Nobody loves their city just as the Chicago residents do, with the amazing loyalty that wipes civil pride to something closer to religious condemnation, a dedication to a hometown that doubles as a side commander completely deprived on the coast. However, we do not take ourselves seriously – which is clear, even for strangers. Anthony BourdanDouble in New Yorker in wool with an eye -catching eye for a place of place, Once called Chicago One of the last wonderful regions in America “no bulls ** t”, which is the place where you will not get “weakness, ambition, broadcast of any kind, and Dosri, and the absence of a sense of humor.”
So it is not surprising that when the news erupted about the election of Robert Privost Pope Liu XIV – The first American Pope, born and raised in Chicago – The city first responded with sanctification, then with a flood of food jokes. That is, after the “Blues Brothers” bitten the airspace. (he He is A man on a mission from God, after all.)
Within hours of White smoke is rising From the Sistine chapel chimney, someone took pictures of the Vatican interface to look like Portilo. Another announced that the new sacred water was Malort. When I wrote my most compulsory brother to ask what he thought, he replied immediately: “This is a man who ate a hot dog. This is a man who has a deep dish.”
It is easy to laugh – because it is He is Funny fungus and Chicago multiplied with civil shields – but there is also something more feasible that occurs under the surface. In a well -known institution of its rituals, which dates back to centuries and a great hierarchy, there was something unexpectedly felt. Here was a man whose tastes were formed outwardly through the same concessions of the baseball game and the biological pizza joints that any other person was visiting in the city (although he had a soft spot for both White Sox and Aurelio similar to the bar, thin shell). This is rare for a noble person like the Pope, whose leadership often relates to theological discourse and institutional power more than the possibility of personal relativity.
However, food, in its intimate relationship and contraction, has the ability to break this wall. It provides us with a way to reach an arrival point that we all realize.
Food has always been the big equalizer between strength and people. That is why every electoral cycle, without failure, politicians organize exciting exciting works, as they eat like a local population to communicate with people who will never know it. We have seen them all: embarrassing photographs in oily spoons, or excessive shots in the cakes of repression or hot pepper dogs that wear on paper panels, the moment when the political hands trembling while having a deep appetite they did not ask again. It is always very worthwhile, but also a reminder of the ability of food to link us.
For most of us, political figures who have the greatest influence on our lives may be on another planet. But when a candidate takes a campaign bus in a pair of jeans and asks the hot dog with all the installations, they do more than just eating. They are trying to do what food does without any effort: humanity themselves.
In a city where food is often the language of identity, politics, sadness and joy, it is the cosmic logical that the first American Pope will not be received not with complete seriousness, but with the meat of the Vienna and a shot of Malört. These are not just jokes. They are a way to say: He is one of us.
During the formulation of this story, an email was collected in my inbox like divine time. Portilllo-yes, this Portillo’s- A limited time list has been launched in honor of the new chapter.
“In the name of the broth, the cake, the hot locusts, we offer Liu: Italian, semicircular beef, deliberately in the broth and ended with the Holy Trinity of pepper – sweet, hot, or mix”, read the press statement. She continued to name “bold, unusual, delicious”, and “making a tribute to a moment that is the historical of the Portlelo’s birthplace.” I couldn’t stop laughing. Not because it was a little ridiculous, but because it was perfect.
Only in Chicago the new Pope can rise to double as an Italian beef marketing opportunity. Only in Chicago will not feel cheap, but right.
Because when the energy feels far away, food returns to the table.
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