Boston vs. Chicago: the tailgate showdown

Boston

New England Clam Chowder

Soups

New England clam chowder is the milk-and-potato pot coastal towns cooked when clams were the everyday catch. Bacon or salt pork, potatoes, and cream, held below a boil so the clams stay tender. Oyster crackers on the side.

Chicago

Chicago-style chili

Soups

Chicago never settled on one chili. Taverns and diners ladle a milder tomato beef-and-bean pot, closer to a stew than Texas chile con carne and nothing like Cincinnati’s cinnamon sauce over spaghetti. This is that diner bowl.

Boston

Lobster roll

Mains

On the New England coast the roll is a split-top bun, warmed in butter, filled with chilled lobster, a little mayonnaise, lemon, and celery. The bun is the frame. The meat is the point.

Chicago

Italian beef

Mains

Chicago’s Italian-American beef is thin slices of chuck soaked in the jus it braised in, piled on a soft Italian roll. Hot giardiniera or sweet peppers go on top. The juice is the sandwich, not a side dish.

Boston

Boston baked beans

Sides

A Saturday-night Boston supper was beans, brown bread, and salt pork, sweetened with molasses. A beanpot in a slow oven turns navy beans glossy. These are the supper beans, not the candy.

Chicago

Chicago-style hot dog

Mains

An all-beef dog in a steamed poppy-seed bun, dressed in a set order: yellow mustard, sweet relish, onion, tomato, a pickle spear, sport peppers, and celery salt. Ketchup stays off.

Boston

Fenway-style sausage with peppers and onions

Mains

Sausage carts around Fenway grill Italian sausage with peppers and onions and tuck the pile into a roll. Fennel in the sausage, peppers cooked until they soften. It is a different sausage from a bratwurst.

Chicago

Maxwell Street Polish

Mains

The old Maxwell Street market sold a grilled Polish sausage under a pile of onions and a stripe of yellow mustard. Chicago’s Polish markets still sell the kielbasa. This is the grilled sandwich, not the boiled cabbage dinner.

Boston

Boston cream pie bars

Dessert

The Parker House hotel was serving this pie-shaped cake in the nineteenth century: sponge, pastry cream, and a chocolate glaze. Cut into bars, the same cake travels in a tin.

Chicago

Cast-iron deep-dish pizza

Mains

Chicago pan pizza puts the cheese under a thick layer of chunky tomato, sausage if you want it, in a high olive-oil crust. A cast-iron skillet is the tailgate pan: one skillet, the same order.

Boston

North Shore roast beef three-way

Mains

On the North Shore, a roast-beef sandwich on an onion roll is ordered three-way: mayonnaise, a thin sweet barbecue sauce, and American cheese, with the beef still rare. The sauce is a house condiment you mix in a few minutes.

Chicago

Chicago tavern-style pizza

Mains

South Side taverns roll a cracker-thin crust, run the cheese to the edge, and cut the pie into squares. It is the opposite of deep dish: no high pan wall, no tomato lid, built to share off a sheet.