South Dakota’s ‘State Nosh’ Is Meaty and Magnificent
The New York Times | Freeman, South Dakota
Chislic isn’t a hard sell. “It’s meat nuggets with garlic salt, on a saltine, with a cold Busch Light,” said Jon Lauck, a Midwest-focused historian who lives in Sioux Falls, S.D. Historically made from mutton, but now just as often beef, skewered or loose, deep-fried or griddled, it has obvious appeal as a bar snack or appetizer. And yet, it’s hardly crossed state lines outside of South Dakota. Kenny Konrad has sold sheep chislic out of Kaylor Locker — a meat locker in a South Dakota town of thirty people — since the 1960s. Writer Jed Portman's New York Times feature traces how far the dish has drifted from Konrad's version since then: skewered mutton, deep-fried and garlic-salted, giving way across most of the state to loose beef off a flat-top griddle.
The assignment covered three stops across two days: Kaylor Locker, where Konrad still cubes and skewers sheep by hand; Meridian Corner, a roadhouse outside Freeman where manager Abby Streyle fries chislic the traditional way, on a stick; and Sheep Flockers, a Sioux Falls-area food truck where three-time Chislic Festival winner Kyle Sturzenbecher serves his loose, mutton-forward take.
Three subjects, three very different rooms: a butcher shop's cold fluorescent light, a food truck's hard midday sun, a bar's warm neon glow — origin, tradition, evolution.
The piece was published Aug. 14, 2026, in The New York Times Food and Cooking section.