The Chicago: Food Encyclopedia by Carol Mighton Haddix Bruce Kraig Colleen Taylor Sen & Russell Lewis

Author:Carol Mighton Haddix, Bruce Kraig, Colleen Taylor Sen & Russell Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Contributors: Ellen F. Steinberg and Jack H. Prost

See also: Delicatessens; Germans; Maxwell Street Market; Russians

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Deutsch, Jonathan, and Rachel D. Saks. Jewish American Food Culture. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Steinberg, Ellen, and Jack Prost. From the Jewish Heartland: Two Centuries of Midwest Foodways. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011.

Jibarito

Jibarito means country bumpkin in Puerto Rican Spanish. But in Chicago dining circles, starting in 1996, it came to mean something more—specifically, two smashed and fried green plantains sandwiching seared steak, mayonnaise, American cheese, lettuce, and tomato. The whole thing is topped with a smear of fragrant garlic oil and eaten hot.

Although dozens of restaurants around the country now serve the jibarito, or jibaro, its origins stem from a small restaurant in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood called Borinquen. This original California Avenue location closed in 2014, but other Borinquens remain around the city.

As Borinquen's owner Juan C. Figueroa tells it, he had run a series of failed liquor stores and was ready to call it a day on Borinquen as well. But then one day, he was leafing through a Puerto Rican newspaper where he saw a recipe for a sandwich using fried green plantains (or large tostones) for the bread. He cooked one for his visiting father, who requested another and another over the following days, and suggested Figueroa put it on the menu. When he did, it became an instant hit with customers, baseball players, and foodies all over the city. When competitors duplicated the sandwich, complete with the name, Figueroa started serving it with extras, a side of rice and pigeon peas, which he continues to do today.

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