1970s commercial for Calumet Meat, “The Home of Moo and Oink.”
Who could forget that classic Moo & Oink jingle? Composed by Chicago DJ Richard Pegue, with lyrics penned by company CEO Barry Levy and his secretary, Lillian Bassett, that exhortation to “Wave for catfish! Moo & Oink! Scrrrrrrrream for ribs! Moo & Oink!” ran on local TV and radio stations for some two dozen years.
With Labor Day weekend coming up and the last big barbecues of summer, it seems a fitting time to talk about these meaty emporiums, known for their cookout supplies, hot links and hand-cleaned chitlins.
The family-owned firm originated as a wholesaler called Calumet Meat Co. founded by the present owners’ great uncle, Russian immigrant Joe Lezak, in 1948. The business continues a heritage that dates back more than 150 years, to forebears who were kosher meat sellers and shochets (ritual slaughterers) in the Pale.
The family immigrated to the U.S. between 1910 and 1922, and by the 1940s, the Lezaks were operating 17 butcher shops, delicatessens and meat businesses around Chicago Patriarch Jacob Lezak, Joe’s father, worked as a shochet until he was 92. Today, another branch of the family runs L & L Packing Co., a supplier to such restaurants as Naha, Bob Chinn’s Crab House and Prairie Grass Cafe.
As more relatives joined Calumet Meat and the company expanded, adding retail sales, the name changed to Lezak & Levy Wholesale Meats and then, in 1977, to Moo & Oink. Levy, Joe Lezak’s great nephew, who retired as Moo & Oink’s president a couple of years ago, spurred the name change. He recalled:
Barry Levy
“You should have seen the looks around the table when I suggested we rename the company Moo & Oink. I was about 25 at the time. The founder of Calumet Meat Company, then in his 70s, asked, ‘Moo & Ink, what is that suppose to mean?’
“ ‘Moo & Oink … you know … mmooooo, oink, oink, like the sounds the cows and pigs make. It’s name recognition; no one could you ever forget a name like Moo & Oink.’ I could see everyone at the meeting saying ‘Moo & Oink’ over and over again quietly to themselves. After three or four minutes of silence, Joe Lezak, my great uncle, who 40 years earlier, had named the company Calumet Meat after the street location at 31st and Calumet, asked, ‘You really want to change the name of the company to Moo & Ink?’
“A smile, a frown, a smile, a sigh, ‘Okay! If that’s your name, Moo & Ink it is.’ Over six generations in the meat business and now we are Moo and Oink.”
How the Lezaks and Levys, whose ancestors also include a long line of rabbis, moved from kosher meat markets to a business best known for its pork products isn’t clear, but perhaps it had something to do with Joe Lezak’s introduction of “kosher ham.”
Moo & Oink became famous for what the company promoted as the “Cleanest ’lil Chitlin in America … cleaned year round by our experienced team of Chitlin Cleaners.” Now that chitterlings are less popular, Moo & Oink’s best-known product may be its Chicago-style hot links, coarse-ground, spicy sausages in natural casings, smoked up by barbecue houses all across the South and West sides.
Still run by the Lezak and Levy family, Moo & Oink today has four locations. The largest, in Austin, houses the company’s smokehouse and chitterling cleaning operation. The oldest store, in South Shore, opened in 1982. A third outlet is in Auburn Gresham, and they operate a full-service supermarket in Hazel Crest. Moo & Oink also wholesales its brand-name products to other local retailers.
Tzimmes, sweet braised carrots, sweet potatoes and prunes, at The Bagel.
What it is: A sweet, root-vegetable stew, tzimmes (pronounced “TSIM- miss”) is a traditional Ashkenazi dish customarily served at Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which this year commences at sunset Wednesday, Sept. 8. Traditionally made from sliced carrots and prunes or other dried or fresh fruits, with spices such as cinnamon, the dish may also contain white potatoes, sweet potatoes (an American addition) and, often, a small amount of beef brisket or flanken.
Although meat versions may be used as a main course, tzimmes is typically served as a side dish, as they do at The Bagel Restaurant & Deli in Lakeview and Skokie, where they make a vegetarian version. The Bagel co-owner Danny Wolf notes that the dish is “healthful, too — with lots of fiber, beta-carotene and vitamin A.”
Danny Wolf
Where it comes from:Tzimmes has its origins in Eastern and Central Europe in the late Middle Ages. The name is Yiddish, some theorize from the Middle High German word zuomuose (a type of compote or side dish) and others from a combination of zum (”to the”) and essen (”eating”). The Yiddish word has also come to mean a big fuss or commotion.
Jews serve tzimmes at Rosh Hashana, a holiday rich in symbolic foods, because custom calls for serving sweet dishes at the High Holidays in hopes of a sweet New Year. The carrots, traditionally cut into coin shapes, also stand for golden prosperity. Further, the colorful combination of harvest vegetables seems suited to autumn.
What to do with it:Tzimmes variants can include everything from cranberries to pineapple and it can be sweetened with sugar, brown sugar, molasses or honey. Some cooks like to make it sweet-and-sour style with lots of lemon, vinegar or sour salt, or zing it up with ginger and pepper. Some versions, particularly main-dish meat options, also add kneidlach (matzo balls or semolina dumplings).
Tzimmes can be made a day or two ahead of time and reheated for serving. You can mash leftover tzimmes, form it into cakes and pan-fry them.
The Bagel’s vegetarian tzimmes Ashkenazi root-vegetable stew Danny Wolf, co-owner
2 pounds carrots, pared and cut crosswise into 1-inch slices
4 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes)
1 cup sugar or brown sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice or 1 teaspoon sour salt (citric acid)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste
Vegetable oil
1-1/2 cups water
3 cups pitted prunes (dried plums)
Toss the vegetables with the sugar, lemon juic and spices. In a dutch oven or large saucepan over medium-high heat, heat the vegetable oil, add the vegetable mixture and cook, stirring constantly, until the vegetables just begin to color (do not brown).
Pour the water over, cover and simmer until the vegetables are tender (about 45 minutes). Add the prunes and simmer another 15 minutes. Taste, adjust the seasonings and serve. 6 to 8 side-dish servings.
Hand-painted Rosh Hashanah plate, $26.95 at the Spertus Museum gift shop.
Nu, so the sweetest place to start the Jewish New Year would be around the table at bubbe’s house, but if she can’t cook for the High Holidays, plenty of Chicagoland restaurants are happy to help you greet Rosh Hashana 5771 on Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 8–9. Reservations are recommended, or call soon for carry out orders.
L’shanah tovah!
Dine in
The Bagel Restaurant & Deli, Skokie
The Bagel at Old Orchard dresses up for the High Holidays with candlelight and white tablecloth service at 5:30 p.m. The $28.95 holiday menu ($12.95 for kids), includes a relish tray, chopped liver, house-made gefilte fish, chicken soup with matzo ball or kreplach and your choice of brisket, chicken, whitefish or sweet-and-sour meat balls, with tzimmes and other sides, honey cake or sponge cake and a glass of sweet kosher wine. Reservations with credit card required.
Di Pescara, Northbrook
Family-style diners available for both dining in ($32.95) and carrying out ($29.95) include fresh-baked challah, sliced apples with honey, matzo-ball soup, chopped chicken liver and an orchard salad, plus entree choices of brisket, whitefish or chicken served with potato pancakes, glazed carrots and dessert.
Joe’s Seafood, River North
The $36.95 Rosh Hashana dinner, served from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., includes challah with sliced apples and honey, house-made gefilte fish, bibb lettuce and chive salad with chopped liver, matzo-ball soup and choice of brisket with sweet onion gravy, apricot-glazed chicken breast or wild Alaskan halibut en papillote, plus dessert.
Max’s Delicatessen, Highland Park
Holiday dinners centering on brisket, chicken, whitefish, salmon, meatballs or grilled vegetables, with all the trimmings, $21.95 ($11.95 for kids), will be served till 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, along with the regular menu.
Mon Ami Gabi,Lincoln Park and Oak Brook
Rosh Hashana dinner, $34.95 ($16.95 for children) features challah with honey and apples, matzo-ball soup, house-made gefilte fish, market salad with chopped liver, brisket of beef with roast potatoes and carrots and apple tarte tartin with caramel sauce.
Wildfire,Glenview and Lincolnshire
A three-course, traditional Rosh Hashana dinner, offered from 4 p.m. to closing, includes house-made chopped liver, apricot-glazed chicken breast or braised brisket of beef, “Joe’s Special Recipe noodle kugel,” and honey cake, $32.95 ($14.95 for children). Wildfire also offers Rosh Hashana party platters for carry out; order by 5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 6.
Carry out
If eating out on Rosh Hashana doesn’t appeal to you, carry out and catering possibilities include:
AOK Gourmet, Skokie
Complete dinners or a la carte holiday fare is available, with entree choices of brisket, stuffed chicken breast, turkey breast or grilled salmon, and sides such as noodle kugel, farfel with mushrooms, potato kugel, kishke, and tzimmes or kishke. Order by Thursday, Sept. 2. Delivery is available.
Manny’s Coffee Shop and Deli, South Loop
Gefilte fish, chicken soup, brisket, roasted chicken, kishke, noodle kugel, breads and desserts feature on Manny’s High Holidays menu. Order by Friday, Sept. 3. Delivery is available.
Schmaltz, Naperville
Name your shul when you order and Schmaltz will donate 5 percent of High Holidays tabs to your congregation. A la carte choices include jumbo gefilte fish, chicken soup with matzo-balls or kreplach, chicken or beef chopped liver, brisket, herb-roasted Empire chicken, kishke, sweet noodle kugel and kashka varnishkes. Minimum order: $10.
Steve’s Deli, River North
A la carte options include gefilte fish, beef kreplach, whole roasted turkey with challah stuffing, apricot-glazed chicken, honey-glazed salmon, apple and dried-cherry noodle kugel, honey cake, Carnegie cheesecake, rugelach and more. Order at least 48 hours in advance.
Fleming’s unveils its list of 100 wines by the glass in a series of September wine tastings.
Drink up, wine lovers! You can sip, slurp and sample your way through September with a wide variety of wines being poured at Chicago-area steakhouses.
From 5:30 to 7 p.m. every Thursday in September, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse in River North and Lincolnshire will showcase its latest selection of 100 wines served by the glass. At these tastings, $25 lets you sample and compare 20 of the wines each night, along with light hors d’oeuvres. If you stay for dinner, however, they’ll credit that $25 toward your check. Reservations, with advance payment, are required.
The restaurants also host several other wine-related events and promotions during September, including Caymus Vineyards wine dinners Sept. 21 and 22, $125, and 25 percent off bottle purchases on Tuesdays.
* * *
Next, Smith & Wollensky in River North hosts its 47th National Wine Week. From Sept. 27 through Oct. 1, you can sample up to 10 wines for $10 from a daily-changing selection over lunch. Reservations and the afternoon off recommended.
Tuck into chunks of roasted baby beets, drizzled with white truffle vinaigrette and sprinkled with goat cheese, alongside lamb’s lettuce, $8 at Gemini Bistro in Lincoln Park.
The American restaurant celebrates its first anniversary Sept. 7–12 with a $29.09 three-course prix fixe.
In the 19th century, most Chicagoans drank untreated water from Lake Michigan. Before the reversal of the Chicago River in 1900, raw sewage flowed into the lake and the water was frequently contaminated with the effluvia of slaughterhouses and factories. Water-borne diseases, such as typhoid, cholera and dysentery, were common.
If you could, you bought bottled spring water at the drug store instead.
George J. Schmitt had come to Chicago from Beardstown, Ill., to train as a pharmacist. He was working as an assistant at the Gale and Block Drug Store in the Palmer House hotel when he noted that many health-conscious consumers buying bottled water at the store.
“My grandfather reasoned that when he was selling prescriptions that drinking spring water was a healthy adjunct to the medicine people purchased and that was the beginning of the partnership,” says Schmitt’s grandson, also George J. Schmitt, who served as CEO of Hinckley & Schmitt from 1965 to 1996.
In 1888, Schmitt partnered with Otis Hinckley to start a home-delivery service for bottled water. Hinckley had been a route deliveryman for Wausau Spring Water, bringing water from Wisconsin to retailers in Chicago by horse and wagon. Hinckley & Schmitt Bottled Water Co. bought water from White Rock Spring in Waukesha, Wis., and delivered it directly to customers. The partners also pioneered water-cooler service for offices.
Early Hinckley & Schmitt truck.
As business increased, they began using railroad tank cars to bring the water to Chicago bottling it at first on Franklin Street, and then at 420 W. Ontario St., a large bottling plant they built in 1911. This remained corporate headquarters until 1968.
Hinckley & Schmitt were both bottlers and distributors. As time went on, they added additional spring waters and beverages to their line, selling Mountain Valley Spring water from Hot Springs, Ark., and even Budweiser Beer before Prohibition. The firm was also a distributor for White Rock brand water in the famous brown bottle with the label picturing the nymph Psyche on the rock.
“The White Rock Brand was synonymous with the speakeasies in Chicago during Prohibition,” says Schmitt.
White Rock advertisement
Hinckley & Schmitt continued to sell and distribute many beverages through World War II. Until the mid-1950s, it sold as many soft-drink items as bottled water.
The Hinckley and Schmitt families remained involved with the company until the mid-1990s. Otis Hinckley’s one child was a daughter, Ethylin, who never married. She served on the board of directors until 1968, when the Schmitts bought her out. George’s son Victor took over the company on his father’s death in 1931, but he died five years later. Nevertheless, his son George rose to head the firm during the 1960s. Corporate lawyer James A. Peterson held the reins from 1936 to 1965.
In 1981, H&S was sold to Anjou International Co., a French firm. The second George J. Schmitt continued to helm Anjou’s Chicago-based Hinckley & Schmitt Bottled Water Group until 1996, by which time it was the third-largest bottled water company in the U.S., boasting annual sales of more than $175 million, bottling and distributing water in 22 states and Canada. Japan’s Suntory International Corp. bought H&S in 1996, and in 2003 partnered with the French Groupe Danone to form DS Waters of America as an umbrella for H&S and other regional water brands. Kelso & Co., an investment fund, acquired DS Waters two years later, and it is now based in Atlanta, with more than 25 bottling facilities across the country.
In Chicago, Hinckley bottles at its plant at 6055 S. Harlem Ave. in the Clearing neighborhood.
Now branded Hinckley Springs, the company’s spring water originates in an artesian spring in Rock Springs, Wis. (about 50 miles northwest of Madison), before being bottled in Chicago and distributed throughout the Midwest.
Southern-style pimento cheese at Lillie’s Q. (Photo by Leah A. Zeldes.)
What it is: A highly regarded comfort food throughout the American South, pimento cheese is a red-flecked, orange-colored spread made from cheese, typically sharp cheddar; diced pimentos; mayonnaise; and seasonings. Recipes vary widely, and texture can range from chunky to smooth.
Charlie McKenna
Where it comes from: Nobody knows who first combined pimentos — mildly piquant, heart-shaped sweet red peppers — with cheese, but commercial versions of pimento cheese began appearing in the early 20th century — ads from Chicago’s Kraft Cheese described it as “studded, like rubies” — about the same time that pimentos began to be grown in the United States.
Pickled and bottled pimentos were imported from Spain until a Georgia farmer started a crop about 1916. Soon afterward, canning companies throughout the Southeast began bottling them, and Georgia became known as the “Pimento Capital of the World.” The state continues to be one of the primary producers.
The cheese spread remains beloved fare below the Mason-Dixon Line. In 2003, the Southern Foodways Alliance ran a contest, which led to a 200-page cookbook of pimento cheese recipes and reminiscences (alas, the book appears to be out of print).
What to do with it: Southerners eat pimento cheese on crackers, slather it on hot dogs and hamburgers, dip into it with celery, pack it into cherry tomatoes, stir it into grits, dollop it on potatoes and, most traditionally, spread it between slices of squishy white bread for pimento cheese sandwiches, as famously served at the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Ga. At Lillie’s Q, a new Southern-style barbecue joint in Wicker Park, Chef Charlie McKenna serves his version of pimento cheese with house-made crostini.
Lillie’s Q’s pimento cheese and crostini Chef Charlie McKenna
About 1-1/2 cups high-quality mayonnaise (McKenna prefers Southern-style Duke’s Mayonnaise, available by mail order or locally at Cost Plus World Market stores)
Crostini:
1 baguette
Olive oil
Prepare the cheese: Let the cheese come to room temperature. Grate the cheese into a bowl and mix to combine with the remaining pimento cheese ingredients. Refrigerate for 8 hours to let the flavors meld.
Make the crostini: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Thinly slice the baguette and rub both sides of each slice with olive oil. Lay on a baking sheet and bake for 5 to 7 minutes, until browned and crisp. 6 to 8 appetizer servings.
Fabricated three-dimensional sugar sculpture by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology research group has designed the Digital Fabricator, a personal, three-dimensional “printer” for food. The device would layer ingredients from an array of food canisters into a mixer and then extrude them, with sub-millimeter precision, into a heating and cooling chamber.
“This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques,” the designers, Marcelo Coelho and Amit Zoran say, “but, through a touch-screen interface and web connectivity, also allows users to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value and taste of every meal.”
A German design student, Nico Kläber, has showcased the Moleculaire, a 3-D molecular food printer. And Netherlands-based Philips Design has postulated its own version of a food printer, “which would essentially accept various edible ingredients and then combine and ‘print’ them in the desired shape and consistency, in much the same way as stereolithographic printers create 3-D representations of product concepts,” according to Clive van Heerden, senior director.
Philips Food Creation
The MIT group also has concepts for a Robotic Chef with “an array of interchangeable manipulation devices, such as a drill bits, mineral and spices injection syringes, and a lower power laser diode, which can programmatically cut, cook and spice the food,” and a Virtuoso Mixer, “a machine composed of a three-layer rotating carousel that provides cooks with an efficient way to mix multiple ingredient variations and experiment with subtle differences in taste and composition.”
Drury Lane’s “Hot Mikado” is a zoot-suit riot of color, dance and sound. (Photo by Brett Beiner.)
A high-energy razzle-dazzle of brilliant color, movement and music, Drury Lane’s “Hot Mikado” has everything a musical wants.
Directed and choreographed by David H. Bell, who originally adapted it for Washington, D.C.’s historic Ford’s Theatre in 1986, “Hot Mikado” has feet in two worlds. The original, of course is W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s delightful 1885 comic opera, “The Mikado,” a farcical romp about Ko-Ko, the reluctant Lord High Executioner of the mythical Japanese town of Titipu, who is to wed his ward, the lovely young Yum-Yum, even though she’s in love with the wandering minstrel Nanki-Poo. Nanki-Poo, the disguised son of the Mikado, the ruler of all Japan, is in hiding from Katisha, an older woman who claims he’s toyed with her affections — a crime punishable by death.
Bell drew his inspiration as well from two swing adaptations that appeared in competing productions on Broadway in the 1930s. Having announced a revival of the 1939 “The Hot Mikado,” which had starred legendary tap dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and had two years’ post-Broadway run at the New York World’s Fair, Bell discovered that almost none of that production’s script or score could be located. So enlisting Rob Bowman to do the orchestrations, Bell wrote his own jazzed up, 1940s-style version.
Bowman’s splendid riff on Sullivan’s music brings in big-band jazz, gospel, blues and rock elements, paired with Bell’s clever rewrites of Gilbert’s lyrics. Vibrant choreography features swing-, tap- and modern-dance moves from a first-rate cast clad in Jeremy Floyd’s brightly hued zoot suits and Japanized dresses.
Marcus Stephens’ gorgeously fanciful set features a stylized pagoda and Japanese bridge and huge moving fans that open and close to reveal the orchestra, a hot six-piece band directed led by Jeremy Kahn under Music Director Michael Mahler.
We also get hilarious comic turns from Stephen Schellhardt (who plays the unhappy executioner as a combination Jerry Lewis and Danny Kaye) and Todd M. Kryger and Andy Lupp as his uber-cool sidekicks Pooh-bah and Pish-Tush; bravura solos from Susan Moniz as Yum-Yum’s sister Pitti-Sing and Aurelia Williams as Katisha; tip-top tap dancing by Ted Louis Levy as the Mikado; and sexy love scenes from adorable Summer Naomi Smart and handsome Devin DeSantis as the romantic leads.
You don’t need to know the Gilbert and Sullivan original to love this remake, but G&S fans will enjoy it even more.
I can’t think why this show, which has been acclaimed in productions all over the world, including a 1995 revival on London’s West End, has never made it to Broadway, but be glad you can see it in this excellent version close to home.
This is the Big Timmy: Two half-pound beef patties, layered with cheddar, Jack, mozzarella and Swiss cheeses, piled with strips of bacon and onion straws and dressed with barbecue sauce, lettuce and red onion, then served with french fries and onion rings, $19.99 at Timothy O’Toole’s Pub in Streeterville and Gurnee. Eat it all and they’ll give you a free t-shirt. (No guarantees it will fit.)
or locally at 
