According to this article on L.A.'s hot dog scene, New York is the number one hot dog town in the nation. Not surprising, right? Dirty dogs, as my friend Dottie calls them, rule the street corners of Manhattan. You can get plump dogs slathered in sweet onion sauce at Katz's; you can nosh on snappy kosher franks at the resurrected 2nd Ave. Deli; there are as many riffs on Gray's Papaya as there are on (Original?) Ray's Pizza; if you really want to rub it into atherosclerosis's face, you can always go to Crif Dogs for the disgustingly magical Spicy Redneck*, a bacon-wrapped, deep-fried wiener smothered in chili, coleslaw, and pickled jalapenos to cut the grease. (I have eaten more of those in my life than I would dare to admit to an insurance investigator.)
I can't say I'm so discerning about hot dogs. I mean, if it's spiced right, dyed pink and moistened with mustard, what do I care if it's made of tofu instead of cow scraps? So I don't think I'll miss them too much.
My favorite dogs are Violet Hill Farms' hot dogs, which I hear they sell from a cart called Dogmatic on Bleecker St. these days. When I was in Thailand in 2003, I had, believe it or not, fish hot dogs, nitrate-free, which we ate for breakfast with soup and sticky rice. And they were DELICIOUS. Wrap your head around that.
In this episode of Radio Lab (my latest obsession), Jad Abumrad talks to a guy at the Fresh Kills landfill who says a core sample uncovered a 10 year old, intact, totally recognizable hot dog. Our intestines are basically sausage casings, so that's pretty narst.
Here's a little Wonder Showzen lesson on how hot dogs are made:
It's true about the hot dog in the landfill! I heard about it in a college course on Garbage. Yes.
The professor also had a Twinkie from the 1980's thumbtacked to the wall in his office which was rock hard, but had nary a sign of mold.