Italian Beef [ANSWERED BY CECIL]

I took a trip this fall, hiking 900 miles of the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Virginia. I was only a couple weeks into the trip when I discovered that two of my favorite foods were almost completely nonexistent on the East Coast: gyros and Italian beef.

Oh, sure, they serve that pre-packaged Kronos stuff, but they call it a GY-ro, not a yee-ro. People on the East Coast have never heard of a yee-ro.

But Italian beef? TOTALLY NONEXISTENT! Philly Cheesesteak is as close as you’ll get. So the question is this: who invented/created Italian beef, and how far has the gospel spread outside Chicago?

I too was shocked on entering college to realize that Italian beef was confined to Chicago. I believe Scala’s claims to have originated this delicacy, but why it hasn’t spread elsewhere is a mystery … I mean, what the hell, you can get Philly cheese steaks in Chicago. I’m sure if you asked Scala’s why they haven’t done more to proselytize, they would probably say something like: What, you want us to send somebody to go live in Philadelphia?"

I’ve noticed the lack of places I can get Italian Beef sandwiches here in NC. I do manage to return to Chicago several times a year, and during those visits I try to stop off at Portillo’s at least once. Of course, then I have to decide which I crave more: Italian Beef or a Maxwell Street Polish.

I was pretty amazed when I found this out myself. A fellow doper and his wife came to visit me some years ago, and I had to explain what italian beef was. Sorta blew me away. How can you not know what this gift from on high is?! :smiley:

Not that it’s the best, but the ever family gathering ubiquitious Portillo’s at least allows for mail order if you were to be stranded too long away from Chicago. Clicking around on that page lets you order all sorts of Chicago staples.

There exists a pretty good version here in KC at Chubby’s on Broadway.

And I always thought that gyros could be gotten anywhere. Not that I look for them or anything, but they’re pretty ubiquitous anyplace I’ve ever been.

Well, except Oslo.

The real question is: what is unique about an “Italian Beef sandwich” as obtained in Chicago? How can you describe the beef to me, so that I can distinguish it from the beef in a Philly cheesesteak or the beef in a California French Dip sandwich?

I was in Chicago just a few months ago, but forgot to try this delicacy.

I think that Scala’s(as Ed mentioned above) is one claimant and the other is Al’s No 1 Italian Beef. As is usual with such claims, no one can supply an original menu/advertisement. But it’s pretty sure that in does go back to the early 1940s-late 1930s. I can find food columns in a paper called Southeast Economist out of Chicago in 1945 listing the sandwich as available in many restaurants.

As I recall, in a philly cheesteak the meat is fried with some cheesy goo and peppers. Also, the sandwich itself is comparatively very dry. It’s tasty, but definitely different from an italian beef sandwich.

In an italian beef sandwich the meat is thin sliced then dunked into hot juice and slapped on the bread. Some extra juice is scooped over the sandwich to make it drip. I’m not kidding you, at the resteraunt I worked at, if a customer asked fror it extra juicy, we were told to just dunk the whole thing under the juice. Mozzerella cheese is usually melted over the top while it toasts in the oven and green peppers are optional. Like the Chicago hot dog, it can be a messy thing to eat.

I think it is a little bit similar to the Californis french dip, but I think the juice is different and of course already liberally applied to the sandwich so no need for a cup.

The Wikipedia entry is a pretty good read.

I’ve never, ever heard the term ‘Dago beef’.

Some places (including Portillos, I think) have a chart on the wall indicating 3 juice degrees: Dry, wet & dipped. I like them wet or dipped. I think I disagree that a ‘typical’ beef in Chicago gets cheese, though. This is always an upgrade if available at all. Most beef & dog joints don’t have an sandwich toaster to melt it on anyway. Many places will use the cheeze fries neon orange oily junk if you ask for the cheesy beef, too.

Peppers are a personal thing. The green peppers may be roasted and skinned or sauteed or just steamed (I roast them on the burner, then sweat in a plastic bag, peel & toss in the juice). You’ll want to ask for sweet peppers at the counter. The other pepper variaton is hot giardiniera. FWIW, my lifelong Chicagoan father says “gardenera”.

Agreed. I’ve been having Italian beef since childhood, and I’ve never had cheese on it. I don’t doubt you can get it, but nobody would claim this is central to the Italian beef experience. However, if you get yours dry and without peppers, in my opinion you’re drifting far from the core concept and might as well move to California and order French dip and put pineapple on your pizza and be done with it.

I hate it when a restaurant claims to have Italian beef and it’s not even slow cooked. You can’t find the real deal here in Minneapolis that I know of, but I make my own and I think any native Chicagoan would find it a passable imitation.

It’s true, the cheese was an option not standard. I worked in a pizza place so obviously they had an oven and mozzerella cheese. I couldn’t imagine it without cheese so I just assumed that’s what everybody did. One of the other places I had italian beef was Luke’s and I’m pretty sure they also used mozzerella. If anybody had ever put neon orange cheesy sauce on my italian beef I would have been very offended.
With all this talk, I may have to make a trip for an italian beef when I come back over Christmass.

Can you state that peppers were on the typical sandwich when you were a child? I know some kids might not like peppers, but I’m curious how far back we can say peppers came on the typical sandwich.

And, again, what is the basic difference between a French dip and an Italian Beef? The peppers?

I’d say the giardenara and the fact that Italian Beef is slow-cooked for 10-12 hours. I doubt French Dips are cooked that long. They come with au jus because they’re dry. Properly made Italian Beef is so sloppy wet you can barely pick it up and eat it.

The french dips I’ve had have been very dry and the meat was thicker. I think the dip was quite different as well. I think the dip was less oily and more like beef bullion and they never provide you with enough dip or a wide enough dip container. I’ve never had a good experience with a french dip, probably because I always expected an italian beef.

I’ve no idea about how long it was cooked. When I made these, I just picked the meat up, dunked it in the juice for a minute then put it on the bread. I’ve no idea what happened to the meat before I got it. I will agree that a proper italian beef is soggy with juice.

After resorting to wikipedia, I see that they refer to the juice for italian beef as “gravy”. I don’t think I would call it gravy, but it is certainly different from the Au Jus used for a French Dip. Also, according to wikipedia, what I was eating is called a “cheesy beef”. Strangely, I have never had Giardiniera on an italian beef despite the fact that the pizza place I worked at offered Scala’s as a pizza topping. When I had peppers on my italian beef, I remember big slices of fried green peppers on the sandwich.

I just wanted to state, that in my attempts to find an italian beef when I visit the NW suburbs this next week, I was dissappointed to find that both of the nearby Luke’s have been shut down. In fact, it seems that Luke’s is barely a footnote in the Chicago area nowdays.

This will not affect my mission, it will only make it more difficult. I will simply go to my old workplace and get the italian beef I grew up on. The problem is figuring out what my wife will eat since she almost universally does not eat beef.

I don’t remember, to be honest. I have to think they were always available. As a kid I may have asked for my sandwich plain, just like I used to ask for my hot dogs and hamburgers plain, and snowplowed down hills, and used training wheels on my bike. At a certain stage in all cases, however, I realized these lame gambits meant I was getting but a watered-down version of the true experience. Be that as it may, I agree that a french dip is dry, the meat is sliced thicker and is less heavily spiced, and peppers are rarely part of the mix.

Me neither! Reminds me of when I read the entry for the Museum of Science & Industry…it said that it’s known locally as the “Sci and I.” I have never, ever heard it called that in my entire life.

Somebody I know who lives out in Palatine recently remarked to me that he had just been to Luke’s…maybe the one out on Route 12 is still open?

There’s more than one way to make an Italian Beef, and the home cooked way is generally low and slow so that it shreds, but that’s not how I’d wager most IB places make theirs. It’s usually normally roasted for 3-ish hours, cooled, sliced very thinly with a deli slicer, and then dunked in the gravy to finish. Here’s Buona Beef’s recipe, for instance. I far prefer this sliced Italian beef to the more shredded kinds you sometimes find here (although I feel the approach followed in the Buona Beef recipe is more commonly found at beef stands around here. Also, I believe bottom round is the more typical cut of choice.) The difficulty in making these recipes at home is slicing the beef thinly enough. You really do need a deli slicer to get it properly thin, therefore most home versions go the slow-cook/crockpot route for shredded beef.

I find that a nice hunk of London Broil from Jewel shaved deli thin and then cooked in a varying degree of beef broth, gardinaire (with brine poured in), a can of beer, and whatever else looks lonely in the spice cabinet does a passible job of making the real thing at home.

The bread is the hardest thing for me to replicate because it’s so hard to find really fresh sub rolls here in the burbs. They need that ultra soft interior with that glossy tough crust to be able to handle the gravy without turning into mush in your hands.