Italian Americans in Chicago might be surprised to learn that most people only first learned about the Italian Beef sandwich after the launch of the hit television series, "The Bear," which made it famous. Outside of Chicagoland, the sandwich is virtually unknown.
The television series focuses on Carmen, an award-winning chef who returns to Chicago following his brother's suicide. Carmen has inherited his brother's Italian Beef shop. A neighborhood mainstay, the shop is in debt and filled with feisty staff. At the center of the show is the Italian beef sandwich, a Chicago Italian-American original.
Italian Beef is a specialty in the windy city, according to John Mariani's Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, made from sliced beef and spicy brown gravy. The meat is sandwiched on a hero roll or Italian bread and toppings can include hot or sweet peppers, onions, garlic, Giardiniera, and even provolone cheese. However, it's worth noting that Nick Kindelsperger at the Chicago Tribune points out that in Chicago, Giardiniera also refers to hot pickled peppers and not the pickled vegetable salad better known elsewhere.
Italian Beef shares some obvious similarities with the Philadelphia Cheesesteak
although, these two sandwiches developed independently of each other. Brothers Pat and Harry Olivieri created the cheesesteak at a Philadelphia hot dog stand sometime in the 1930s, only adding cheese, and the now infamous nomenclature "cheese wit," in the 1950s. The addition of provolone cheese to the Italian beef has grown increasingly common, but that wasn't always the case.
Chicago's Italian Beef has one distinguishing characteristic that cannot be overlooked: the beef jus. Like the French Dip, a sandwich invented in Los Angeles, the juicy meat drippings play an important role in flavor and texture. Once braised, the thin sliced beef sits in the spicy gravy waiting to be made into a sandwich. A "dry" sandwich will mean the beef jus is drained off before the meat is added to the bread. "Wet" sandwiches will have extra beef just spooned into it, and a "dipped" sandwich will literally take a bath in the saucy gravy. Customers also need to know whether they want sweet or hot peppers.
So how did this messy, wet beef sandwich come about? Chicago is a city built on the beef industry. Railroads at the turn of the century connected Chicago to the vast resources of the western United States and those goods passed through the city on their way to the consumer markets of the east becoming a nexus of commerce and trade. Agricultural products poured into the city on their way to manufacturing, including cattle yards and meat packing plants.
Immigrants in Chicago found jobs working in meat processing plants. Their low-cost labor rapidly reduced the cost of beef across the country. Many of those immigrants arrived from Italy – by 1920, only New York and Philadelphia had more Italians than Chicago. Working in the meat industry did have one advantage: access to cheap cuts of meat or meat that couldn't be sold.
The story of the sandwich begins just after World War I. Pasquale Scala started making sausages in the back of a bakery in Chicago's Little Italy. In 1925, he launched Scala Packing Company, which by then had expanded into a variety of processed meats. Among the many product lines, Scala grew into a well-known supplier of sliced beef for Italian catering for weddings.
Italian immigrant weddings in the 1920s-era Chicago area often were simple affairs known as "Peanut Weddings." These budget parties were hosted in family homes and the receptions included inexpensive foods like peanuts. If meat was served at the reception, it was usually on a sandwich since bread cost much less than the beef.
At the same time Pasquale Scala had been building his meat packaging company, Anthony Ferrari was driving a delivery truck. According to legend, Ferrari either attended a wedding or was making a delivery to one when he realized the beef sandwiches contained thick slices of meat. Reasoning he could feed more people with thinner sliced meat, Ferrari launched a second business selling wedding sandwiches with extra thinly cut meat, a job he worked on the side. In 1938, Anthony's son, Al Ferrari, launched a sandwich stand with his sister, Frances, and her husband Chris Pacelli.
The Scala family disputes this account. Pat Scala told Thrillist in 2016 that he believes his grandfather, Pasquale, was selling thinly sliced meat for Italian weddings long before Ferrari came along. Scala Packing Company had been selling wholesale beef for sandwiches, sausages for pizza, and other prepared meats for close to a century, but has since closed its doors.
It's no accident that Al Ferrari founded his sandwich stand during the Great Depression, or that his inspiration for the sandwich stemmed from budget weddings. Italian beef sandwiches offer a thrifty way of cooking. Cheap cuts of beef, like those cattle yard workers had easy access to, are well suited to long hours braising in juicy gravy. The extra thin slices create a hefty size on the sandwiches, while all the beef jus adds weight.
Italian Beef began growing in popularity in the post-war years much like the cold cut heroes. Many Italian delis in the Chicagoland area sell Italian Beef sandwiches, but they don't all cook their own meat. Scala's was just one wholesaler while another was Vienna Beef, better known in the area for Chicago-style hot dogs.
As much as Chicago Italians loved their beef sandwiches, most being Catholic, they were prohibited from eating meat on Fridays, giving birth to the pepper and egg sandwich. The origins of the sandwich are disputed, but the Italian-style pepper and egg sandwich is perhaps most widely associated with Chicago's Italian American community. Ironically, it's also common in Philadelphia where Italians gave the world the Cheesesteak.
Al's Beef relocated from the original sandwich stand to its current location in 1962. In 1999, Chicago Franchise System bought the rights to sell franchises and a chain began to expand bringing Al's Beef to places like Las Vegas, NV.
Ultimately, Chicago Italian Beef is a lot like other foods in the Italian American tradition, an innovation fueled by the creativity of a group of immigrants.