Chicago Day 4 – Maxwell Street Polish

Jim’s Original

Sometimes I find blind spots in my knowledge.  That is a kind way to say I can be a little stupid.  I used to think that when I saw a pile of cigarettes in a parking lot that someone had actually sat in their car and smoked that many cigarettes.  It took years before I figured out that someone had just dumped their ashtray.

I have found another “blind spot” in regards to hot dog stands.  For some reason I thought that a “stand” was one of those carts on wheels that sold hotdogs.  I now realize that the “stand” part of hot dog stand is acknowledging the fact that there is no place to sit at a hot dog stand and, therefore, it is a “stand”.  The other one is a cart.

Maxwell Street is the birthplace of the Chicago Blues and the famous Maxwell Street Market.  It also home to the Maxwell Street Polish.

 The sandwich is credited to Jimmy Stafanovic, a Macedonian immigrant who purchased a hot dog stand from his aunt in 1938.  This delicacy consists of a fried Polish sausage topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and optional sport peppers.

 There is a constant stream of people, many parking illegally, some eating at the stand and others running off to their cars.  I order a Polish with everything (I guess sport peppers are not part of everything), and I get a Polish sausage on a bun smeared with mustard and topped with grilled onions.  A massive amount of grilled onions.  Fries are “free” with every sandwich.

This Polish sausage may not be what you are used to.  The end is cut off to avoid exploding while frying, it has a firm casing and, most noticeably, it is firmer and much more heavily spiced than what I am used to in Minnesota.  It’s not that we don’t have heavily spiced Polish sausages in the Twin Cities – the Polish had a large impact on establishing NE Mpls.  It’s just that what you find is usually mild or so obnoxiously spiced as if to be a caricature of itself.  This sausage is a spicy blend with a balance that just works.  I am now regretting that I didn’t load up at the Vienna Sausage factory store while I was in town!