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CHICAGO — Don’t like hot dogs? This town may not be for you.
Even vegans and vegetarians find a way to enjoy a Chicago-style sausage in a poppyseed bun, topped with the “seven sacred condiments,” as Tom McGlade, senior vice president of marketing at Vienna Beef, refers to them: mustard, chopped onions, tomatoes, sport peppers, sweet pickle relish, a pickle spear and a dash of celery salt.
When administering the toppings, there is a pecking order, McGlade said: mustard first, then relish.
Relish is “right up in the hierarchy of what goes on, in the right order,” he said. “That’s a feather in relish’s cap.”
Aside from the ingredients and the order in which they’re assembled, there’s one more notable trait of the Chicago dog: the unnatural neon-green color of the relish served up at many hot dog stands.
Just as orange dye transforms the murky brown waters of the Chicago River into a rich shamrock green each St. Patrick’s Day, FD&C Blue No. 1 turns Vienna Beef’s naturally colored pickle relish into a neon-green condiment that Chicagoans top their hot dogs with daily.
But what led to the greening of relish?
Emil Reichl and Samuel Ladany sold sausages from a stand at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, establishing what would become Chicago’s Vienna Beef company. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
## A Brief History Of Chicago-Style Hot Dogs
To understand, we must go back to when immigrants from other regions of the world came to the United States. They brought with them culinary traditions, including canning vegetables and making relishes and jellies, common practices in places like the United Kingdom and India for centuries.
In the mid-19th century, mass production took off in the United States. Advances in canning techniques allowed companies to produce and sell condiments once canned by hand on a larger scale.
Vienna Beef got its start at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. That’s where Austrian-Hungarian immigrants Emil Reichl and Samuel Ladany began selling their sausages from a stand in the fair’s Austrian Village, according to the company and the Chicago History Museum.
In 1925, Vienna Beef established the Chicago Pickle Company, now known as Chipico, to make its pickles and condiments, which it still does today.
An old Chipico label for relish.
In the 1920s and ‘30s, the food customs of Chicago’s Italian immigrant communities, combined with the economic devastation of the Great Depression, gave rise to cheap and filling meals, like hearty Italian beef sandwiches and hot dogs covered in vegetable toppings and condiments — including relish.
“Depression dogs,” a precursor to the Chicago-style hot dog, showcased a few simple ingredients like mustard, onions, relish and sport peppers.
Among Chicago’s first purveyors of Depression dogs was Abe Drexler, who turned a fruit cart into Fluky’s hot dog cart in 1929 at Halsted and Maxwell streets, near where Jim’s Original hot dog stand is today, according to a 1983 article in the Tribune by Rich Bowen and Dick Fay, Loyola University psychology professors and authors of the book, “Hot Dog Chicago.”
The cart led to a store in 1932, and by the end of the 1930s Drexler had four Fluky’s locations. Fluky’s became known for its five-cent “Depression Sandwich”: a hot dog topped with “the works,” which included the vegetable medley and fries, according to Drexler’s obituary in the Tribune.
**READ MORE:_A Short History Of Chicago-Style Hot Dogs (And Why We Love Them So Much)_**
The use of pickle relish or piccalilli — a pickle relish with mustard — on hot dogs in Chicago goes back to at least the late 1920s. A July 1929 article in the Suburbanite Economist newspaper about catering a picnic with canned goods described adding relishes to meat sandwiches, such as those made with canned hot dogs. A newspaper ad for Goldblatt Brothers Department Stores in February 1933 showcased a “red hot on a bun with piccalilli or mustard” for a 2½-cent promotional price instead of the normal 5 cents.
From the Depression-era dog came the Chicago-style hot dog, with its combination of seven toppings and popularized through the proliferation of small hot dog and sausage stands that became ubiquitous in Chicago neighborhoods.
The popularity of wiener joints continued through the country’s financial rebound of World War II. By the 1970s, the Chicago-style hot dog was ingrained in the city’s culinary history and cultural identity.
The 1983 Tribune story by Bowen and Fay noted “55-gallon drums of that famous bright-green relish” at Fluky’s former Western Avenue location, set to adorn Vienna natural-casing dogs.
A Chicago dog is prepared with an all-beef hot dog at Fluky’s. The last remaining Fluky’s, a hot dog stand that opened in 1929, resides in the Walmart at 5630 W. Touhy Ave. in Niles. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
## Bright Green Thanks To Blue Dye
Chicago-style relish’s unique emerald-green color is part of the city’s hot dog legacy.
Tips on making pickle relish more vibrant go back to at least the early 1900s, when canning recipes noted that “grape leaves give a bright green color to pickles,” a trick that made them look more appetizing after being canned and aged in vinegar.
Early iterations of pickle relish used on hot dogs likely weren’t neon green, said McGlade, who doubles as Vienna’s in-house historian. An old photo of Chipico brand sweet relish doesn’t show any added food coloring except turmeric, which is a bright yellow color.
For Vienna Beef, the bright color dates back to at least the 1940s, when the company offered two relish variations: brown relish and green relish.
The “brown” relish was a misnomer; it was actually regular relish, which tends to have a duller, darker natural green color. The “green” relish was green to the extreme — made neon with blue food coloring. They tasted the same.
In the 1980s, Vienna changed the descriptors to “bright green” relish and “natural relish” to distinguish between the two, McGlade said. That’s how they’re described today.
“Of course, the green relish is not green like that from any vegetable,” McGlade said.
Specifically, it’s FD&C Blue No. 1, according to the label — also known as Brilliant Blue FCF, or Blue 1, that gives the relish its distinct hue.
Jars of bright-green Chicago-style relish made by Vienna Beef. Credit: Provided/Vienna Beef
FD&C Blue No. 1 has been in use and under the scope of what is now the Food and Drug Administration since at least 1931. It’s the blue in Blue Curaçao and blue Jolly Rancher candies, and it’s also added to green foods, like canned peas, to boost their color.
Only after hot dog stands started adding additional condiments to the Depression dog did bright green relish make an appearance, McGlade said. While he doesn’t know the exact timeline, McGlade said he believes that happened in the 1940s.
An oft-repeated but unverified story is that the bright green coloring was used in relish because it photographed better for marketing purposes, he said.
The story is “that when black-and-white photography was the standard, it was harder to distinguish the relish, and somehow the brighter green relish held up better,” McGlade said.
The Vienna Beef offices have some museum-like historical displays that appear to show black-and-white photography up until the 1940s, when color — and neon green relish — come into the picture, McGlade said.
“All the pictures are black and white and all of a sudden, in about 1940, everything started going color,” he said while looking at the display.
An old hand-painted wood sign advertises Vienna Beef pure beef hot dogs. Credit: Provided/Vienna Beef
V. Formusa Co., a Chicago brand that dates back to 1898, was there when Chicago-style dogs featuring bright-green relish came into fashion, said Jeff Johnson, a fourth-generation member of the Formusa family and president of the company, now known as Marconi Foods.
“The story of green relish is fairly [contested], depending on who you ask,” Johnson said. “While we are more than happy to take credit for introducing giardiniera to Italian beef in Chicago, I can’t make the same claim about the green relish.”
Several hot dog stands and other companies all try to “take their piece of the credit pie,” for dressing up hot dogs during the Depression, he said.
Pickle relish was a great addition to the dog, but it turns brown if left without any added coloring,” Johnson said. “So when it was discovered that you can add blue food dye to relish to give it the bright green hue, it almost instantly became a hit.”
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Marconi makes its own “Bright Green Hot Dog Relish.” Other neon-green relishes include Chicago-based Puckered Pickle Co.’s “Super Green” sweet pickle relish and “Chicago-Style” green relish from Mrs. Klein’s Pickle Co., an Arizona company.
In 2019, Hop Butcher For The World in North Center even made an award-winning Neon Green Relish Double IPA.
**RELATED:_The History Of The Francheezie, Chicago’s Other Hot Dog_**
## Relish By The Numbers
Vienna supplies more than 85 percent of the city’s hot dog stands, concession stands and zoos, McGlade said. The company is also the hot dog provider at both Chicago airports and sports venues like Wrigley Field, Soldier Field, Rate Field and the United Center, as well as for teams like Northwestern, the Rosemont Wolves and the Chicago Dogs.
McGlade wouldn’t disclose the exact numbers on how much neon-green relish Vienna sells annually, but he did share a few figures for its hot dog sales at Wrigley Field to give a sense of volume. Relish is the ballpark’s second-most popular condiment behind mustard, he said.
The bleachers are packed as the Chicago Cubs host the Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field on Aug. 2, 2023. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
On average, Wrigley Field sells about 17,000 hot dogs per game in a stadium that holds just over 41,600 people, he said. That’s roughly one hot dog for every other person or so. If one portion of relish is one-quarter of an ounce, that’s about 34 gallons of relish per game.
Converted to pounds, assuming 45 pounds for a 5-gallon bucket, that’s 1,530 pounds — or three-quarters of a ton — of relish per game at Wrigley Field.
With an average of 80 Cubs home games per year, that equals roughly 122,400 pounds of relish each season. To put it in perspective, that weighs approximately the same as:
* a megalodon shark
* about 10 adult elephants
* between 6 and 7 “Sue” Tyrannosaurus rexes
* about two Bean sculptures
* one of the Pantheon’s 40-foot, pure stone columns.
An order of Chicago-style hot dogs is prepared at Byron’s Hot Dogs, 1017 W. Irving Park Rd., in Lakeview on July 21, 2022. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
## ‘Symphony’ Of Flavors And Textures
The Chicago-style hot dog wouldn’t be the same without neon-green relish or any of the toppings, for that matter, Johnson said.
“Apart from how great it tastes, the gorgeous layout of a hot dog dressed fully in Chicago attire is something that is more than pleasing to the eye, and it is something that we are proud to have been a part of for all these years,” he said.
For Vienna, the company has been “very fortunate that we are associated with a product in such a way, you know that [when] people think of a Chicago-style hot dog, they actually think Vienna Beef, and that’s not usual,” McGlade said.
“Part of it is the relish, and part of it is the mustard, and part of it is the sport pepper. It kind of is a symphony, if you will, that comes together, and people are very passionate about that in this town, as passionate as they are [about] saying, ‘Don’t put ketchup on it.’”
The biggest benefit of neon green relish is its complementary nature, with its texture, sweetness and color all “going on at the same time, in one bite,” McGlade said.
“It’s what worked back in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and has continued to work to this day. And it’s really magic that happens when that’s all put together,” he said.
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