What to eat Chicago? culinary specialties and gastronomy

In general, it's worth remembering that Americans eat earlier on average than the French, especially in the evenings when dinner is served between 6 and 7 pm. So it can sometimes be confusing to walk into a restaurant where everyone is finishing their dessert at 8pm. But in the big cities, opening hours are more extensive, whether for dinner, lunch or brunch.

In the USA, the brunch concept emerged in Chicago in the 1930s, mainly because the city was a stopover for Hollywood showbiz stars on their way from Los Angeles to New York. Chicago therefore offered this wealthy class the opportunity to stop off for a late breakfast, usually in the palaces, as in those days restaurants were often closed on Sundays for mass. Specialties worthy of a true brunch included eggs Benedict: buttered toast covered with poached eggs, bacon and hollandaise sauce. Eggs in general are a central element of brunch: scrambled, fried, boiled, poached or in omelette form, they are often accompanied by bacon or grilled sausages. There are also various potato-based preparations, such as hash browns, which resemble small fried potato pancakes. However, brunch can include an infinite variety of sweet and savoury dishes. These include viennoiseries, quiches, crudités, smoked salmon and cheeses. On the sweet side, you'll often find specialties similar to a typical American breakfast: pancakes, waffles, French toast, muffins and more.

And of course, to keep hydrated after such a feast, tea, chocolate or coffee are abundantly consumed. As brunch is a later meal than the traditional breakfast, it's also a good time to serve alcoholic beverages. Among the three most emblematic cocktails are the Mimosa, made with champagne and orange juice, and its Italian cousin, the Bellini, made with peach coulis and prosecco. Finally, the Bloody Mary is a blend of vodka, tomato juice, pepper and Tabasco, with a stalk of celery for garnish.

For meat lovers, definitely try one of Chicago's steakhouses. The city is famous for its meat, which it inherited from the slaughterhouses (which closed in 1971). Steakhouses are a tradition throughout the United States, and Chicago is home to the best in the Midwest. At Morton's, the prices are high, but the meat is delicious. The best cuts are those that cooks air-age for several days before cooking them in a marinade. While BBQ ribs tend to originate in the southern Great Plains, such as Kansas or Kentucky, they are still very popular in the Great Lakes region, along with other meat-lovers' dishes such as sirloin steak, beef ribeye or T-bone, usually served with fries or a generous baked potato, a large pickle and coleslaw, a creamy salad of shredded white cabbage and carrots.

As for dessert, let's mention the inevitable cheesecake, which is prepared with cream cheese and sour cream, hence its incredibly melting texture. If there are variations of cheesecake all over the world, the chocolate brownie is a very American invention. Enjoy it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The classic apple pie, generously flavored with cinnamon, is often served with ice cream, while the pecan pie, originally from the southern US, is made with pecans and topped with maple syrup. The pumpkin pie is filled with a pumpkin puree flavored with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. It is usually served with whipped cream, most often for Thanksgiving. Other classics include cupcakes and carrot cake which Americans eat with lots of coffee. The coffee served in restaurants is known to be sock juice, but more and more bakeries are serving coffee worthy of the name.

Although not as distinctive as Louisiana Cajun or New England cuisine, the Great Lakes region boasts some unique specialties that have developed along with the region's ability to attract a diverse population over the decades.

The (Wisconsin )deep dish pizza is Chicago's culinary specialty. It's a far cry from its Italian cousin: the topping is layered like that of a hamburger. It has a thick crust, topped with lots of cheese, minced meat, pepperoni (spicy sausage) and tomato sauce. It is baked in a deep dish in the oven, rather than over a hot wood fire, as its thickness means it needs to be cooked gently and slowly. For the record, an American soldier who served in Italy during the Second World War found work in a Chicago restaurant when he returned to the United States after the war. He then tried to reproduce the pizza recipes he had tasted during his tour of duty, thus creating the famous " deep dish ". This story is, however, contradicted. It seems that it was a Texan by the name of Ike Sewell who created this pizza in 1943 when he ran the restaurant Pizzeria Uno. It was so successful that a second restaurant, Pizzeria Due, had to be opened. Today, it's a famous restaurant chain.

Another specialty of Chicago's culinary spectrum: as you stroll through the city streets, you'll easily come across a number of hot dog stands. The hot dog is a veritable institution here. The sausage (usually pure beef) is steamed (it's never grilled) and served in a poppy seed bun filled with onions, tomato slices, mustard, pickles, dill and a little celery salt. A true Chicago hot dog is best eaten without ketchup. To enjoy a Coney dog, you need to go to one of the many Coney Island fast-food restaurants found mainly in Michigan, not to be confused with New York's Coney Island beach. It's a hot dog topped with homemade chili sauce, diced onions and yellow mustard. In downtown Detroit, Lafayette Coney Island is one of the most famous and popular.

The abundance of rivers and lakes in this aptly named region also induces fish recipes. One of the best known is fish boil. A Scandinavian tradition, this recipe was introduced to the USA, in particular to the Door County area (Wisconsin), by Swedish and Norwegian immigrants who landed in the region to work as lumberjacks or fishermen. In those days, large tables had to be prepared for the workers, and the best and most economical recipe was to boil potatoes and onions in water, add salt, then chunks of white fish. This rural recipe is still popular in some parts of Wisconsin. The same is true of the fish fry served every Friday evening in many restaurants in Milwaukee, known for its large Catholic population of Irish origin.

Another very popular product is wild rice, which grew all over the swampy areas of the region before the arrival of Europeans. In fact, it was the staple food of the local Indians. Today, 80% of wild rice is cultivated and many natural rice fields have disappeared, but there are still a few where only Native Americans are allowed to gather this cereal. Several specialties are made from it, includingwild rice & mushroom soup and porridge.

Otherwise, the Great Lakes region and the Midwest in general is one of the USA's breadbaskets, producing phenomenal quantities of cereals and dairy products. And the region's inhabitants are not the last to adore cheese. Wisconsinites are even known as Cheeseheads. These include cheddar, maytag blue (similar to Roquefort) and butterkäse, a specialty imported by German immigrants.

Common desserts in this region include the famous cherry pie and the surprising steamed persimmon pudding, a persimmon cake flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg. You can also try treats such as maple walnut bars, made with walnuts and maple syrup, or buckeyes, peanut butter lollipops coated in dark chocolate.

The list of beers from the Great Lakes region is quite impressive, with manycraft breweries having sprung up in recent decades, particularly in Wisconsin, which has a strong German tradition, and in Michigan, aptly dubbed " The Great Beer State ". In every bar and even restaurant, you'll be offered a selection of local beers, including rotating seasonals and barrel-aged editions. One thing's for sure: Americans are excellent brewers and are setting new trends that are appreciated by connoisseurs the world over. Among the top sellers in Michigan are Bell's Two Hearted Ale, a popular American Pale Ale brewed in Kalamazoo, as well as Founders' All Day IPA and Breakfast Stout, clearly the two flagship products of this Grand Rapids brewery. In Illinois, let's mention Goose Island IPA, a Chicago-area India Pale Ale originally produced on Goose Island, and in Wisconsin, New Glarus Spotted Cow produced in the small village of New Glarus nicknamed "America's Switzerland". These locally brewed beers are first and foremost a guarantee of quality in the face of large-scale American industrial breweries such as Budweiser, which, it has to be said, are generally not very tasty.

Wine also features on the menu, even if it's not produced in the region, which is unsuitable for viticulture. Beware: wine in the USA tends to be much more expensive than in France, even in the stores, for comparable quality: between US$10 and US$15 for a bottle of average quality. Another popular drink is cocktails, an integral part of American culture. In big cities like Chicago and Detroit, cocktails are a veritable religion, and bars generally offer an arm's-length list of classics and house specialties.

Home to many Scandinavian, German, Slavic, Asian and Middle Eastern communities, the Great Lakes region boasts one of the most multicultural culinary scenes in the U.S., with many communities dating back to ancient times.

Minnesota has long been known as a land of asylum for Scandinavian settlers. Between 1820 and 1914, some 2 million Norwegians, Danes and Swedes settled in this state with its harsh climate. They left their mark with specialties such as rullepolse, pressed, cured and dried beef. Every year, Nordic festivals are held in the region, featuring lefse, a type of thin potato pancake; pepparkakor, gingerbread cookies; cardamom coffee-bread, a brioche braided with cardamom; and limpa bread, a rye bread.

The Germans and Swiss stopped off in neighboring Wisconsin instead. Originally, they were primarily Pennsylvania Dutch (who, despite their name, were not Dutch ). Most were Amish, and the move to the Great Plains was made in search of isolation. Their know-how explains why the region is still known today for its cheese industry, with brick, munster, lieder-kranz and limburger. But we can't forget the charcuterie and sausages such as knackwurst, bratwurst, liverwurst, mettwurst or thuringer, which are very popular.

Polish immigrants settled throughout the region. Chicago is said to be the second most "Polish" city after Warsaw in terms of population, although Detroit has nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, almost 10% of Michigan's population is of Polish origin. Little Poland in Hamtramck (an autonomous city in the heart of Detroit) has one of the largest Polish communities in the USA. Delis (grocery stores) sell kielbasa, smoked garlic sausages, and pierogis, a kind of ravioli stuffed with potatoes, cheese, meat or mushrooms. And let's not forget bigos, a cabbage stew. Bakeries abound with babka (cocoa and orange brioche), mazurek (chocolate walnut tart), paczki (sugar doughnuts) and makowiec (poppy seed brioche).

In the region, countless different communities have brought their gastronomy with them: Mexicans, Italians, Greeks, Ukrainians, Indians, Arabs, Iranians and Russians. Chicago boasts the third-largest Chinatown in the USA, after New York and San Francisco. Chinese migrants have been arriving in the Midwest since the late ^19th century, and their population exploded with the Communist Revolution in the 1950s-1960s. But Detroit is not to be outdone, with its large African-American population. So don't miss out on soul food from the Southeast, including fried chicken, cornbread, mac & cheese, BBQ ribs and gumbo (a spicy sausage and shrimp stew from Louisiana).