I'm referring, of course, to people who put ketchup on hot dogs.
Not that I do it all the time — Friday I biked over to Little Louie's, the beloved Northbrook frankfurter joint, and ordered two chardogs, one with mustard, grilled onions and relish, for my wife, and one with mustard, grilled onions and a pickle spear for me. I don't relish relish.
So not habitual with the ketchup. But I do reserve the right. And I push back against those riding the you-can't-be-a-Chicagoan-and-put-ketchup-on-your-hot-dog hobby horse. It's an old joke — Bugs Bunny goes to the steakhouse, slathers his steak with ketchup, and an incensed French chef in a tall toque chases him out of the restaurant with a cleaver.
It isn't that Chicagoans don't put ketchup on hot dogs — some obviously do. It's that certain Chicagoans pretend to care about it, deeply.
Why? A stab at sophistication — afraid of being considered rubes, Chicagoans insist upon their gustatory refinement. And a kind of parody of prejudice — we might not be able to mock the folks we once loved to mock, but we sure can still mock you, you loathsome ketchup lover you.
This is a popular gambit among New York advertising agencies trying to spray a whiff of authentic Chicago on their puffery like someone dosing an outhouse with a blast of Febreze.
Which is why I was surprised to see the Jewish United Fund, a venerable Chicago organization — founded in 1900 — launch an ad showing a frank with a single zigzag of ketchup.
"Hey Chicago," it taunts. 'Antisemitism is up 400%. Don't just hold the ketchup. Hold the hate."
Et tu, JUF? We ketchup lovers don't get enough grief? Is JUF now lumping us with antisemites?
"No, no, no," said Elizabeth Abrams, a spokesperson for the JUF. "It's not saying if you put ketchup on your hot dog you are an antisemite. We want to remind and inform the greater Chicago community that antisemitism is a pervasive problem."
They've got that right.
To imagine that the Trump administration is fighting antisemitism by going after universities for their anti-Israel protests is like pretending Donald Trump is against insurrection because he sent the Marines into Los Angeles. (Trump actually called the protesters "insurrectionists," which is world-class gaslighting).
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The word "chardog" sounds awfully good,even this early in the morning.
ReplyDeleteA problem with the jump. You can't get the rest of the column in the normal way without (1) donating (2) logging in or (3) watching a video.
ReplyDeleteAnd you can't do any of those because ...?
DeleteHow hard is it too watch a 20 second video?
DeleteSometimes, the comments deliver perfection. Well stated, Neil
DeleteThe tone of the ad seems odd. It's like listening to someone singing off-key. The hotdog/ketchup controversy has always been fun and funny. It's tribal. It's Chicago. It's Bears as opposed to Packers. There's nothing fun and funny about bigotry and racism. The attempt at juxtaposition falls flat. As to why the Park District wants to distance itself is another story.
ReplyDeleteYes, you must hold the ketchup to eat a Chicago Style hotdog. Eating a hotdog with ketchup is pouring something sweet on a dish meant to have its savory flavor outweigh others. It's like pouring sugar on your pasta; kugel may be delicious but it ain't fettuccine alfredo. I think a lot of the "hate" is that many go to Chicago style hot dog places, and don't realize that they have not ordered the dish that the place specializes in. They would still tell you they had a Chicago Style hot dog. They did not.
ReplyDeleteI logged in. I have donated each year. I think the IT people did something with the system; I keep myself logged in and have had no problems to date.
ReplyDeleteI am a fervent ally to the jewish community. although raised a catholic I had never heard the word jew nor as far as I know met a jewish person till high school.
ReplyDeletethe first time I encountered anti semitism was in grammar school I just didn't realize it at the time having no context for the word kike spewing forth from my fathers mouth.
violence and crime against jewish people just because they are jewish are on the rise but have not approached historic levels. I have friends and colleagues in the Hebrew community a small sect. like many jewish people they walk to schul. they wear the trappings of their faith. very vulnerable. they are indeed not like everyone else and still are able to express their freedom. they've hired armed guards at temple and several have CCLs.
while the actions of the current administration against universities may not be rooted in support of jewish people in America at least there is no indication that our government is persecuting the jews. do you imagine this is coming? many Americans are your allies . please acknowledge this more often.
A great idea, poorly executed.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of not putting ketchup on a hotdog is long, complex, and misunderstood.
If you know the truth--The neon green piccalilli relish supplies the same sugar content as ketchup AND the mix of Eastern European and German immigrants to Chicago around the turn of the centuray went mustuard and onions instead of ketchup--it always seems more of a joke than anything else.
Perhaps that's the problem, ignorance... machismo... a second city mentality... who knows. Especially given what the modern world offers, I only ever hear stupid takes on the hotdog ketchup "issue." It's a great way to get kids to try something different, its funny to fake chide someone, but in all honesty, are people really being that big of jerks about it these days?
The story here, at least to me, is the problem with businesses and advertising today. The people who make decisions don't trust other people. And the people who come up with the campaigns, aren't given the freedom and trust to do what needs to be done.
If Big Jim, the owner of lots o' stuff inc. thinks the idea is a winner, it doesn't really matter if it is; you go with it. and i think that's what happened here. Its a fun idea and could have been done very well... but it wasn't.
Such is the case with most things we deal with daily. Someone who won the generational lottery, is highly unqualified, and has an unchecked temper tantrum ruins something good for everyone else.
Jews have been shat on since a couple hundred years after Jesus Christ died. At least in our current society, its accepted and allowed (just look at what Elon Musk and Mr. Trump have said. And that doesn't even count the vitriol Jewish people receive online.) But to compare antisemitism with the flack you get for putting ketchup on a hotdog... please. do better America.
I wish Christian Nationalists like Speaker Johnson, or any other republican received half the drek we had to deal with. maybe then people would start to talk about anti-antisemitism and religious extremist in a better fashion.
let's not forget, Hitler was born into a Catholic family and was a christian... i have no idea what his thoughts on putting ketchup on a hotdog were... and frankly, i don't care.
yes i enjoyed making that pun.
Thanks for including that thought-provoking quotation from Dara Horn's book, a book I now want to read.
ReplyDeleteIt's even more powerful in context. It's one of those books filled with information you've never heard before and will never forget after.
DeleteThe Chicago Public Library has it, so I've put it on hold. Thanks again.
DeleteIsn't the problem with the JUF ad that it treats bigotry lightly, as no more consequential than a dispute over condiments? And that's putting aside the broader fact that you can't advertise anti-semitism out of existence . . .
ReplyDeleteThere does seem to be an odd tone to it.
DeleteI heartedly wish that antisemitism were a simple concept, easily identified and readily countable. Otherwise, a 400% increase is meaningless. I contend that a decrease in respect for the State of Israel due literally to overkill is not antisemitism per se. To be fair, the one can easily become the other, but the one should not be automatically taken for the other. I think the JUV's ;proposed ad is clever and funny, reminiscent of the Mormon's take on Broadway's Book of Mormon, but it's probably would not be effective and might indeed be counterproductive, as the ads accumulated swastikas and the like.
ReplyDeletejohn
It's an odd comparison but it gets people talking about antisemitism, which I think is the point.
ReplyDeleteThe sad fact is, that most Christians love one specific dead Jew, many actually don't know he was a Jew, but they really, really hate living Jews, because the Jews simply refuse to convert to their cult!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tony, et. al., that "the attempt at juxtaposition falls flat," and, as Neil says: there's "an odd tone to it."
ReplyDeleteAttempting to tread very lightly, I also agree with tate. It seems that a number of recent terrible incidents are not based on the old demonization of Jews based on misinterpreted Biblical themes or unthinking prejudice, but on a severely warped impression of how to respond to some of the atrocities in Gaza. Not that the incidents are justified in any way, regardless.
That being said, as Neil has implied in the past, it does seem like some folks are quick to blame Jews for their mistakes, real or imagined, in a way that they don't blame other groups for their shortcomings. And, of course, there are unjustifiable reasons for that going back millennia.
Like franco, I was raised Catholic. It was a relatively insular upbringing, but my impression of the Jewish faith and Jews was that they were essentially the players on our team from the first half of the Bible and that now we were in the second half and they were essentially on the bench, not interested in learning the new plays set forth in the New Testament.
Yes, that is an extremely trite over-simplification and may even seem inflammatory, but the point is, I harbored no ill will toward Jewish people and was not taught to do so. During the reading of the Gospel's account of the Passion on Palm Sunday, in which all attending participated, when it came time for the Jews to shout "Crucify Him, Crucify Him!", we in the pews were the ones shouting it. The implication, I believe, was that we were ALL sinners and ALL to blame for the Crucifixion.
This is a pretty strange comment for a post about ketchup on hog dogs, but I suppose the point is that antisemitism has never been a valid response to the message of the Gospels, but has often been used as a rabble-rousing way to make political points and disparage "the other." The orange felon, of course, is happy to use it himself as a pretext for doing whatever he wants to do otherwise -- in this instance, attack universities. He's an opportunist and the Gaza-protest situation has presented him with an opportunity.
This whole ketchup on the hotdog mishegoss is really starting to wear thin. Same as "Da Bearzzz" did. And all the rest of the Chicagoese memes. Hope it eventually gets mustard out of the joke battalion.
ReplyDeletePlus, as has already been said, there's nothing funny about hatred for Jews. People kill Jews just for being Jews. People kill cats just because they are cats. Cats are the Jews of the animal kingdom. Smart, funny, clever, affectionate, and often too friendly and too trusting. Easy victims for predators.
Equating the ketchup-on-a-hot-dog meme with anti-Semitism is about as witty as all those Holocaust jokes that popped up during the Eichmann trial, back in the early Sixties, when I was in junior high. Which was why they seemed so funny at the time.
Like the ones about Jews "cooking with gas", and Hitler being too busy to talk on the phone because he had "something in the oven." Those are the only two that immediately popped into my Yiddishe kopf, nearly 65 years after first hearing them. There were many, many more. And some were even worse. Like those 54 Jews in the Volkswagen Beetle. My grandma refused to let me give her rides in my Bug. Her whole family really did become ashes.
When I was still a Chicago resident, I used to read the "JUF News" every month, which my Norwegian wife pronounced as "juff". They seemed to be a rather humorless bunch in the 70s & 80s. (although their job placement service did point me toward my future boss at the Sun-Times). The JUF folks worried a lot about their physical security...the Middle East turmoil had a lot to do with that. Their branch in Cleveland once had a " summer camp fair"... and it had checkpoints, metal detectors, high fencing, and armed guards on nearby streets, alleys and rooftops. All so you could decide which synagogue's sleep-away camp fit your kid's needs and skills and temperament.
So this ketchup/hot dog campaign seems a little too weird and out of character for the JUF. Borscht Belt and, New York adman shtick. Too snarky. Too slick. And they could probably have done better. A lot better.
If the concept of "antisemitism" is now considered controversial, most if not all of the blame can be laid at the feet of the Trumpies who have weaponized the word to justify repression against critics of Israel.
ReplyDelete