THE SIGN, in red letters on a yellow awning, reading “Moe’s Maxwell Street Polish” caught my eye as I drove past. I remember the smell of those Polish sausages, and especially of the onions, grilling on a winter’s day on Maxwell Street, the old peddler’s open-air market in the Chicago of my boyhood. Polio Sausage, we used jokingly to call it, for it seemed slightly dangerous–not to mention trayf to the highest power–even to my boyhood gang of semi-ruffians, all of us Jewish, none from Kosher-keeping homes. I made a mental note to return to the restaurant, whose proper name is Fat Moe’s.
The Polish sausages and onions on the grill at Fat Moe’s did not, regrettably, give off that same stirring smell. The place is what the English call a take-away: You order at one of two windows and take your sandwiches off in brown bags. Fat Moe himself was not on the premises, I was told by a man who called himself Thin Moe. When I inquired just how fat Fat Moe was, he reported, disappointingly to me, only that he was losing weight. I hate to see a man lose his sobriquet.
My friend and I took our sandwiches to a nearby park, where we ate them seated on a bench, the wind at our backs. The sandwiches were good, though not memorable, and the French fries notably greasy, for which, as a connoisseur of Chicago grub, I never deduct points. The paper napkins, as is always the case at such joints, were small and of course too few. Proudly I report that I left no mustard on the red sweater I was wearing, though I cannot vouch for my lips, chin, and cheeks. Pity that Manet wasn’t there to paint us.
Fast food doesn’t quite define the kind of food served at Fat Moe’s, though they serve it up quickly enough. Junk food doesn’t feel right, either. Certainly it doesn’t qualify as comfort food: not in our time of cholesterol terror. Male food is the way I think of it: It is for men who like coarse blatant flavors, juicy, spicy, rich, greasy, and sloppy. Men are brutes, information I continually press upon my granddaughter, and if she could have seen her grandfather attack Fat Moe’s Polish sausage sandwich the point would have required no further repetition.
I limit myself severely in my visits to joints like Fat Moe’s, going to them perhaps once a month. Not long ago I discovered another, in an out-of-the-way Chicago neighborhood, called Hot Doug’s. Doug, a man who looks to be in his late thirties, is a sausage specialist who likes to name his sandwiches after his friends (“The Paul Kelly. Bratwurst soaked in beer–sort of like Paul”), Chicago athletes, and entertainers (“The Don Rickles. Thuringer: Beef, pork, and garlic–you’ll like it, you hockey puck”). The crowd at Doug’s is very Chicagoan: of good cheer, unpretentious, and tending toward the heavyset. Chicago is a city where they don’t hold it against a fellow if he happens to be twenty or thirty (all right, make that forty or fifty) pounds overweight. I modestly had a Shawon Dunston (“Chicken sausage, zesty Italian style”) and an order of excellent fries. On Fridays and Saturdays the spécialité de la maison at Hot Doug’s is fries cooked in duck fat. I have yet to sample these, never having felt sufficiently suicidal.
I don’t go much any more to Big Herm’s, which a witty friend calls L’Hermitage. I’ve always found the atmosphere rather glum. Not too many guys under 250 are there; most of them are munching on Italian beef-sausage combo sandwiches, sweet peppers added. The clientele has the look of a waiting room for depressed former National Football League interior linemen, now in therapy.
Big Herm at one point sold the joint, then moved in next door, putting up a sign that read “The Original Herm’s,” which seemed far from fair play, even in the Chicago sandwich wars. Driving by the other day, I noted that only one Herm’s is left, calling itself “Herm’s Place.” Whether this is owned by the original or unoriginal Herm is a mystery I am prepared to leave unsolved.
The greater mystery is why I continue to yearn for such food–I, who do not weigh 140 pounds. That it continues to exist is attractive to me in itself. I’m also pleased to know that people are still eating outside the laws of the health police. In my own neighborhood, just a block or so away, Al’s, which advertises itself as “#1 Italian Beef,”–an accolade given it by Chicago magazine—is about to move in. A few blocks away there is Merle’s, a Texas-style barbeque joint, specializing in ribs.
Even if I do not eat this food regularly, I like the notion that it is still there, well within my reach should the desire for it hit me. I once heard a chubby female comedian describe herself as a bulimic, but without the throwing up part. I guess I’m a glutton, but without the eating part.
-Joseph Epstein
