We’re getting close to warm weather grilling season and the age old question comes to mind, “How do you top your dog?” Well, in Cincinnati, there’s only one answer to that question – with sauerkraut, of course. And, by dog we mean Cincinnati Brat. Be it warm or cold, sweet or spicy, with or without caraway seed or pineapple, sauerkraut is Cincinnati’s number one ‘dog’ condiment. And although our bland American Vlassic version is the now de facto standard, there are local Ohio companies like the Pickled Pig, Fabulous Ferments, and Cleveland Kraut, bringing us back to the non-pasteurized, tasty fermented versions of our original Germanic ancestors. Sauerkraut is at the Red’s stadium and certainly all the outdoor festivals. But for the rest of the nation, there are different pickled condiments that top dogs and other meat sammies.
I’ll go on the record by saying my preferred brat toppings are threefold – creamy hot horseradish, cold crunchy sauerkraut with caraway seed, and spicy Dusseldorf mustard. I’m maybe a bit of a color matcher with my condiments– red goes with red (ie. Ketchup with hot dogs and metts), yellow or white goes with white (ie horseradish, kraut and Cincinnati brats).
And what makes a good American pickled relish? Is it super chunky or smooth and homogenized? Is it sweet and sour or sour and bitter? Is it green, yellow, red, or brown? Is it crunchy or gloppy? These answers are bundled into the individual regional tastes and their legacy relishes.
And one last question. Is there an American relish geographical line that goes diagonally from Texas to the Pacific Northwest, under which salsa and chili sauces prevail over pickled condiments?
According to Statista in 2021 Mayonnaise was the top selling American condiment, followed by Ranch Dressing, ketchup, salsa/chili sauces, mustard and relish last. Other reports say that in the last few years both salsa and sriracha have surpassed ketchup in condiment sales. But our OG American condiment, pickle relish, keeps getting pushed further and further down the chain.
According to the Cincinnati German Pioneer Association, the first commercial producer of sauerkraut in Cincinnati was an immigrant from a village called Rulzheim am Klingbacke in the Palatinate – Nikolaus Hoeffer (1810-1875). His father Georg Franz was a poor linen weaver and subsistence farmer and Nikolaus helped out the family after school and learned how to make one of the staples – sauerkraut. When he immigrated with his family in 1832, they carried with them their prized kraut cutter – basically what we would call a mandolin – which cuts the cabbage into thin slices for fermentation. He sold kraut by the barrel to German and the Anglican immigrants of Cincinnati, with whom kraut became a popular side. They also needed some digestive aid with their heavy meals of Welsh rarebit, Scottish haggis, English meat pies and dense Irish Colcannon.
At the turn of the last century, if you were to step into a Findlay Market pickle stall, you’d see a lot more variety in sauerkraut. Scanning advertisements from some of those Findlay market sauerkraut vendors, we see there were other varieties of kraut, including turnip kraut, ‘sour heads’, and red cabbage.
Another Germanic immigrant, Theodore Kunkel opened his pickle and sauerkraut stand at Findlay Market with the market opening in 1852. According to family lore, Theo had been caught hunting on the Kaiser’s land and deported. His stand sold a kraut cornucopia of turnip kraut, sauerkraut, and pickled beets, beans, and onions.
Turnip kraut, called sauerruben in Germany, has a different flavor than sauerkraut. It can be made with shredded turnips or rutabagas, or a combination of both. It has a sweet- radish-like or mustardy bite that mellows over time. Many Germans like it better than the standard sauerkraut. This is a version of kraut that didn’t stand the product test of time, at least in Cincinnati.
Sour heads are harder to find these days. Kaiser Foods used to make and package sour heads up into the late 1980s, but no longer make them. They’re a pickled whole head of cabbage that originated from Eastern Europe, in particular, Bosnia. The Bosnians use the whole pickled leaf in their stuffed cabbage, called sarma.
Red Cabbage, or rotkuhl in German, is even another variety. It’s a sweet and sour version of sauerkraut, using red cabbage and is often seen accompanying sauerbraten or schnitzel and a side of spaetzli, the German macaroni. It’s my favorite and why we don’t use red cabbage to make sauerkraut balls or as a topper on brats is a mystery to me.
So what is Tyroler kraut that Herr Hoeffer brought to Cincinnati with his cutter? It’s pretty simple and probably the grandfather of the one that we are all most familiar. Tyroler kraut uses cider vinegar, white cabbage, natural sea salt and caraway seeds. Most say that Austrian or Tyroler kraut is a bit sweeter than typical American sauerkraut like Vlassic stuff, which I say is pretty bland and unflavorful. I was raised on sweeter krauts – my mom always sliced up an apple to stew with the kraut she used to pair with our pork loin or other mains and Germania throws in pineapple bits with theirs for an acidic sweetness.
Before ketchup and now salsa or sriracha took the number one used condiment, Americans used pickled relishes to top their flavorless boiled and grilled meats. Relishes go back to the late 1700s, but gained popularity in the 1850s in America. Pickling was one of the best ways to preserve your veg for the winter, usually in a vinegary salt or sugared brine. The sweet and tang gave flavor to the usually bland dishes of early American cuisine.
These evolved into regional pickled toppings for dogs. There is Chicago’s neon green pickle relish and Italian Giardiniera. There is New Orleans’ Sicilian olive salad muffaletta topping. There’s the South’s many versions of Chow-Chow, and the northern Amish equivalent. There’s New York City’s sweet onion relish. There’s Canada’s ketchup vert. And of course, there’s Cincinnati’s sauerkraut.
The American pickle relish family tree starts like most food stories with a Germanic American immigrant named Heinrich Johann Heinz. In 1869 Heinz and a partner opened Anchor Pickle and Vinegar Works, the same year the Cincinnati Red Stockings threw out their first pitch. For the first few years, business prospered, employing in 1872 one hundred workers and selling sauerkraut, pickles, vinegar, and horseradish under the name of Heinz, Noble and Company.
Horseradish can be considered a niche subset of pickled relishes because it is typically only used on roast beef, pastrami or corned beef. Coming originally from Russia and Ukraine, it is rarely used as a dog topper unless by a horseradish aficionado, like myself. Interestingly enough, Americans like heat on their tongues and throats but not in their nasal passages. I like that the heat of horseradish goes away, while the capsicum heat from a pepper stays and burns a hole in your tongue.
H. J. Heinz company had been producing a relish called Chow-chow since the 1870s. Chow-Chow is a southern born catch-all relish. Recipes for Chow-chow from South Carolina date back to 1770. It’s a relish made from chopped green tomatoes, cabbage, mustard seed, onions, hot and sweet peppers in (usually) white vinegar. Variations can contain cucumbers, celery, carrots, beans, asparagus, corn and cauliflower. It has always been a chunky, non-pureed relish.
Heinz made a deal with luxury UK retailer Fortnum & Mason in 1886 introducing Heinz baked beans to the UK, which made it into the traditional English breakfast and catapulted Heinz into the British market.
Two years after introducing the UK to American baked beans, they introduced a sour pickle relish called Piccalilli. Legend has it that the recipe originated with Napolean’s chef. It was a mix of green tomatoes, gherkin pickles, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, turmeric, mustard, vinegar, and spices having a bright yellow color, rather than the green of today’s pickle relish. It, however was not as popular as the relish Heinz introduced the next year. British today use Piccalilli to go with eggs, toast, and sausage. There’s even a rare piccalilli made in a former Dutch Colony called Surinamese Picalilli made with garlic, sambal, and Madam Jeanette peppers.
The India Relish Heinz introduced to the U.S. and British in 1889 was loosely based on chutneys of India, then part of the British Empires. It was a sugared and vinegared mix of pickled cucumbers, green tomatoes, cauliflower, white onions, red bell peppers, celery, mustard seed cinnamon and allspice. Pickle relishes in India contained in addition to the American relish ingredients sesame oil, lemon juice, ginger, and garlic.
Heinz also started making a relish called Ploughman’s Pickle, because it was typically part of the traditional ploughman’s lunch of bread, cheese, cold cuts, and fruit. While Heinz still makes the Ploughman’s Pickle and India Relish, mostly for the British Market, Branston Pickle made by Crosse & Blackwall is the most popular British ‘pickle.’ Named after the small village near Burton, Staffordshire, Crosse & Blackwell first produced Branston Pickle in 1922, the same year the Kiradjieffs invented Cincinnati Style chili.
The recipe had been made locally in homes for many years and was purchased in 1921 from a local woman named Mrs. Caroline Graham, who lived at Branston Lodge and made it with her daughters Evelyn and Ermuntrude. Mrs. Graham was a biological researcher, and this knowledge helped her find the perfect blend and ratio of its 23 ‘secret’ ingredients. Those ingredients include carrots, gherkins (pickles), marrows (squash), courgette (zucchini), onion, rutabaga and tomatoes. It also contains some sweet fruits like apples and dates. In addition to the preservatives of vinegar, lemon juice salt and sugar it contains cloves, coriander, mustard seed, cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper and cayenne. Malt vinegar is the acid of choice and finds its way into may other UK condiments. It seems the British palate is accepting of sour and bitter paired together, at least more so than the American palette – we are more into sweet and sour. To me the biggest flavor of Branston pickle is the malted, brown-sugary flavor as if the HP sauce were made into a chunky chutney, or if mincemeat pie filling were made more savory and less chunky. For me it seems too rich for a cold cut Sammie, but might be a good topping for a pork loin.
Getting back to chow-chow – it’s origin remains somewhat of a debate. Some say that it found its way to the Southern United States during the expulsion of the Acadian people from Novia Scotia to their settlement in Louisiana. Is that where Evangeline went and separated from her love Gabriel who found his way to Louisiana’s Acadia? Some suggest the name chow comes from the French word chou for cabbage. But there’s also an Acadian dish called maque choux, which is a warm and spicy mix of corn and peppers. It is thought to be an amalgam of Creole and Native American cultural influence, and the name is likely to derive from the French interpretation of the Native American name. It contains corn, green bell pepper, onion, and sometimes garlic, celery, okra, and tomato, but no cabbage or chou.
Chowchow is simply a cold, pickled vegetable relish. And, there are two main varieties of this relish. There’s a Northern style and the more famous Southern version. Southern varieties usually contain some combination of bell peppers, sweet onions, green or red tomatoes, and cabbage, while Northern versions that originated with the Amish communities of Pennsylvania contain other veggies like cauliflower, carrots, or beans. Amish chowchow is also typically made with a sweeter brine.
A lesser-known variation of chowchow is found in Canada’s Maritime provinces and is made almost entirely from green tomatoes and onions. It’s sometimes called ketchup vert or green ketchup. In the maritime provinces like Novia Scotia, it’s served on salt cod. In Prince Edward Island, it’s served over their fish cakes, over casseroles and with beans. In Ontario it’s served on cold roast beef. And in Quebec it goes with tourtier, the French Canadian meat pie.
Even among Southern states, there is much debate about what goes into chowchow. Alabama barbecue restaurant Full Moon jokes on its menu that chowchow is “a spicy sweet relish that is a staple in Southern kitchens and a source of fierce (and usually friendly) competition at county fairs.”
The Old Mill in Tennessee, one of the oldest continually operating grist mills in the country that has its own restaurant, sells six varieties of chowchow, from Vidalia onion flavor to a super spicy version. But, in Tennessee, chowchow is specifically made with apple cider vinegar instead of the more commonly used white vinegar.
Chow chow as a condiment appears to be more versatile than other regional pickled relishes. In addition to being dolloped on top of burgers, dogs and brats, it’s also used in potato salad, tuna salad, macaroni salad, deviled eggs, on pulled pork or sloppy joes, and mixed with cream cheese for a dip.
Ok then we have the Italian and Sicilian influence on American pickled relish condiments. Any Chicagoan knows that a proper Chicago dog is an all beef frankfurter such as Vienna Beef lain in a poppy seed roll, topped with yellow mustard, neon-green sweet pickle relish, chopped white onions, tomato slices, a dill pickle spear, pickled sport peppers and celery salt. With all that bring and sour, one wonders if the inventor had just lost his taste from the Spanish Flu or Covid!
The unique color of the relish, often referred to as “neon green,” is created by additing blue dye to regular green pickle relish. The first use of Chicago-style neon-green relish on a dog has been attributed to different restaurants, including Fluky’s and Superdawg just around midcentury. There’s no good explanation of why the blue color was added to the relish, but mid-century America was the age of neon signs and bright Art Deco color, so maybe that is some of the reasoning.
And each of the ingredients on a Chicago dog are a nod to the main immigrant groups – Polish and Eastern Europeans, Germans, Italians and Ashkenazi Jewish. It’s a cornucopia of the Chicago immigration story.
Another purely Italian adder to hot dogs in Chicago is called Giardiniera. It’s an oil preserved condiment that’s similar to the New Orleans olive salad served on muffaletta (Italian preserved meats sammies). The only difference is that Chicago giardiniera has more veg like carrots, cauliflower and celery than its New Orleans Sicilian cousin. The most popular version of the muffaletta olive salad is made by New Orleans’ Central Grocery, the supposed inventor of the muffaletta sandwich.
There are other regional pickled condiments for use as dog toppers. Tony Packos, the Eastern European sausage restaurant in Toledo, Ohio, has a combo mustard relish, as does Mt Olive. There are also kraut-mustard combos made by gourmet brands like Fischer & Wieser.
New York City’s ‘dirty water dog’ hot dog push cart vendors use a special sweet onion relish, along with sauerkraut and brown mustard to top their local dogs. This New York style onion relish is usually made with sweet Vidalia onions, ketchup, hot sauce, cinnamon and chili powder and has a red color rather than a green or yellow like most other relishes.
I’ll admit that I am a huge fan of the mint chutney that is the third to the spicy onion and tamarind chutneys served as condiments in today’s Indian restaurants. And I might go off my color-matched condiment modus by mixing the two on a hot dog. I think that would be amazing. I’ll call it Dann’s India Dog.
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