CHICAGO — Barbecue has been on my mind for months now, from the newer Texas-style offerings in the suburbs to the saucy South Side classics. As I’ve hopefully made clear, Chicago has a robust barbecue tradition, particularly for a northern city. But after looking through the Tribune’s archives, even I was surprised by how early and often barbecue pops up.
Our reporters have been writing about smoked meat almost since the very beginning. The Chicago Tribune was founded on June 10, 1847, and barbecue shows up regularly by the mid-1850s. This is especially impressive considering our existing records between 1847 and 1852 are incomplete.
The only caveat is that early on, most of the barbecue was being eaten in other parts of Illinois. During this time, barbecue was rarely eaten at a restaurant. Instead, as Adrian Miller writes in his excellent book, “Black Smoke,” political events at the time often attracted large crowds with the promise of barbecue. Cooks would dig long trenches, fill them with lit wood and set poles or sticks across for the meat to rest on.
“The genius of the trench method was its complete scalability to cater to a crowd in ways that other cooking methods could not match,” Miller wrote. “Want to feed hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people? Just dig a longer trench.”
Miller isn’t kidding about the numbers. On Sept. 20, 1856, the Tribune told of a barbecue the Republican Party had hosted earlier in the month with 7,000 attendees in Urbana. (More accurately, the event was held “East of the old town, in the edge of the Big Grove, under the shade of a number of wide spreading oak and ash trees.” But you get the idea.)
The food spread was impressive:
“Dinner was then announced, and the immense crowd wended their way to the long tables, groaning under the large quantity of substantials prepared for the occasion under the superintendence of John W. Baddeley, Jas. Lee and Benj. Bent, the dinner committee, who showed their ability to barbecue beeves and every other meat suitable to feed an army of ten thousand.” (Though very rarely used these days, beeves is the plural of beef.)
Illinois Democrats weren’t strangers to the big barbecue game. On Aug. 14, 1858, the party hosted a barbecue in Clinton with “2,000 to 3,000″ people. Though it should be pointed out that one month later, the Republicans’ Clinton barbecue drew twice the crowd.
Barbecue continued to be served mostly at large events through the early part of the 20th century. On May 31, 1908, an “old-fashioned barbecue” took place on Northwestern University’s campus. “A whole ox, which had been roasted under the care of Frank Davis, a Virginia (Illinois) barbecue expert, was portioned out to the 1,500 students and secondary school visitors along with coffee, sandwiches, and pickles.”
The Elks (formally, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks) apparently loved to host large barbecue events. On July 6, 1918, its barbecue at Comiskey Park drew between 5,000 to 10,000 people to raise money for World War I.
But that’s nothing compared to the event the Elks hosted after the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” in the United States, was ratified. On Jan 19, 1919, the group held a “wake” in Comiskey Park for John Barleycorn, a fictional character often used as a symbol for alcohol, which they hoped would be “one of the biggest barbecues Chicago has ever seen.” Between 10,000 and 20,000 people were expected to attend. (Though ratified by the States, prohibition wouldn’t officially begin until Jan. 17, 1920.)
More than a decade later on Aug. 14, 1931, the Tribune even printed a fairly detailed guide to throwing one of these large events, though you’d have to “of course” forget the beer. (By the way, “a trench 10 feet long is considered sufficient for about 400 pounds of beef; 15 feet, about 600 pounds.” Now you know.)
While enormous political barbecues still took place in the 20th century, restaurants serving barbecue started becoming more popular. In an article on June 23, 1928, Jane Eddington wrote that a “new feature is the wayside barbecue sandwich shop, which is multiplying by leaps and bounds.”
Unfortunately, not much was written about specific barbecue restaurants until the 1970s, as dining at restaurants in general became more popular.
Along with opening restaurants, Black entrepreneurs started selling barbecue-related products. One of the most successful was Argia B. Collins, who created Mumbo Sauce in 1950. (Though the history is very contentious, this may have been the start of mild sauce, which is a South Side staple to this day.) An advertisement from March 17, 1967 describes the product as “not too mild…not too hot…not too sweet.”
Collins was honest about how difficult it was as a Black entrepreneur in an article from Nov. 14, 1971. He said getting into grocery stores was especially hard: “I ran into the brick wall of a closed consumer market that wouldn’t let me into the stores.”
By the 1970s, Chicago was becoming known as a rib town. In 1974, an article called “The ribs scene: Raps and raves by the ravenous” does a great job of showcasing how rib joints were popping up all over the city. While the article is credited to Harriet Choice, it also features the opinions of Gene Siskel, the paper’s famous film critic. While most of the restaurants are now closed, including Eddie’s Real Barbecue in Logan Square and The Homestead Tavern in Blue Island, the article features one of the first mentions of Lem’s Bar-B-Q House, which got a glowing recommendation. It’s also one of the first mentions of rib tips.
The 1980s brought even more attention to Chicago’s barbecue scene, thanks to a couple of large food events. On July 3, 1981, Leon’s Bar-B-Que was a huge attraction at the second Taste of Chicago, leading Howard Reich to write these glowing words: “... owner Leon Finney turns out the kind of softer-than-butter, hickory-smoked ribs that have made him a gastronomic legend in Chicago.”
Then there was Ribfest, which was created somewhat on a lark by the city’s biggest columnist at the time, Mike Royko. As recently recounted by Rick Kogan, Royko hosted the first Ribfest in 1982 with over 400 contestants. By 1984, the event swelled to 600 eager to compete.
The Tribune’s restaurant critics weighed in on the matter throughout the years. In 1983, critic Paula Camp wrote an article called, “In search of the best barbecued ribs in Chicago.” The highest-rated option was Lem’s. “They were huge, meaty and had very little fat,” Camp wrote.
Ten years later, restaurant critic Phil Vettel also crowned Lem’s the winner. “It was probably the judges’ easiest call of the night,” he wrote. “Lem’s meaty, richly smoked ribs, topped by a tangy barbecue sauce with a vinegary bite, were the unanimous choice for no. 1.”
By 2007, rib tips had started to supplant ribs as the preferred South Side barbecue order. On May 10 of that year, food writer Kevin Pang chatted with Lem’s owner, James Lemons, about the change: “Lemons has seen a shift in his customers’ taste over the last five years. Before, everyone ordered slab ribs. These days, they prefer rib tips. At his cash-only takeout restaurant, they can go through 1,000 pounds of tips on a good day.”
“Tips are on the move,” Lemons said.
