Ghetto was the nickname of an employee of Max’s Italian Beef restaurant on Chicago’s North Side. Six or seven years ago, Ghetto came up with a wild combo of French fries topped with the carnivorous natural gravy used on Italian beef, plus barbecue sauce, plus Merkt’s cheese, plus giardiniera, plus chopped onions, plus hot peppers. The kitchen-sink dish was dubbed Ghetto fries after its creator, and everything was copasetic until 2005, when a local television station, apparently on a slow news day, aired a story noting that some customers were “raising their eyebrows” at the possible offensiveness of the name. The story raised no eyebrows whatsoever, except for one blogger who suggested that if “the word ‘ghetto’ is politically incorrect, we should now refer to them as ‘low-income housing’ fries.”
Ghetto fries likely never will be known by their P.C. name, “low-income housing fries.”