- Michael I thought this was the perfect opportunity
to get some face time with you,
a celebrated food journalist and James Beard winner
to talk about the history of one of my obsessions,
Chicago style barbecue.
- Chicago barbecue is almost always pork barbecue
cooked to a high level of smoky flavor.
It's not fall off the bone barbecue,
it takes a little work to chew at it.
Odds are you're going to get it from a place
with a bulletproof carousel,
where you put your money in
and they swing it around and then they put your food out
and it's all good.
Chicago barbecue came out of what existed in Chicago,
which first was the big meat packing plants
processing lots of hogs every day,
hog butcher to the world.
Barbecue shop owners started getting a scrap meat,
which was rib tips.
It's a strip of nice meat,
but a little harder to eat than a rib
because it's got the cartilage in it
and you can see the two little bits of cartilage.
It's not bone, it's a softer meat.
So these places had big tubs of these trimmed off
and the guy would come and haul them away
and then he would go cook them and sell them.
Eventually the meat packers figured out
that it was worth at least a little money
and they started charging for it.
Same thing with the other thing
that was central to Chicago barbecue, sausage.
- I love these come with examples,
just in case I'm getting bored
and I'm not following along.
- Hotlinks, again a scrap meat turned into sausage.
A lot of Germans, Czechs, Eastern Europeans in Chicago,
so there's lots of sausage making all over town.
So it's easy enough to get scrapped cuts of meat
and have somebody turn them into sausages
to your taste and then smoke them in your restaurant.
And so the whole business is built on scrap meats.
- What's the defining fact
that makes it from a sausage into a Chicago style hotlink?
- I should actually say it's a Mississippi style hotlink
to some extent.
But it's really just red chili pepper.
- [Elliot] The hotlink is essentially
born out from Mississippi,
it's from the Delta, the great migration.
- Yeah, not even just the Delta, but really one town,
which is Indianola, Mississippi.
And it's where all the blues guys came from too.
- So it's music with soul and food with soul as well.
- Sounds like a perfect Friday night to me,
doesn't it to you?
- [Elliot] We first visited Alice's barbecue back in 2017
and we love what you guys do.
How do you best describe what Chicago barbecue is?
- It's really smoke open fire.
- There's barbecue on the south side.
It's the best, come to the south side,
it's better than north side or the west side,
you come right here.
- Definitely wouldn't have barbecue
of this quality anywhere else.
- What is it people typically get
when they get Chicago barbecue?
- Rib tips, links.
Yes, most definitely.
- And that rich tomato sauce from Alice's.
- Yes.
- I don't know if it's the sauce
and the way that they cook their meat.
- Sauce is just awesome.
The meat is seasoned just right.
- So the ribs we use the St. Louis spare ribs.
And we use the spare tips for our hot link the trimming.
- Hotlinks are culturally so important
to what we do here in Chicago,
and you guys are one of the few establishments
that still make your hotlinks in house.
- Me and Philip make them every day.
- If you watch the segment that we shot there in 2017.
I just got this.
Phillip's face and eyes on me as I'm making the hot links,
he did not seem very happy with the way I was doing things.
- Yeah.
- [Elliot] You even grind the pork.
- Yes, we grind our meat ourself.
We use our own casings.
- [Elliot] What made me fall in love with your hotlinks
is that sage component,
which is really powerful
and just bring something completely different.
- It does give it a different taste,
but you can't use too much of it
because it will over power.
- And you guys are scientists,
because as far as I'm concerned,
when your awesome barbecue sauce,
that sweet sauce hits that hot link,
that's a special, special thing.
So this is a generational thing for you guys too.
- We take pride in it.
You don't find too many black owned businesses
that have been open as long as we have,
we've gotta keep it in the family.
- What people need to do
to see Alice's barbecue, try it for themselves
and they'll realize why Chicago style barbecue's better
than any other barbecue.
I agree. Gotta try it.
- Can you do me one other favor Amy?
Can you say hi to Phillip for me at some point today?
And can you tell him,
I'm sorry if I upset him when I made the hot links there.
- Okay I'll pass the message on.
(upbeat music)