About 2,700 copies of the second issue of the Chicago FoodCultura Clarion have been randomly inserted into print issues of this week’s Reader. If you didn’t snag the inaugural issue in November, there’s a small chance to score a copy of this penultimate installment (or download the full PDF). It’s an easy-on-the-eyes journalistic collaboration between artist Antoni Miralda, University of Chicago anthropologist Stephan Palmié, and a posse of food writers dishing out stories on, among other things, Korean-style Chinese food, La Chaparrita, hot dogs, stockyard blood buttons, a racoon feast, and this fishy Chicago food history footnote by me:
But Montse Guillén certainly thought it was strange. And she would know—there was codfish hanging at her restaurant too.
So she was surprised and flummoxed to encounter the bacalao above the bar about a year later when she dropped by the new Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba! on a short visit to Chicago. “This I remember very well,” she says. “I talked with my friend: ‘Look they copied this maybe. They’re thinking in Spain they put codfish in the tapas bars.’”
Changes were in order. “I’m not interested in the six people who know it’s authentic,” says Melman. “I said, ‘Hey, I don’t know how they dress in Spain but I want to get crazy.’ We changed 80 percent of the menu. We left the paellas, and the hams, and stuff that were good, and then we opened it. And I had a lot of fun.” Servers wore capes. Flamenco dancers stamped and tapped among the tables. Chicago ate it up.
