Friday's column: A matter of Taste
They should call it the Taste of Indiana," sniffed the well-dressed guy in the elevator. "They're the only people who go." And the rest of us smiled and nodded, the way you do when someone says something in an elevator that is obviously meant to be overheard. Because it is, of course, required of city dwellers that we express a certain baseline level of contempt for the people who merely visit the downtown area. None of us wanted to look like suburban rubes.
It has become a ritual of the summer festival season in Chicago -- a natural evolution of the festivals themselves, really -- to bemoan the crowded awfulness of the largest street fairs. True Chicagoans remember when these events were better. Things were more real then, before the tourists and poseurs started coming, before there were corporate sponsors and live radio broadcasts.
And, the rest of us, late-comers who know, because we cannot say which ward we were born in, that we can make no real claim to originality or authenticity of experience, have to cling to our own complicated levels of snobbery. At least we didn't drive. Or buy the T-shirt.
Irony on the side, please
If we deign to attend the Taste of Chicago at all, we expect to do so only with a sense of ironic detachment. We go so that we can sniff about how fat (the rest of) America is getting, how poorly behaved other people's children are and how tragic it is when old guys wear their baseball caps at non-standard angles.
We are supposed to laugh at the notion that the Taste has anything to do with "street food," which we, with our Bourdain-esque sensibilities, associate with teeming Vietnamese markets and other Lonely Planet destinations, rather than the hyper-groomed grounds of Grant Park.
But I can't make myself do it anymore.
My secret and deeply-held affection for the Taste has, for too long, been a love that dared not speak its name. I have pretended to be appalled by this 10-day-long orgy of giant turkey legs and dubious refrigeration, making excuses for my attendance like "writing a column about it" and "entertaining out-of-town guests."
Even this year, I have recruited friends from New York to visit next weekend so they can be my Taste beards.
The truth, though, is that they had me at the miniature portions -- an uncredited precursor to the tapas craze -- and the brilliantly obscure ticket-pricing scheme. I would find a reason to go to the Taste even if I had to do it alone.
So, this summer, I am coming out of the closet.
I have loved the Taste of Chicago since I first stumbled on it as a high school student in town for a campus tour in Hyde Park. And, when I was thinking about moving here, years later, the delicious memory of a teeny, tiny semi-frozen slice of cheesecake pretty much clinched my decision. (OK, it was the cheesecake and a looming break-up with a bad boyfriend in another city. But mainly the cheesecake.)
I love the corn on a stick and the half-cheeseburgers and the rainbow sherbet. I love making a meal from pad thai and catfish. I love creating culinary themes, like "dumplings of multiple cultures," and charting a path from pierogies to potstickers to ravioli to samosas.
And I love the cherries, the ones that come in a bag at the Dominick's booth and have been stored on ice. Of course I know that they are no different than the ones I could buy at the actual grocery store. And, though I've never stopped to do the math, I'm sure the grocery store ones are cheaper, too, though spending those little tickets, like spending foreign currency, is a kind of alternate-reality experience for me, both liberating and strangely affirming.
(Personal note to Freakonomics author and University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt: Why is it so tantalizing to spend those little tickets? Are we all just collectively really bad at math, or is there a more complicated psycho-economic phenomenon at work?)
Next stop: Naperville?
I worry, naturally, that my feelings about the Taste are a sign of incipient suburban-ness, that I am on my way to becoming one of those people who'll claim to be from Chicago and then later explain that they actually live in, say, northwest Indiana.
So I soothe myself with rationalizations -- I don't go on fireworks day; I'm not like those people -- and subtle distinctions. I don't spend more than an hour or two at a time. I have never eaten one of the turkey legs. I was appalled when McDonald's set up a booth.
I tell myself that -- rather than a first step on the slippery slope that leads to Merrillville or Naperville or any other ville -- my goofy, tourist-y love for the Taste is a kind of civic pride, the same sort of native boosterism that has long characterized true Chicagoans. It's like going to see "The Break-Up," despite all the bad reviews.
Besides, if savoring that bag of cherries is wrong, I don't want to be right.
Comments
As one who has never been accused of being a picky eater, the food at the ToC is just fine with me.
It's the Taste music acts that make my stomach turn. You would be hard pressed to find a neighborhood festival or suburban rib fest with a worse musical line-up.
The ToC musical performers seem to be chosen using the "What's playing over the p.a. at the Jewel-Osco" method. The Taste musical stages are a prime example of what happens when you let someone who doesn't really care about music pick the music.
And if you DO decide to slip out to Naperville for their Ribfest, go out on Monday, July 3 when the fabulous Bottle Rockets are playing.
NOT on July 4 -- when Foghat and Charlie Daniels are playing.
PICKETT replies: I'll save the column when I come out as a huge fan of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" for next year, then. Thanks.
Posted by: So-Called "Austin Mayor" | June 23, 2006 09:41 AM
I can't believe you have a job. You are the worst Blogger ever!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Len | June 23, 2006 02:32 PM
I'll give you credit for being semi-open about this whole "the suburbanites are idiots and we in the city are vastly superior!" attitude that rears itself from time to time.
I would guess that if these same folks even tried to venture out into the suburbs(ironically only 20 minutes drive) they would find people very , very much like themselves. SOO-PRIZE SOO-PRIZE (in Gomer Pyle tone).
In contrast , I think most suburbanites(like myself)have been to the city for pleasure or have had to go for business . Yet , I don't hear anyone 'out here' complain about the people 'down there' and how ignorant or conversely brilliant they seem to be. Well, OK , we don't like the panhandlers, who are both ignorant AND brilliant.
Among the many ills of 'Big City Life' is the psychological effect of being crammed so tightly together. Maybe this is one reason why some city folks seem to have some sort of deep seated need to feel superior to someone.....ANYONE!
"So and so is a friend of my family..." or " My dad grew up with so and so..." or " I know Alderman so and so's son...." they cry , to anyone in earshot. In other words : POWER.....I HAVE IT AND YOU DON'T, LOSER.
Aren't these higher life forms the same people who keep electing Daley as Mayor? Just askin'?
And also, to you folks in Chicago who absolutely detest the dumb suburbanites : just remember.....we've got you surrounded.
Posted by: Michael | June 25, 2006 08:57 AM
Have you tried the "gourmet" special section of the Taste? It's expensive and the portions are small but my husband and I (mostly) love the food. The rest of it seems to be the same restaurants and food year after year which is fine but I wish they varied it more. I'm always on the hunt for a new goat meat dish (usually African).
Stevie Wonder played at the first Taste I went to. I think I was a seventeen-year-old (I was from the suburbs).
BTW, Oak Park and Evanston don't really count as the suburbs, do they? I like to think I'm still urban because I can access the city from an El line.
PICKETT replies: Yes, I think there's some sort of CTA exemption in the rules of urban snobbery. You're in!
Posted by: Yasmeen | June 25, 2006 05:56 PM
Naperville's Ribfest is the BEST! I do have to say, if you are going to hit Naperville, definitely go on July 1st when REO Speedwagon will be playing!
Posted by: Angelina | June 26, 2006 03:20 PM
Sadly we yet again have to defend Hoosiers especially those from the "region" -- the poor slobs across the border forced to put up with the daily barrage of Illinois license plates getting their fix of cheap gas, cigarettes, liquor, fireworks, and, lest we forget, slot machines and crap tables. We're like that one uncle you can’t help find fascinating, but won’t admit is part of your family. Hoosiers hate that we exist in the state, and Chicagoans will only admit to passing by us on their way to Michigan. Is it any wonder we say we’re from Chicago when people ask? Who wants to have to explain why on earth we put up with all of this. Besides, we have the “Taste� – it’s called Pierogi Fest – need I say more? You have to love us for the mere fact that we don't take ourselves too seriously.
Posted by: Yes - I live in the | June 30, 2006 09:45 AM
The main thing I went for was the turkey legs - you have to try them. Otherwise I dont go too often because its hot and crowded. My first visit it was called ChicagoFest.
Posted by: Rob | July 17, 2006 08:54 PM