:31)

Historian Bruce Craig says Jewish immigrants entered the Chicago hot dog business in the 1880s and 90s, but they didn't eat the German pork sausages.

SPEAKER_4 (3:42)

The all-beef hot dog is when Jews took up hot dog stands around Maxwell Street and Roosevelt Road, the epicenter of hot dogery.

Erin Allen (3:49)

Up until the 1920s, a lot of those dogs just came with onions and mustard, and they were called depression dogs. But as more immigrants came to the city, the list of ingredients got longer and longer.

SPEAKER_4 (4:01)

The Garden Unabun really appears after World War II, when it becomes popularized as a big food that post-war Americans wanted, because after the depression, the Great War, people wanted to eat, and they ate a lot and got big.

Erin Allen (4:17)

So Milwaukee says condiments are not the star, and Chicago added all of them. In Detroit, they topped their dog with three messy, messy ingredients.

Breanna Tinsley (4:29)

I'm Breanna Tinsley in Detroit. Chili, mustard, onions. That's the makings of a Coney dog.

Joe Grimm (4:35)

So when you walk into a Coney, they've got a bun already steamed, but it's not wet.

They've got the dogs already cooked. They've got the sauce.