Event Tue Jul 17 2007

Pitch Fork-Full

By Andie Cavedo

Another summer, another Pitchfork. The out-of-town hipsters have cleared out and the empty WaterPlus bottles have been cleared from the field at Union Park, and the Chicago music scene takes a breather before Lollapalooza. Much has already been said in other, more appropriate forums about great performances despite the sound problems, the calm and happy crowd, and Of Montreal lead singer Kevin Barnes's outfit (or lack thereof) so let us turn our hymnals, children, to Festival Food and the Urban Music Scene.

While I admit I am drawn moth-like to the seductive flame of the cheese curd, wherever it may be purveyed, I tried to at least shop around for my afternoon Pitchfork sustenance. The number of vendors was up from last year, and included local stand-by's Wishbone and Connie's Pizza, as well as two separate curry tents (up from last year's single booth), a Whole Foods mini-market, beer rep Goose Island, a Big Bite catering stop, and several more. The most mysterious, to my unfamiliar palate, and charmingly staged, however was the Cevapcici booth.

If it's not clear above, the banner advertises the recipe: 1/2 beef, 1/4 lamb (sheep?), 1/4 pork, garlic and salt and pepper, dished up on a fresh baked roll with raw onions and a vivid red pepper and eggplant sauce. A little cryptic, perhaps, and while I tend to shy away from overly opaque ingredient lists, the basic idea of cevapcici comes clear when you see it being grilled over a hot bed of coals. Like a cross between meat loaf and sausage, and perhaps the classier cousin of cafeteria "mystery meat," cevapcici is derived from the Turkish kebab, and sprung up as a popular food along the Adriatic coast. The combination of beef and pork is more characteristic of the Macedonian variety called kebapi. Lamb seems to be an extra, though obviously welcome addition to the standard recipe. At Pitchfork, it was served sandwich style in a single leaf of aluminum foil, putting the neighboring Cheese Curd and Fair Food Emporium's styrofoam trays and limp, character-less hamburger buns to shame.

Of course, in the clutches of the eating frenzy and ensuing food coma (not pictured here) that the cevapcici visited upon us, we forgot to ask who exactly had thought to put it up for sale. There are several restaurants in Chicago that serve up cevapcici, however, if you're curious:

Ilidzanka
2547 W. Lawrence Ave.
(773) 275-2707

Balkan Restaurant
2321 W. Lawrence Ave.
(773) 878-7764

Fontana Bosnian Bakery and Grill
3424 W. Irving Park
(773) 279-9359

Or just wait till Pitckfork next year. Given the success of the curry stands, maybe two cevapcici stands will pop up next year.