Thought I’d ask this because I want to discover more foods from across the world
(Also I shouldn’t have to say this to americans, please state where you are from and state where you are from without acronyms or shortened names because I’ve seen US Defaultism on lemmy and not all of us are going to know your acronyms considering we’re global users)
Chicago Illinois USA here:
The two foods that scream “This is Chicago” to me are deep dish pizza and a Chicago style hotdog (poppy seed bun and a dog with mustard, chopped onions, tomato wedges, sweet relish, a pickle spear, and peppers, then sprinkled with celery salt).
As to which is my favorite, deep dish is definitely more unique and probably the better answer here, but man can I do love when the dogs are just right.
In terms of popular and well known local dishes, the deep dish pizza and Chicago dog are great. I agree with you there.
The one that people outside of Chicago don’t know a lot about, that is still a delicious representation of the city, is Italian Beef.
And the one that is uniquely Chicago but isn’t going to be winning over people in a blind tasting, is shots of Malort.
Oh yeah, I could smash an Italian beef just about any day.
And Malort. I mean, it’s awful, but I never say no when offered a shot. I kinda love that our local drink comes with language of “this is will taste terrible, but you have to try it.”
I found Malort to be not all that bad. Not something I’d choose as my liquor of choice but not the concentrated hell I expected from descriptions and reactions.