Ah, the hot dog.
The meat tube. The ol’ lips-and-anuses sausage. Subject of an inordinate amount of adult scorn, and the hamburger’s perennial second fiddle on the grill.
Except, maybe, on the Fourth of July.
It’s weird how this time of year rekindles our love of something many grown-ups don’t even consider putting into their bodies unless it’s a million degrees outside and fireworks are in the offing. Or maybe it's not so weird after all — the Fourth is, after all, a quintessentially American holiday, and while both Frankfurt and Vienna claim the frankfurter (or “wienerwurst”) as their own, the hot dog as we know it has been around in the States since the mid-1800s, and long ago joined apple pie and baseball in the pantheon of things most American. (Sorry, cart-pushing German immigrants. But the U.S. assimilated you, too, so maybe we can call this one a draw.)
Perhaps it’s the whole youthful aspect of the Fourth itself. We’re out of work, playing outside in the sun or the pool or even the sprinkler, getting ready to ooh and aah at some pretty lights in the sky. There’s a young innocence to the day, the Revolutionary War notwithstanding, so why not indulge in a cheap, tasty food that reminds many of us of earlier years?
Also, it’s hard to screw up a hot dog, in both the cooking and accessorizing departments.
Like it just warmed through? No problem. Do you prefer yours difficult to distinguish from a charcoal briquette? Done. Somewhere in the middle? Grill marks it is. If you want to show off your grilling prowess with some pre-steamed brats or slow-smoked ribs, that’s your business; if you want to feed two dozen people who’ve been drinking beer and sangria since the clock hit double digits and you’re a little unsure about your burger game, hot dogs are the way to go.
And once they’re off the grill, the sky’s the limit.
There are the classics. Mustard. Onions. Sauerkraut. Sweet relish. Chili. All the Chicago-style fixin’s.
Then there are the slightly more edgy, but still perfectly acceptable options. Hot sauces. Slaws. Jalapeños. Pickled peppers. A multi-hued variety of cheeses and cheese sauces. Bacon. Those cooked onions in red sauce you find in the jar at the supermarket or the hot dog stand in front of the Home Depot on 22nd Avenue North in St. Pete (always one of the best dogs in town, BTW).
And finally, you’ve got your even more modern esoteric/daring/fusion concoctions that might cause purists to turn up their noses even as they’re turning on more open-minded gastronauts. Kimchi. Pork belly. (Both are available on current dog incarnations at another St. Pete location, Engine Rose.) Cucumber and tomato salad. Mac & cheese. Peanut butter and jelly. Salted caramel.
OK, so maybe salted caramel is beyond the pale. But the point is, hot dogs can be as traditional or as challenging as the diner wants — that cylinder of questionable meat parts lying on that bun (so easy to handle!) is a blank canvas, just waiting for culinary expression. There’s nothing that can’t go on there.
Except ketchup, of course. Don’t ever do that.
Before you ask, we don’t know for sure where the whole “don’t ever put ketchup on a hot dog ever never ever” thing came from, and the CL office seems pretty divided on the subject. But it’s there — many hot dog vendors refuse to offer the condiment at all, and the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council’s official etiquette guide to eating hot dogs (!) clearly states that putting ketchup on a hot dog is unacceptable after the age of 18. (Other interesting points of etiquette from the NHD&SC: “dress the dog, not the bun” when applying condiments; don’t take more than five bites to figure a regulation-size wiener; eat every bit of bun, leaving nothing on the plate.)
An August 1991 installment of long-running arcane-trivia column The Straight Dope attributes the rule to the idea among connoisseurs that the sugars in the ketchup obliterate the taste of the hot dog, rendering it flavorlessly bland.
But you know what? It’s your Fourth, and if the sight of a hot dog puffing up and crackling on the grill brings to mind the giddy memory of a satisfying, ketchup-slathered dog from your younger summer days, then go nuts. We won’t judge… so long as you return the favor and not say anything about the way we’ve wrapped our entire dog and bun in bacon and are trying to drop it into a fryer without burning ourselves.
Happy Fourth!
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2015.