National Hot Dog Day
Happy National Hot Dog Day, everybody! What’s that you say? You didn’t know that today, July 20th, was National Hot Dog Day? 
Well neither did I until about 20 minutes ago, but that’s not stopping me from taking some time this afternoon to give a shout out to one of the greatest culinary inventions in American history. Ok, so technically they were invented by the Germans or the Austrians or whatever. But, as the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC) notes in their 2005 Hot Dog Planning Guide:
“Sausage makers from Vienna, Austria (where the term ‘wiener’ originates) and Frankfurt, Germany (where the name ‘frankfurter’ was created) are credited with bringing their unique concoctions to the United States. But is was Americans who popularized the hot dog on a bun…And it is in this American spirit that the NHDSC celebrates a true cultural icon. Whether you choose to call it a frank, a wiener, a furter, a dog or anything else—HOT DOGS taste great!”
Sponsored by the tastefully named American Meat Institute, the NHDSC website is conveniently located at Hot-Dog.org and is chock full of useless knowledge on America’s favorite phallic meat product.
Features include the complete history of the hot dog (abridged), from its roots in the 9th Century B.C. to today; the sordid tale of the coining of the canine-inspired moniker, and even the garish truth on how hot dogs are made using ingredients such as “specially selected meat trimmings” and “curing ingredients“. Like a good chili dog, this section is not recommended for the weak-willed…or the weak-stomached.
Hot-Dog.org’s press room provides numerous—though tragically outdated—links to hot dog related news stories from around the world. Like the rest of the news media, the real hot button topics and latest critical information is found in blogs (myself excluded). For breaking hot dog news, I suggest pointing your browser to Watch Me Eat a Hot Dog, whose constantly updated righthand column is chock full of stories about bikinied wiener vendors in Shapleigh, Maine, turkey dogs with all the trimmings in Anacortes, Washington and, of course the world famous Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog-Eating Contest in Coney Island, New York.
I was fortunate enough to catch the Contest this year as it was televised on ESPN. Going in, I had my doubts. I’d heard about Kobyashi (his friends call ‘em “Koby”)
and the way he has dispatched his oversized competition over the past few years, but I wondered a bit about the effect that consuming 50 hot dogs would have on a frail little Japanese guy like him. Moreover, I worried about how the crowd would treat an outsider, a gaijin in his own right, dominating in a thoroughly American pastime such as overindulgence of animal byproducts. And even more than that, I thought that ESPN televising poker was stretching the definition of the word “sport” a little thin, never mind the idea that “competitive eating” could be considered vaguely athletic. But after spending an hour (actually, 40 minutes thanks to Tivo) of my life sitting through hokey vignettes about the hey-day of Coney Island and the invention of the Foot Long and Koby’s previous triumphs, followed by 12 minutes of watching 20 competitors stuff as many dogs down their gullets as possible (most first dunking the dogs & buns in water, milk or—in one especially nauseating instance—an Arnold Palmer) I can tell you with absolute certainty that I was totally, completely, 100% right. It was insane, disgusting, and worst of all, the biggest waste of perfectly good hot dogs since the great Oscar Meyer Wienermobile crash of ’84. 
In fact, the entire experience would have been a total wash had it not been for Sonya Thomas, aka "The Black Widow", a relative newcomer to the world of competitive eating who brought a measure of quiet dignity, grace, and exquisite beauty back to the competition in a way that only a hundred pound woman devouring thirty-seven hot dogs can. She will be mine. Oh yes. She will be mine.
But enough about the dark, seedy side of the wiener business. Now is a time to celebrate the culinary marvel that is the hot dog! So get out there and barbeque, boil, bake or broil (or, if you are inclined to simplicity over alliteration, toast)your way to gastronomic jubilation. Go to Pink’s or Superdawg or The Varsity. Bring a friend. Grab a Hebrew National or a Vienna Beef dog. Slather ‘em with mustard or relish, onions or sauerkraut, chili or cheese or fried cornmeal or guacamole & sour cream…or all of the above.
Just don’t ask what’s in ‘em.
Well neither did I until about 20 minutes ago, but that’s not stopping me from taking some time this afternoon to give a shout out to one of the greatest culinary inventions in American history. Ok, so technically they were invented by the Germans or the Austrians or whatever. But, as the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC) notes in their 2005 Hot Dog Planning Guide: “Sausage makers from Vienna, Austria (where the term ‘wiener’ originates) and Frankfurt, Germany (where the name ‘frankfurter’ was created) are credited with bringing their unique concoctions to the United States. But is was Americans who popularized the hot dog on a bun…And it is in this American spirit that the NHDSC celebrates a true cultural icon. Whether you choose to call it a frank, a wiener, a furter, a dog or anything else—HOT DOGS taste great!”
Sponsored by the tastefully named American Meat Institute, the NHDSC website is conveniently located at Hot-Dog.org and is chock full of useless knowledge on America’s favorite phallic meat product.
Features include the complete history of the hot dog (abridged), from its roots in the 9th Century B.C. to today; the sordid tale of the coining of the canine-inspired moniker, and even the garish truth on how hot dogs are made using ingredients such as “specially selected meat trimmings” and “curing ingredients“. Like a good chili dog, this section is not recommended for the weak-willed…or the weak-stomached.Hot-Dog.org’s press room provides numerous—though tragically outdated—links to hot dog related news stories from around the world. Like the rest of the news media, the real hot button topics and latest critical information is found in blogs (myself excluded). For breaking hot dog news, I suggest pointing your browser to Watch Me Eat a Hot Dog, whose constantly updated righthand column is chock full of stories about bikinied wiener vendors in Shapleigh, Maine, turkey dogs with all the trimmings in Anacortes, Washington and, of course the world famous Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog-Eating Contest in Coney Island, New York.
I was fortunate enough to catch the Contest this year as it was televised on ESPN. Going in, I had my doubts. I’d heard about Kobyashi (his friends call ‘em “Koby”)
and the way he has dispatched his oversized competition over the past few years, but I wondered a bit about the effect that consuming 50 hot dogs would have on a frail little Japanese guy like him. Moreover, I worried about how the crowd would treat an outsider, a gaijin in his own right, dominating in a thoroughly American pastime such as overindulgence of animal byproducts. And even more than that, I thought that ESPN televising poker was stretching the definition of the word “sport” a little thin, never mind the idea that “competitive eating” could be considered vaguely athletic. But after spending an hour (actually, 40 minutes thanks to Tivo) of my life sitting through hokey vignettes about the hey-day of Coney Island and the invention of the Foot Long and Koby’s previous triumphs, followed by 12 minutes of watching 20 competitors stuff as many dogs down their gullets as possible (most first dunking the dogs & buns in water, milk or—in one especially nauseating instance—an Arnold Palmer) I can tell you with absolute certainty that I was totally, completely, 100% right. It was insane, disgusting, and worst of all, the biggest waste of perfectly good hot dogs since the great Oscar Meyer Wienermobile crash of ’84. 
In fact, the entire experience would have been a total wash had it not been for Sonya Thomas, aka "The Black Widow", a relative newcomer to the world of competitive eating who brought a measure of quiet dignity, grace, and exquisite beauty back to the competition in a way that only a hundred pound woman devouring thirty-seven hot dogs can. She will be mine. Oh yes. She will be mine.But enough about the dark, seedy side of the wiener business. Now is a time to celebrate the culinary marvel that is the hot dog! So get out there and barbeque, boil, bake or broil (or, if you are inclined to simplicity over alliteration, toast)your way to gastronomic jubilation. Go to Pink’s or Superdawg or The Varsity. Bring a friend. Grab a Hebrew National or a Vienna Beef dog. Slather ‘em with mustard or relish, onions or sauerkraut, chili or cheese or fried cornmeal or guacamole & sour cream…or all of the above.
Just don’t ask what’s in ‘em.
posted by bd @ 7/20/2005 07:07:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home