Voting Is Open! Time To Crown The Best Pork Chop Sandwich In IL

There are a few Stateline schools up for the grand prize that includes a golden spatula.

The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) has teamed up with the Pork Producers of Illinois to find the best pork chop sandwich being served up at a high school football game. The winning school will receive a championship banner, $500 worth of pork for the 2022 season, and a golden spatula. It's a very cool promotion, even if I have a problem with the golden spatula. I know what they're going for but any grill master worth their salt knows that tongs are the proper utensil to use while grilling pork. Spatulas are for burgers and maybe fish. But I digress.

Local Schools Up For The Prize

There are currently 79 schools entered for the final prize. They have been separated into 4 different regions. The top 4 from each reason will advance to the "Savory" 16. Those will be whittled down to the Flavorful 4 before an eventual champion is named during the State Championship games in Dekalb later this season.

The four regions have been named:

Berkshire Region
Duroc Region
Hampshire Region
Yorkshire Region

Why were the regions named that? I have no idea. I haven't even heard of Duroc before. [Does some googling] I don't really understand what I googled, but if you search Duroc, Illinois, you get Beyers Farms as the top result which is a massive pig farm in Illinois. Maybe these regions are where the biggest pig farms in Illinois are located? Not sure.

Anyway, the two regions we are concerned about in the area is the Yorkshire and Berkshire region. Yorkshire is where you can find Harlem, Sycamore, and Woodstock. The area schools of Rochelle, Sterling, Stillman Valley, and Winnebago can be found in the Berkshire Region.

Voting begins today, and you have until the end of the week to vote for your favorite.

I can only personally vouch for the pork chop sandwiches being served up at Harlem. They've been doing it for literally decades. I had one just 2 weeks ago and they're just as good now as they were in the 90s.

You can head over to their website now to place your vote. If any of these schools are still around for the Savory 16, we'll bring that to you next week.

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