For all the things the neighborhood has symbolized - Chicago's Eastern-European heritage, racism, white flight and a growing Hispanic population - it's easy to forget that Marquette Park is named after the largest park on the Southwest Side.
Stretching for a mile between South California Avenue and the Grand Trunk Western train tracks along Central Park, between 67th and 71st streets, the wide-open expanse beckons with soccer fields, a golf course, field house and lagoons. It's a main gathering place for residents of Marquette Park, the neighborhood, as well as folks from Chicago Lawn and Lithuanian Plaza. The latter - the last of the pre-World War II neighborhoods to evolve out of the Union Stockyards and Chicago's thriving meat-packing industry - has traditionally been the home of the city's Lithuanian Americans. Their reputations marred by race riots in nearby Gage Park in 1972, and an infamous incident in 1966 when Martin Luther King Jr. was struck by a thrown rock during a civil rights march, the areas around the park have since settled into a relatively calm co-existence of whites, blacks, Hispanics, and others.
Although the Lithuanian community was long noted for its ability to keep its culture and language thriving through local churches, events, restaurants and other businesses, a walk along the 6700-7100 blocks of South Washtenaw, Talman or Maplewood reveals that the fabric has weakened. In the past few years, several traditional restaurants have disappeared from the 71st Street strip just east of the park. Luckily, though, there are still a few eateries that carry on the Lithuanian taste traditions, places where you can still go to gorge yourself for (much) less than ten bucks.
Lunch at Sekylcia, 2711 West 71st, is like eating in a Lithuanian dining room - large plates and saucers and bowls and cups keep emerging from the kitchen. In addition to traditional entrées such as kugelis (a potato, egg and meat pudding meant for the famished), naliesinkai (meat-filled blintzes), dumplings (choose from meat, cheese or mushroom) and blynai (fruit, cheese or potato pancakes), the diner offers several daily specials.
Go on Wednesday, for beef stew, a hearty plate of lean beef tips in a thick, rich brown gravy, with celery, peas and sweet carrots - all served with a generous scoop of thick mashed potatoes. An incredible deal at $5.95 (as are most of the dinners, also available for lunch), the meal comes with an enormous bowl of soup (try the wonderful chilled borscht, a bright and creamy pink, with darker slivers of beets floating in it; it's as delightful to the eye as to the tongue), a basket of fresh dark and fruit breads; boiled potato; and salad bar. By the end of the meal you might want to throw the offered dessert tray, with its petite saucers of puddings, Jell-O, fruit cups and Danish-style pastries, back from whence it came.
Sekylcia is also the place if you're in the mood for a good, old-fashioned sausage-and-kraut plate. Freshly ground, with very little fat and a wonderfully solid (rather than crumbly or mushy) texture, these homemade sausages sing with just the right amount of spices. They're served with a little cup of schzawn, the powerful and coarse version of horseradish sauce sure to open your sinuses.
You'll encounter many of the same tasty options across the street at Neringa, 2632 West 71st, which shares a building with the Lithuanian Community Center. The slightly livelier atmosphere seems to attract a younger crowd than Sekylcia. The other main difference is that here you have to choose between soup or salad with your meal. Skip the iceberg wedges, and be sure to try the sauerkraut soup. This isn't the mild cabbage soup other restaurants try to pass off as kraut. Neringa's version is a near-perfect meeting of sweet and tangy, with crispy cabbage strips and carrot slices floating in a redolent broth given extra oomph by the addition of cloves. Here, too, they offer kugelis, naliesinkai (as well as naliesinkai su varske - with cheese), koldunai (dumplings), and homemade Lithuanian sausage. Highly recommended are the blynai, particularly the potato ones. No modest coins these, Neringa's potato cakes are deep-fried to a golden crisp on the outside (in the South, these would no doubt be called "chicken-fried hash browns") yet they still maintain a satisfying chewiness in the middle.
If you can't get into the perky, Western European-meets-Abba disco that seems to play non-stop during lunch, you can always grab a sandwich to go (try the roast duck or roast pork) and walk on over to picnic-friendly Marquette Park.
But for the ultimate Lithuanian picnic experience, stop by Nida Delicatessen, 2617 West 71st, for cheap and tasty sandwiches made with homemade bread and fresh-cut meats. After you've eaten your fill in the park, walk off the meal with a couple-block trek to the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, 6500 South Pulaski, the largest institution of its kind outside the motherland. In addition to housing a comprehensive collection of antiques, art, artifacts, literature and memorabilia, the museum also features an art gallery of exhibits by contemporary Lithuanian and American artists. When you're done taking it all in, maybe you'll be ready for a dish of rice pudding after all.
(Shelly Ridenour)
copyright 1998 New City Communications, Inc.