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Chicago’s food history is rooted in the city’s very name. For “Chicago” is a variation on “chicagoua,” which was a Native American word used for the ramp, a seasonal delicacy that shows up on restaurant menus about now.

That word gained a geographical connotation related to what is now called the Chicago River “in recognition of the presence of wild leeks in the watershed,” wrote Ann Durkin Keating in “The Encyclopedia of Chicago.” French explorers in the late 17th century used the word “chicagou” to denote the land at the river’s mouth. Henri Joutel wrote about it in his journal in September 1687.

“We continued to march until Thursday the twenty-fifth, when we arrived at the said place called Chicagou, which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quality of garlic which grows in the forests in this region,” wrote Joutel in an entry translated from the French by John F. Swenson and included in his 1991 article on the etymology of Chicago published in the Illinois Historical Journal.

Joutel also wrote about the bounty of foods he found in Illinois, a country he described (per a 1906 edition in English of his journal) as a “one of the most temperate in the world and consequently whatsoever is sow’d there, whether Herbs, Roots, Indian and even European Corn thrives very well.” The explorer also notes the bread is “very good” and is hopeful the native grapes might make “very good wine” as well. “There is also Plenty of wild Apple and Pear Trees, and of several other Sorts, which would afford excellent Fruit, were they grafted and transplanted.”

About 100 years later, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable becomes the first permanent non-Native American settler of what will become Chicago. He is also the first black resident. Point du Sable’s farm was, as noted by the PBS website page for the film “Chicago: City of the Century,” the “only source of farmed produce” in the region. “In the years that the family lived there, they provided some stability to an area that was primarily frequented by peripatetic traders,” the web page reads. Point du Sable sold his holdings in 1800 and moved to Missouri.

But the story of Chicago’s food and drink history had begun, with contributions from the many peoples who’ve settled here along Lake Michigan — and continue to arrive.

For more historic moments in Chicago food history, click through the photo gallery above.

Sources: The Encyclopedia of Chicago, Chicago food historian Bruce Kraig, baiduhai archives, USDA, Frito-Lay, “The Berghoff Family Cookbook.”

[email protected]

Twitter @billdaley

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