The Night Chicago Died: Blues and Barbecue

Often, when people talk about barbecue in the U.S., the names that come up the most are Texas, Kansas City, North Carolina and Memphis. But while some of those places were close the genesis of American barbecue, this overlooks other cities and states with longstanding traditions and unique styles, such as Chicago, where rib tips are awfully popular-- a somewhat unique specialty, or St. Louis, where pig snoots are cooked up and served as a sandwich.

So, this morning I came across an interesting article about Chicago bbq that I thought I would share with you.

Chicago style: a tale of two barbecues - Leon's Bar-B-Q and Hecky's Barbecue
American Visions, August-Sept, 1994, by Heidi Haughy Cusick

Here's an excerpt-- hey it got me hooked:
Finney's story is typical of the black immigrant experience on Chicago's South Side. A native of Mississippi, he arrived in town in 1940 at age 24, nine years before Powell was born in nearby Evanston, Ill. His first job was helping an aunt cook barbecue and fried chicken at a little restaurant on Garfield Avenue. A year later, the owner of the restaurant, who was running a bookie joint in the basement, got busted, and Finney scraped together $700 to buy the place.