'Jail dip' - Chicago snack leaves bad taste in the mouths of some Black residents

In mid-July, Joe's Kitchen, a convenience store on the city's West side, started stocking their shelves with 'Jail Dip', a dish inspired by meals inmates might fix for themselves using only items from a prison commissary.

“Noodles, rice, chilli, summer sausage, pickles, mayonnaise," said Kevin Watson, a lifelong Chicago resident who said he'd spent some time locked up and came to enjoy, and even miss, some of the food he'd eaten during that period. “It actually tastes good," said Watson. "Some people like to judge it beforehand, but if you actually taste it -- especially if the right person cooks it or makes it -- oh yeah, it’s the bomb."

Watson said he and his friends have been making the dish for themselves regularly for awhile.

The 37-year-old claims earlier this month, they brought the idea before the manager of Joe's Kitchen, and it wasn't long before 'Jail Dip' was on shelves.

But not everyone's pleased with the new item's name, nor the fact that it's being sold in Chicago's Austin community. According to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, roughly 78% of Austin residents are Black and the median income for 2015-2019 was less than $34,000 a year. 

“That isn’t cool, not at all, at least not to me and my family of Black sisters and brothers out here," said Abdul Johnson, a Chicago resident who calls the Austin neighbourhood home. "Don’t just put it in your store and call it ‘Jail Dip’, because a lot of people in the community have been to jail, especially a lot of brothers here.”

"Boycott that place, that’s what we should do," said Daniel Thornton, a fellow Black resident.

"If you don’t want it, you can walk past it," said Watson, when asked what he thought about negative reactions from some in the area. "If you do want it, you can get it and eat it. It’s not harming anybody in any way. I don’t understand why there’s a problem with it being here."