Tim McKirdy: Sother…

Sother Teague: Yes, Tim.

TM: Hot dawg.

ST: Take me out to the ballpark. Let's go.

TM: An icon.

ST: A staple in every American's life, for sure. No one doesn't know the hot dog.

TM: Is it more or less Americana than the burger?

ST: Ooh, wow. I think it's more. I think we're kind of known for being a country that has exalted the hamburger, but you know, we have songs with hot dogs in them. We use hot dog as a verb. To hot dog, to act in a wild and rambunctious way. See a bunch of kids out there on the street popping wheelies and hot dogging. We're not out there hamburgering, sure.

TM: Yeah, interesting, the overlap between the two. Hamburger, right — Hamburg, Frankfurter. We'll get into all of that. But you know, the German immigrant, the German naming of these, soon or later would become American icons. Recently — and by recently I mean a little over 40 years ago at this point — the hot dog celebrated its 500th birthday.

ST: Five hundred? And going strong.

TM: Going really strong.

ST: Weirdly, I think we're having like a moment. It's been a couple of years that hot dogs have been kind of in the zeitgeist. I personally am on a text thread with two of my friends that has been going on for, I would say, I don't know — can you scroll back and see the beginning of a text thread? It's probably five years old. And it is literally nothing but us trading hot dog memes, hot dog news, hot dog sightings, interesting-looking hot dogs we want to make.

TM: You guys hot dogging.

ST: We're hot dogging. Our good friend Robert Simonson has sort of deemed himself the hot dog critic. The first hot dog critic.

TM: Enough — someone else is writing, or just published, the book about the hot dog, and I was surprised it wasn't Robert there first. But I would love to read any book that he writes on hot dogging. It is certainly — I was gonna save this for later, but let's talk about it right. You know, we're a show about cooking with booze and drinking with food. We're both cocktail lovers and nerds. The role that hot dogs have played in New York City cocktail culture should not be overlooked.

ST: Oh, you're speaking directly to PDT.

TM: Yeah, talk about it.

ST: Well, PDT is famously a hot dog joint in the East Village, just one block away from my bar, Amor y Amargo. It's been open longer than me. And you enter through the hot dog joint and there's a telephone booth in the corner, and you go into the booth and you dial a number and someone picks up, and then the back of the booth opens up and you step into the bar. PDT — Please Don't Tell.

TM: And the establishment is Criff Dogs, that's in front of it.

ST: Criff Dogs is out front, right. And when you get inside you are in this little Shangri-La of a bar where the cocktails are immaculate and obviously globally recognized, and the snacks are hot dogs from Criff Dogs next door. Who's going to eat chicken from a bucket? Nobody. Well, the Colonel proved you wrong. Who's going to have cocktails and hot dogs? Well, everybody.

TM: So you know, PDT wasn't the first craft cocktail bar in New York or America by any means, but what it symbolizes is a very real and distinct and major moment in the history of the cocktail and cocktail culture, which is like speakeasies. The idea of transformation, going from one space to another.

ST: Yeah, clandestine to some degree. Only if you're in the know, kind of thing.

TM: I can remember being a young adult living in London and having various friends who at the time had recently been to New York. And up until that point, any of my friends who had visited New York, it was when they were children or, you know, not of legal drinking age and probably going with their family. Hearing people coming back and telling stories of, like, yeah, speakeasies and cocktail bars and this stuff, and just having this image of the Lower East Side and the East Village and probably Williamsburg too, just being — yeah, that's a place I wanna be.

ST: Yeah. Intrigue.

TM: And you cannot get into PDT without going through the hot dog joint, you know what I mean? So it's attached itself more recently in that neighborhood as well. Romeo's bar I like a lot.

ST: Love it.

TM: Evan, great guy who runs it. They last year put on a hot dog and martini menu where it's a happy hour. Hot dog and a martini for something ridiculous like 10 bucks or 15 bucks, I don't know. But like, yeah — Robert being a part of it, and Robert being a major voice in sort of cocktail writing, it is interesting, especially when we consider the origins and the history of it.

ST: Yeah, I don't think there's any greater direct food connection between the craft cocktail movement and a food item than this one, now that I sit here and think about it.

TM: Which is really cool. And then further on down the line —

ST: It also really democratizes, strangely, both items. You can still be wanting to go to a venerable, well-known, well-established, unique hidden cocktail den. You can also still just get a hot dog. But let's at least touch on the notion that the Criff Dogs that they serve in Criff Dogs are their standards that they have on the menu. The dogs that you get inside a PDT still to this day are each created by local chefs in New York. So for a while there was — I think it may even still be on the menu — but for a long time the David Chang dog was on the menu that had kimchi. There was the Wylie Dufresne dog that had the cubes of deep-fried mayonnaise on it. There was a dog there that had caviar on it for a while, I don't remember who made that one. I think Robert Simonson actually pitched a dog that made it to the menu for a while.

TM: There is — no, it, I think it remains on there to this day.

ST: Hmm.

TM: There was — and this is how indicative of how the world, New York leads and the world follows. When I was in London at that time, very much the same era as I was describing in the burger episode, where you had like Meat Liquor and the fancy burgers and all that stuff — I think it was called Bubble Dogs. And it was a cocktail bar, but it specialized in champagne and hot dogs. And I think I might be making this up — I think they had a special separate cocktail area in the back that was really fancy. I can remember it. I think I only went once, but it was sort of like trying to get that slice of New York, figuratively speaking. How do you feel — I'm not sure how I feel about hot dogs named after people. I don't know whether I want to eat a Chang dog. Now, would I like the stuff that's on it? Yeah, absolutely.

ST: The other one I think was called the Wylie dog. They're just naming it after the chef.

TM: And they call it the Simonson dog.

ST: They're just giving the credit to the creator, maker, whatever.

TM: Something about it is weird to me.

ST: Yeah, you don't want to have the Tim dog.

TM: Tim dog. Can you remember the first hot dog you ever had?

ST: Wow, no way. I mean, this is a thing that you ate as a very young kid, you know. Hot dogs — I don't know about where you're from, but like here in America, hot dogs are early, early stages of eating solid food.

TM: I can't either, for what it's worth. I'm just, you know —

ST: No, no way. I'd be hard pressed to think anyone could.

TM: I do remember being freaked out about it as a kid, seeing the glass jar with the white top and just all of those big hot dogs sitting in the juice, and just being like, kind of freaks me out a little.

ST: Right, because — you know what, this is a funny thing, and it happens from time to time with us on this show, that we have a cultural difference. It is such a rarity in America to get the hot dogs in the jar, which are very common in the UK. We get them in the blister packs, which doesn't look any better, but they're not floating in that liquid.

TM: It's the water, I think. You know, spill a bit of hot dog water on you. Isn't that a name of a Limp Bizkit album?

ST: Dirty water dogs.

TM: Professional associations — ever been anywhere that's had a fancy dog on the menu?

ST: No, I've not. And you know what, that's a bummer.

TM: We used to make them at the Grain Store. And by make them, I mean like from scratch.

ST: Yeah, you're grinding your stuffing casings. I mean, I've made a bazillion sausages in my life. You know that's what I used to do as a butcher. But never have I worked anywhere that served a hot dog. I guess that's not true — I work currently at Subject, we have a hot dog on the menu. Just ketchup, mustard and chips though, it's nothing crazy.

TM: There you go. Swing by, folks, on Saturday night, come see your man, pay him a visit, get a dog. I've mentioned this on the show before about my time as being a chef, and how I think I maybe would have — I don't know whether I would have spent any more time in the industry, but I think I would have benefited from knowing the science, or being taught the science. It really wasn't the way, just the kitchens that I worked in. I have since found out some of the mistakes we were making, right, when you were making the hot dogs — and we'll get into this — but you need to keep it below a certain temperature. Otherwise it can drastically alter the texture. I've had too many of those bad batches of where you take it too high.

ST: Yeah, your emulsification will break, because that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about emulsified cased meats. Your emulsification will break and you'll have this grainy texture. It won't be juicy, it'll be watery.

TM: Yeah, it's simultaneously dry and watery. Not cool, not what you want.

ST: No. No.

TM: But yeah, surprising on that one. What's your elevator pitch? I always like to hear. Do you have one, a special one prepared for us here today?

ST: Sure, sure. Always. I try always. The hot dog is an Americanized German sausage, the Frankfurter, usually finely emulsified, served hot in a split bun, dressed according to location and tradition. And I think that's where we're going to get a lot of conversation out of this dish. PS, I'd like to start the whole thing off by saying I love hot dogs. I love them.

TM: The five-year chain didn't give that away?

ST: Okay, I'm just making sure.

TM: Show, don't tell — you've done both, and I agree. Comminuted, I think, is the term for the emulsification that we're talking about there. But that was a new one that I learned.

ST: All right.

TM: You kicked us off with Frankfurt. You went in strong there as well, because this is one of those ones where there's a little bit of an ownership battle going on.

ST: Oh, is there?

TM: So our story does begin indeed in Frankfurt, 542 years ago.

ST: Okay, that's oddly specific.

TM: Well, you know, there's a National Hot Dog Council.

ST: Oh, I know that. And I am on their team.

TM: Yeah, and they're vehement about the facts, and I think they might contest the 1484, maybe not. But Frankfurt claims the Frankfurter Würstchen — Würstchen, we all know Würstchen — going back to that date, 1484, when city guilds regulated the making of a thin smoked pork sausage in sheep gut casing. Vienna fires back with the Wiener Würstchen. And the story that brings it all together: a guy called Johann Georg Lahner, a butcher who trained in Frankfurt, moved to Vienna, and in 1805 starting adding beef to the pork mix. That beef and pork blend is what most of the world now calls a hot dog. Both cities still argue. Frankfurt says that a hot dog is basically a Frankfurter with beef added, and Vienna says the addition is the hot dog. No one wins, we all win.

ST: We all win. Although I'm on the fence. I like the variety, to be honest, so I'm not going to tie myself to any one. I'm not going to hitch my wagon to any particular horse. But I think I prefer a beef hot dog over the beef and pork. And I definitely am not the biggest fan of just the straight pork.

TM: That's just a sausage, isn't it?

ST: That's the hierarchy for me.

TM: That's where you go. So next in our history — do you wanna cover name or do you wanna cover America? Both are sort of tied, but do you wanna go name next?

ST: Let's go name.

TM: Why is it called the hot dog?

ST: Well, I didn't try and look, but I did run across a few things. There was an artist who did a cartoon apparently. But then I dug into that a little bit more, and there was like — well, but no one can find the cartoon. So is this verifiable or not? It was apparently — and again, I haven't seen the cartoon — but it was a wiener dog wearing a bun.

TM: Tad Dorgan. So yes, everyone quote-unquote knows that a New York cartoonist coined the term hot dog with a 1901 cartoon — like you said, a dachshund in a bun at the Polo Grounds. No one's ever found the cartoon.

ST: So why does everyone believe this?

TM: Well, the phrase — and listen to this as well — the phrase hot dog was already in print by 1884, nearly two decades before he allegedly drew it. I think the myth persists just because it's a better story than "nobody knows." But yeah, hot dog — it's so far removed from Frankfurt or from Wiener, from sausage. Well, there are sausage dogs.

ST: Sure, but that also sounds like a lot of, you know, Americanization. We don't want to say wiener — why does it start with a W if it sounds like a V? We don't want to say Frankfurter. You know, like we're Americanizing everything, I'm sure. At least that's part of it, I'm guessing.

TM: Well, we certainly did Americanize it, and wow, did we turn it into an icon. Charles Feltman, a German immigrant, is widely credited as the first to sell sausages in a bun from a stand on Coney Island in 1867, although I think the Council points to 1871. Who's counting? If they were counting — by the early 1900s it could serve 8,000 guests at a time.

ST: Whoa, 8,000 guests at one moment?

TM: At one time, like in the establishment.

ST: Wow.

TM: The line moved, apparently. There was lines down the block, and it was the largest restaurant in the —

ST: Wow, 8,000. I can't even imagine it. You're not running a restaurant, that's running a stadium. Was the floor show a baseball game?

TM: Well, I guess the other thing — like, Brooklyn has previous in this. Remember Lundy's? Have you ever heard of this place?

ST: Hmm.

TM: So there's a place that opened down here in Red Hook called Lundy's. They borrowed the name and the branding, whatever. But the original was in much deeper Brooklyn, and they used to serve thousands of people a day as well. Seafood place.

ST: You said "a day" in that sentence, but earlier you said "at a time."

TM: Oh yeah, no, this is 8,000 customers at once, like — yeah, that seems like a lot to me.

ST: The rush is on. Everybody starts sandbagging.

TM: I bet the winter was slow. Well, that was until one of Feltman's employees, Nathan Handwerker, undercut his boss. Like, Nathan —

ST: Undercut his boss how, so?

TM: In 1916, Feltman was charging 10 cents for his dog.

ST: Reasonable price.

TM: And on the corners of Surf and Stillwell Avenues, where Nathan's Famous still stands to this day — Nathan's, he was charging a dime. No — a nickel. Sorry. Oh, I tried so hard and I don't even know. Who's charging a nickel? For UK listeners, that's five cents.

ST: Half price. So he ran in and undercut his former boss, kind of around the corner, for 50.

TM: Yeah.

ST: Okay, first of all, how is he — either the first guy was ripping people off or Nathan was taking a hit. How did he survive? We don't know.

TM: Maybe it's like Amazon or Uber, where it's just like, we're going to drive up — maybe he had like big venture capital backing, and they said, if we can sustain this to the point where we put Mr. Feltman out of business —

ST: Then we can charge 15 cents.

TM: Exactly. Nathan's, obviously the hot dog eating contest — I mean, is there anything more American than that? Certainly I don't see people having burger eating contests.

ST: No.

TM: Neither are my favorite hot dog chain though.

ST: What's your favorite hot dog chain? There's a chain? That's also quite surprising to me. We've talked about some other foods that I think should be more available in the United States. It blows me away that we don't have meat pies here like you have in the UK. Everywhere you go you get a meat pie. Why don't we have that here? But how many hamburger joints do we have across America, and have massive hamburger chains? I can't think of a single hot dog chain. There's plenty of cool hot dog spots — the Wiener's Circle in Chicago, Papaya Dog here in New York City, and myriad other ones I'm not thinking of right now. But if Robert Simonson was here, he could rattle off 20, probably. Why don't we have chains? It's quick, it's delicious, it's low cost.

TM: We did have Lum's. Lum's is my favorite.

ST: And that was here in America? No Lum's. Never even heard of it.

TM: You know what they specialized in? Beer-steamed dogs.

ST: That's what we're going to talk about in the preparation, buddy.

TM: So Lum's was a 16-seat Miami Beach diner, opened in 1950 by someone called Barnett Carvin. Great name. Which grew to 400-plus locations on one idea.

ST: That's a chain. The hot dog?

TM: Steam the Franks in Budweiser. But it wasn't just Budweiser, it was one part beer, two parts water, caraway seeds, garlic, sugar and onion.

ST: So he's making like a court-bouillon for his hot dog.

TM: And where I became introduced to this was — fans of Martin Scorsese and his film The Irishman: Robert De Niro, who's playing Frank Sheeran, goes to Lum's in Miami and they show them preparing the dogs. And it's on like a griddle top, and it's like you got the dogs on there and they pour this mixture on there and it's steaming. De Niro's character goes, "There ain't a better hot dog in America." The last Lum's closed sadly in Nebraska in 2017. But do you want to know the most surprising part about all of it for me?

ST: What's that?

TM: Wasn't the only booze they had in this dish. They were putting dry sherry in their sauerkraut.

ST: Okay, that's forward thinking. Way to go, Lum's.

TM: Very eclectic.

ST: Well, I feel like — is it though? At the time that they got started, that was probably more common to use things like that. I think today we drifted away from things culturally, or I don't know. Am I right or wrong?

TM: What's the point of the sherry? I mean, I love it, I'm all for it, but what is the sherry doing in the sauerkraut?

ST: I don't know. What kind of sherry was it?

TM: I imagine dry sherry, for sure.

ST: Yeah. Couldn't be shelf stability, sauerkraut's pretty stable. Couldn't be a ton of flavor, dry sherry doesn't have a ton of flavor. I don't know, but probably it was like — was it old mother Lum's recipe that young Mr. Lum used in his thing, and you just can't get away from mom's recipe?

TM: Well, we don't even know. I don't know why it's called Lum's if it was started by Barnett Carvin.

ST: You know, I'm just —

TM: Just carving it up.

ST: Yeah, chopping it up. Listen, that brings me to another idea. Why don't we see hot dog chains in America? That's one. But two — okay, we already have some big-ass chains. Wendy's, McDonald's, Burger King. Why don't any of them have a hot dog on the menu? They've got the infrastructure, they've got everything they need. They just need a wiener and a bun.

TM: Possibly the most iconic hot dog in America right now.

ST: What a burger?

TM: No, is it? Do they have a dog?

ST: I think they do. Yeah, yes, I know they do. They have a footlong.

TM: No.

ST: What do you got? Possibly the most iconic —

TM: Costco.

ST: Oh yes.

TM: And that is a verifiable hot dog chain.

ST: Yeah, and if they raise the price past 1.50, that guy will freaking kill you.

TM: Which guy? The CEO?

ST: Right.

TM: Yeah.

ST: He famously screamed, apparently, at his team because they threatened to raise the price of the hot dog.

TM: I saw him eating it on a social media video recently.

ST: I've only ever had one in my life. I've only ever been to Costco once in my life, and I went kind of out of morbid curiosity to A, see the spectacle that is at Costco, but B, for sure I was not leaving there without getting the dog. And you know what, it was delicious. It's super plump, very juicy, steamed bun, quite good. And yeah, for 1.50 it's got to be a total loss leader. There's no way they're making money off it, not even at volume.

TM: Oh yeah, totally. You know who else specializes in their dogs?

ST: I've only ever been to one of those once and I was so overwhelmed I had to leave. I can't take that much stimulus.

TM: Did you go to the Costco down here near Industry City?

ST: Did you go? Yes, yeah, yeah, I went with Sean and Emily.

TM: We frequent that one, but it's so busy. Every time I say to myself, I'm going to have a hot dog, or I'm going to get some food, or I want to try the pizza, whatever — by the time you get to the checkout and you're done, it's overwhelming in there.

ST: You got to go, yeah. Well, luckily I was with friends and they were in the checkout line, and I forged ahead and jumped in the hot dog line and got us all hot dogs by the time they were checked out.

TM: A change out of a crisp 5 note.

ST: I mean.

TM: Wild. All right — prince or pauper's dish?

ST: It's so democratic. It's a pauper's dish. I mean, also just for how it's made — what is sausage in general, not just the Frankfurter or the hot dog, but sausage is economy meat that's been mixed with fat and trimmings and stuff that would have likely gone into the waste bin, and has been ground together, emulsified, and made into a product that can be delicious and nutritious and helpful to society at large. So yeah, it's a pauper's dish for sure. Now, here's the trick that the hot dog has pulled on all of us. It has made no embarrassing apologies for itself, and it has elevated itself to wherever it wants to be. You can get a hot dog with just a squeeze of mustard on there, and there's that on the streets of New York. You can also go to a posh restaurant in New York and get a hot dog with gold leaf and caviar on it.

TM: Yeah, two things that —

ST: You can get a 2-dollar dog or a 200-dollar dog.

TM: — we covered recently and debunked in a recent bonus episode, exclusively for paid subscribers. Items — are they worth their weight in gold? We covered saffron. We covered saffron, we did. But we covered caviar, we covered gold leaf. And as a reminder, those are once a month for our paid subscribers. Bonus episodes where we cover things like ingredients, side dishes, histories, techniques.

ST: Techniques, yeah. And they're tons of fun. I really enjoy them. And you can get those episodes by being a paid subscriber, which is only 7 a month. If you do the whole year, you're going to get two months off. So I think it's a great thing. Come join us.

TM: It's the best deal since the Costco hot dog. We're not going to commit to that. We're not going to commit to that pricing for the next 200 years though. Get in while it's going hot. It's a nice moment for us to take a quick break here, Sother, and then we'll be back with the culinary luminaries.

ST: Cool.

TM: All right, we're back. Sorry to start you there, my friend.

ST: Yeah, I got a little spaced out for a second.

TM: What you got for us on the luminary front?

ST: I mean, you covered the two biggest ones, right? Charles Feltman, who opened up his hot dog stand and was selling just an absolute massive amount. I didn't realize it was that many, because the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council credits him with selling 3,684 Daoxiang sausages in a roll in the year of 1871. So something — the math ain't mathing. That's from the Hot Dog and Sausage Council website. Maybe that was per day. They're having 8,000 guests at a time? Insane. Either way.

TM: What I literally wrote down myself here in my notes is, by the early 1900s it could serve 800 customers at a time and was the largest —

ST: Earlier you said 8,000.

TM: 8,000, sorry.

ST: Okay, yeah, okay. Yeah, that's why I was like, that's a stadium. Crazy. So surely —

TM: Minor league baseball though.

ST: Anything can happen in a Minor League game though. Who may show up? Then we have our good man Nathan Handwerker, who went across the street basically and set up his stand, which is now still world famous, as you said. There's a guy named Harry Stevens that I found — not necessarily a luminary, I'm giving kind of just more pieces of history. He was a baseball concessionaire, right, he was at a stadium. He's the first guy who really brought the hot dog to the ballpark. And I think that that's easily the place that we associate eating hot dog the most. It's not a thing I'm going to have on the beach.

TM: No.

ST: Well, I would, but they're not — they're hot. Who's making it? If I go to the beach, I've packed in my food, right?

TM: If a guy is selling cold nutcrackers there, could be someone serving hot dogs.

ST: Oh, I'm buying those. We're right, but there isn't, is what I'm saying. That thing, that rig they carry around that has the warm dogs and the buns at the ballpark — if they had a guy doing that on the beach, I'm in. Nutcracker, hot dog, let's go.

TM: Ha ha ha.

ST: But he brought it to the Polo Grounds, where — sorry — hot dogs were already being sold at the Polo Grounds in the early 1900s. And he's the one who said, like, well, if these people want, if people watching polo want to eat a hot dog, I'm sure people watching the ball game want to eat one too. Now, to the luminary. Jacques Pépin was kind of enthusiastic about the hot dog, but basically what he said was — again, he's always championing simple cooking for the people — and he said, whether it's a hot dog or a ham sandwich, there's always one that's better. And his point in that statement was to say kind of what I just said: you can make a hot dog just a hot dog, you can make a ham sandwich just a ham sandwich, or you can elevate it to that place of like gold leaf and caviar. And that's not even like elevating the thing, but you can take it to a place and have it be whatever you want it to be. He also was a huge fan of poaching the dog.

TM: Okay.

ST: Which I think we're going to do. Well, we're going to poach it with beer when we get there.

TM: Are we poaching though, or are we braising? Like, the idea of sort of steaming it on the griddle top.

ST: Well, so I want to get it in a pan deep enough to have liquid come at least halfway up the side of it, to slowly poach it to temperature. And then I'm going to pull it out of there and put it on a flat top or in a pan and brown it. We'll get to that, but that's how I like a hot dog. But I think what we're really talking about — are we poaching it? It's already cooked. We're simply reheating it. Hot dogs are overwhelmingly already cooked.

TM: Exactly. They're smoked, right? So yeah.

ST: Julia didn't have much to say on making them herself, but reportedly — and I think that's the strong word here — considered Papaya King one of her favorite New York hot dogs. And when you go into Papaya King's here in New York City, you can see there's accounts of that up on the wall in articles, but they are the primary source of the quote. I couldn't find anything that said Julia Child said this, but you can see that Papaya King says Julia Child said this.

TM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

ST: So what's the word I'm looking for?

TM: Verified?

ST: Unverified, thank you.

TM: Much like 8,000.

ST: Yeah. Well, we'll see. She apparently also did, however, quite enjoy the Costco hot dog. So there's that. So Julia was a fan of the hot dog. And then this is kind of the last one — again, not a luminary, but a very well-known person who had an opinion, and his opinion I think kind of sums up the hot dog in a really great way. Humphrey Bogart.

TM: Ooh.

ST: Yeah. He said a hot dog at the ballpark is better than a steak at the Ritz. And the Library of Congress — that's where I found this, the Library of Congress has this quote from him. So that's kind of the philosophy of the hot dog wrapped up into one sentence. Thank you, Humphrey Bogart. He's just saying what I kind of say all the time, right, which is there's a time and a place for everything. And I think, sure, there's a time for a steak at the Ritz, but man, oh man, there's a great time for a hot dog at the ballpark.

TM: Humphrey Bogart — probably the inspiration for one of my favorite songs of all time.

ST: The piña colada song.

TM: Yep.

ST: Yep. Also, not for nothing, you know what's delicious? A hot dog and a piña colada.

TM: Yeah. Now I will agree with you and say, let's go.

ST: Let's go.

TM: Yeah. I mean, who are the hot dog luminaries? There's a lot of them.

ST: I mean, I think honestly it's the two you mentioned in the history of the hot dog. They are the champions of the thing.

TM: There's a decent amount of literature from our guy Kenji López.

ST: Okay.

TM: He argues that the single most important factor in a great hot dog is natural casing.

ST: I am agreeing with him. Again, as a guy who made plenty of sausages, natural casing is the way to go every time. Overwhelmingly, the hot dogs that are consumed in America are the cellulose casing, which is a system. It's basically plastic that they put the emulsified meat into through a machine that tubes them out and makes them exactly the right size. But it's porous, it's cellulose, so when it goes to the smoker it'll still penetrate. And then they have a separate machine that they have to whip them through that takes the cellulose off of them.

TM: So are you familiar with someone called Erwin O. Freund?

ST: Sounds like he could be a good friend of mine. No, no, I don't know who Mr. Herman O. Freund is. Is it O. Freund, like he's Irish?

TM: No, it's O period, rather than O apostrophe.

ST: Wait, I have a funny story that ties into this, I can show it to you right now on my phone if you want to see. When I first met him, I put his name in my phone incorrectly, and it has remained that way to this day. And this, by the way, is — now I met him when I worked at Rye, so this is 18 years ago — in my phone it says Robert O'Simonson, like O apostrophe, though his middle name starts with an O.

TM: When — yes. Well, when he was on Twitter back in the day, it was R.O. Simonson was his handle. Yeah. Chicago. Freund, 1925 — he invented the Nojax process.

ST: Oh, Jax.

TM: That's how skinless dogs are made, I think, the process that you were talking about there. So, um, yeah, they're made in casing, then the casing is peeled off before packaging.

ST: And it's fascinating and terrifying to see, by the way. Go look up an image of the machinery that's doing this. Like, they're flying through. It's a string of them because they're all connected, you know, they're twisted, and they're flying through the machine — A, getting cased in the first place, but then when they're smoked, and then they're just like — we're talking thousands per second, not minute, second. But also, then that just shows like how many hot dogs we consume.

TM: Henry Ford would be proud, I think, of all this.

ST: Mm hmm.

TM: But yeah, Kenji, I think, puts his in a disposable aluminium pan, you know, on the grill in some liquid, on the cool side. Like you said, heat it up, and then get it onto the grill for some Maillard.

ST: So I don't want to like hurt anybody's feelings, but I think that probably a very high percentage — like let's throw it up in the 90s — 90% of people cook their hot dogs too fast. They put them in boiling water, they're putting them on too hot a grill, they're cranking them up in the microwave. The thing is already cooked. What you're trying to do is gently reheat it, and gently implies slowly.

TM: A hundred percent.

ST: There is one exception though: the ripper. Do you know what a ripper is?

TM: No.

ST: So rippers, you get out at Coney Island, the actual Coney Island, and other places too. In fact, I'm pretty sure Criff Dogs are rippers. Rippers are hot dogs that are bombed in the fryer, and they're called rippers because it splits the seam.

TM: Yeah, that's exactly what I was just about to say. Above a certain temperature you will rupture the casing and the seam, and all hell breaks loose.

ST: Yeah, something breaks loose.

TM: So we're talking about — this is something that can be whatever you want it to be. Are you familiar with Doug Sohn, or Sohn? One of these cases where I feel like someone — this destiny has been defined by their name. Opened hot dogs in Chicago.

ST: Oh, I am familiar with him. I've been to — I mean, it doesn't exist anymore, and it was amazing, it was an amazing place. But go, please, go, and I'll throw in some stuff.

TM: The Sausage Superstore and Encased Meat Emporium.

ST: Mm hmm.

TM: So Doug — and won't be the last person in this episode whose name is related to this food item, just dangling that one out there — but Doug served a foie gras sausage with truffle aioli.

ST: So good.

TM: In defiance of Chicago's foie gras ban between 2006 and 2008. He said, you know what, I'll pay the fine and I'll keep serving it. I believe he has a hot dogs book as well.

ST: Ooh, does he? I'd love to have it, to be honest.

TM: I would love to get that.

ST: My only disappointment with Hot Doug's was they didn't serve alcohol.

TM: Oh, come on. In Chicago?

ST: So there's a lot of hot dog places — no, the Wiener's Circle doesn't in Chicago as well.

TM: I know, but good drinking folk, the Chicagoans.

ST: They are, and sausage and beer goes together, right, and a lot of German immigrants, et cetera. But I think I know — rather, Hot Doug's. Doug was a chef, like, you know, a proper chef, and sort of decided for himself he was just gonna open up a hot dog stand and make chef-y hot dogs. So you just mentioned the foie gras and truffle one, one of my favorite ones that he had. And there were some that came and went, you know, there was always the game of the week, meaning a game hot dog of some kind. But one of the ones I loved that was on the menu all the time was the BLT. So he took cured, smoked but uncooked bacon — cold smoked, right — and ground that and put it in a casing and made a hot dog out of bacon. And then put it on a bun with house-made mayonnaise, cherry tomatoes that were dressed lightly in a little seasoning, and shredded lettuce. So good, so good. What a unique way to have. And then every Friday there'd be a long line to get in there, because on Fridays it was duck fat Friday, so duck fat fried French fries on Fridays. So you can go get duck fat fries and a BLT hot dog. But then you'd have to have like a Coca-Cola — like, I want a beer with this.

TM: Yeah, that's a shame. Apparently people lined around the block for it as well.

ST: Oh yeah, that's what I'm saying. There would be a long line, but worth it, and it would move pretty quickly, it's hot dogs. Man, you know, you're giving me a visceral memory. I'd forgotten about hot dogs because I lived in Chicago for several years.

TM: Wow. Final hot dog innovation for us here as part of this section: the Sonoran dog.

ST: Love a Sonoran dog. I mean, what do you mean, final? We didn't even talk about any of the regional —

TM: Oh yeah, well, I guess I was just — I had mine here in this section of my notes. But —

ST: Well, tell me about the Sonoran dog. I know about it, tell the listener.

TM: It's a hot dog wrapped in bacon, grilled, served in a bolillo, which is a Mexican bread roll.

ST: And that little — it's almost foot long, it's almost oblong, right, it's like a football.

TM: It's exactly right. It's kind of like an ocarina or whatever, but it does have like pointed ends. I had to look it up, just the exact image of it. And yeah, single-serving bun, topped with pinto beans, onion, tomato, jalapeño sauce, mustard and mayo. It has its roots in Hermosillo, Mexico. In the late 1980s it was brought across the border by street vendors, and someone called Daniel Contreras opened El Güero Canelo in Tucson, Arizona in 1993.

ST: Tucson, Arizona, as a real human bartender would pronounce it.

TM: Who was that?

ST: It's from a show.

TM: Oh, I don't know, I just know it from JoJo.

ST: What We Do in the Shadows. What We Do in the Shadows.

TM: Ah, yes. I haven't seen that. So yeah, just hot dog innovations, regional. I was going to say, maybe we do regional styles here in America after we've done our non-negotiables. How's that sound?

ST: Yeah, sure, sounds great.

TM: All right, well, you know what we got first.

ST: But I did want to point out something real quick. The term hot dog and its appearance at ballparks date back to the early 1890s — I'm reading from the Library of Congress's page. For the last several seasons, about 20 million hot dogs have been consumed annually at Major League parks, with fans of the L.A. Dodgers, Texas Rangers and Cleveland Indians eating the most. And because we love porco, that's our porco fun fact of the week.

TM: Little porco fun fact of the week. Ah, I think I had it.

ST: Plus there's a porco hint in the fact, but we don't want to give it away.

TM: Well, I thought — I can't remember if I put it down here. If I did, I'll probably stumble across it later. But I was reading somewhere that I think in America we consume 7 billion hot dogs a year. And I've already made a lofty claim about 8,000, but 7 billion a year. And I think 70% of them — I might be making this up — are consumed between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

ST: Wow, 70? Just in the summer. Holy smoke.

TM: Yeah. Imagine how many we'd be eating if they could sell them at the beach.

ST: Right. Listen, all you nutcracker salespeople out there, get yourself one of those steamed bags and get out there. You probably carry what, 50, 60 hot dogs at a time?

TM: Yeah, or just get one of those things from like a 7-Eleven and just put it on the front, you know, those ones.

ST: Yes.

TM: Fantastic. All right, well, dubious claims and figures aside —

ST: Well, I think just real quickly on that figure. I think that that number seems shockingly high, but also don't forget, it's a pretty rare occasion that you eat one hot dog. If I'm having hot dogs, I'm probably knocking down three. And honestly, back in my more aggressive days — more aggressive days — I was knocking down maybe five. You know, I'm eating one while I'm building the others. One's just an amuse-bouche.

TM: You know what we got to do, especially given how close we are here — we got to do the taste test. We're going to hit up Ikea and then we're going to hit up Costco, and we're going to settle it.

ST: I didn't even — as mentioned, I didn't even know there was one at Ikea. I just knew they had the meatballs. But again, I didn't make it. I was going through the maze, about halfway through — I was with a bunch of friends — about halfway through I was like, this is too much for me, and I backtracked out and I waited in the car. This is too — I'm like, I don't own any Ikea, friends. It's just not my style, first of all, and just that space was so overwhelming for me.

TM: You're having me question now whether I'm making that up. I'm sure I had hot dogs at Ikea growing up.

ST: I can't imagine they wouldn't.

TM: They serve pizza, fountain soda, self-serve. The move always as a kid was as many different combinations as you could, but you got which —

ST: In America we call that the suicide. You go up and you go, ch ch ch ch ch ch ch.

TM: Was great until you arrived on the last one, very Swedish, lingonberry.

ST: Ch ch ch ch ch. Hmm.

TM: Not good. You'd love it, it was bitter.

ST: Not good. Not good.

TM: All right, so there —

ST: Now you got all of our Swedish fans upset at you.

TM: We do have listeners in Sweden. Hello to our listeners in Sweden. We were looking at the map recently.

ST: I'm — listen, you yell at Tim, I'm a fan of lingonberries.

TM: Ha ha. All right, so there —

ST: Did they put that lingonberry jam that goes with the meatballs — did they put that on the hot dog? That'd be delicious.

TM: No. Apparently, yeah. There's only one way to find out. Before we do that, finally, the long advertised break. All right, so we're back. Non-negotiables. I think it's going to be a spicy one for us.

ST: Oh, do you?

TM: I don't know, just regional dishes and styles.

ST: Well, I think the non-negotiables, Tim, are the hot dog. The regional styles are — that's all negotiables.

TM: Okay.

ST: According to your rules about this thing, you're always a stickler with me.

TM: Pretty reasonable guy, I would say.

ST: Number one, we need a sausage of some kind, a Frankfurter. It's probably gonna be smoked, and I think our non-negotiable is gonna be natural casing.

TM: Natural casing, 100.

ST: But now the negotiable part is, is it beef, is it beef and pork, is it pork?

TM: I think it's beef and pork. If not, it's just a Frankfurt.

ST: Right, I'll go with that, that's fine. Because you get — it's the two different fats that really matter here. Beef fat can come off as greasy, whereas pork fat comes off as more unctuous. So a combination of the two, a little bit more — people don't like it when I say mouthfeel — but a little better mouthfeel. What I'm really the most concerned about though is that natural casing. I want this dog to snap when I bite it. Like, you shouldn't be able to take a hot dog and fold it into a U. It should eventually break, and that's what's called the snap.

TM: And that is when it has been smoked at 150 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Above that and the casing gets rubbery, and too low it's slack. So we're smoked. Smoked is non-negotiable as well.

ST: Correct.

TM: Okay, great.

ST: What did I say? I said cooked, but the cooking is smoked, yes.

TM: I guess then my first non-negotiable has to be the bun. Split top.

ST: Yeah. I'm easy on the style, split top versus side split.

TM: You don't want to do the Memphis style? No, the St. Louis style. The hot dog cuts it perpendicularly.

ST: I think it depends on what the negotiables are on the finished product. If I'm gonna be putting a lot of things on this, I probably want the split top. If I'm gonna just be putting a few things on it, then I can go either way. Split top, it's a Sonoran dog, well, it serves on that special bun, but there are other dogs that have a whole lot of stuff on them, and I think split top is the way to go for them. Enter the conversation to the Chicago dog.

TM: I think I'm pro the other style, just regular.

ST: Side split. Yeah, I think I am too. Split tops are also a little bit more bready.

TM: Yeah. Here is once again an area where we can stake a claim and say, is this a bigger icon than the hamburger? Okay, you could get burger buns, but burger buns are used for many things. A hot dog is a hot dog bun.

ST: Pretty much, yeah.

TM: Next non-negotiable for you. Also, no, wait a second. Before we do — steamed buns. Talk me through this.

ST: I'm split on this one too. Again, it's what I'm gonna put on the dog. Do I want a steamed bun or do I want a toasted bun?

TM: Talk about the difference for —

ST: Yeah, steamed bun is exactly as it sounds, just gently steamed. So you already probably — when we get to preparation you're gonna see — we already have sort of a braising rig set up, so we can just put a steamer basket right over the top of it, really, and steam. You know, there's even stupid kitchen tools that I've seen that do this, right? Your hot dog's cooking in one part and your buns are steaming above it. So it's exactly that, so it's warm and soft and pillowy and steamed. The toasted bun, I'm literally gonna open it up and butter it and lay it flat on the flat top where I'm probably griddling my dog after it's been in the steamer, to get that crispy, you know, Maillard and everything on it. And then it'll toast the bun up. Griddle really is the word. Not really toasting, I'm griddling. And that's gonna give us a little bit of Maillard on the bun itself, a little bit of texture, a moisture barrier that'll help us with any of the condiments we might be putting on there. You know, sauerkraut's notoriously pretty wet, so if it's toasted it'll help with that. But also I'm fine with a steamed bun with that. It really comes down to, do I want that texture or not.

TM: Either way, flavor-wise it should be neutral, right?

ST: Pretty much, yeah.

TM: Kind of like we've said for burgers. We don't want to be distracted by what is just a —

ST: Right.

TM: So your next non-negotiable.

ST: Well, so we have our two non-negotiables so far, which is the sausage and the bun. That's kind of it for actual things. I think my remaining non-negotiables are technique driven. And we kind of already went over one when we talked about the bun. The bun has to accommodate the sausage and whatever condiments and toppings I'm putting on there. I actually kind of like it when the sausage is too long for the bun. I don't want it a foot long on my regular hot dog bun, but I want the hot dog to extend to be —

TM: Vehicle, yeah. Percentage-wise, what, a little 10?

ST: Yeah, a little bit, yeah. 5 on each end is sticking out. And I want the dog to be — because it's natural casing, it'll have a slight curve, so your bun's sort of — whoops — so your bun is sort of straight, but you can see the dog's kind of poking out like a smile.

TM: They're smiling, yeah.

ST: It's smiling at me. And then my last one, I guess — so that was kind of two in one, the bun has to accommodate the sausage, the condiments are the second one. And then it should be very easy to eat by hand. No matter the mountain of toppings you might put on there — looking at you again, Chicago, where I used to live — no matter the mountain of toppings, it still needs to be edible by hand. This isn't — we're not gonna de Blasio this thing and eat our pizza with a knife and fork, right?

TM: Yeah. Wasn't he in Staten Island when he did that as well?

ST: Yeah, wherever he was when he — you visit Staten Island —

TM: Weird things happen when you pick a ferry. I've actually never been.

ST: I mean, what other non-negotiables do you have?

TM: I would just — my other one was two non-negotiables. There needs to be a sauce, and there needs to be a condiment, and there needs to be like a garniture, sorry.

ST: Man, I hate to do this to you, because you take me to the mat on non-negotiables all the time, but if you handed me a bun with a dog in it, I'd eat it.

TM: I'd eat it, but I'd be like, where's the rest of it?

ST: What do you got to put on this?

TM: Yeah, especially as we've said, the bun is neutral. There's an expectation that — or you're serving yourself.

ST: And that is usually your argument to me, yeah. Your prerogative.

TM: Prerogative, yeah.

ST: Okay, I'll take it, a sauce. I'll go with a sauce. I would say sauce is as far as I'd go for non-negotiables. You want condiments — I mean, you want accoutrements on there, those are negotiable always.

TM: The most exciting part about the hot dog for me.

ST: The sausage is the most exciting part.

TM: Nah. How do you feel —

ST: Everything else is regional argument.

TM: Well, that's why I kind of chucked those in there, as it's a natural seg into the regional.

ST: Just for the listener, we learned recently that it's not pronounced segue, it is pronounced seg. Everyone does it wrong.

TM: But Segway is a form of transportation that George Bush has still yet to master. We loved that in the UK when that happened. But final question for you before we do get into regional styles. How do you feel about — I see some people cutting the dog, scoring it?

ST: Yeah, I don't like that, because again, my whole point of gently cooking it is that I don't want it to split open. So scoring it is purposely splitting it open.

TM: But if you've gently cooked it, then scored pre-griddle. You've seen this, right? You've seen people —

ST: I mean, maybe. You're getting, yeah, of course. There's even a tool that they make to do this with.

TM: Ha ha ha.

ST: It's ridiculous. It's like the avocado slicer.

TM: Got one of those. Brilliant.

ST: Yeah, it's called a knife. Yeah, I mean, you're going to get some more surface area that way, but it seems pointless to me.

TM: Okay, okay. Hit me with regional then. Start with New York, because we are the first.

ST: Regional. We are in New York. And I think there are two cities in America who have a real tie to a hot dog. Not to say that the ones I'm about to list after this don't, but the two that really battle it out — we battle it out on two different foods, and it's hilarious that it's the same two, right? Pizza and hot dogs. It's New York and Chicago. Let's go.

TM: Costco, Ikea.

ST: So starting with New York. New York is quite simple, especially when compared and contrasted to the Chicago dog. New York is mustard, sauerkraut, and/or — I don't think it's ever just the onions — but the sweet onion that has a tomato-y sauce on it. It's basically ketchup. They're not quite caramelized, they're really softened onions that then have a bit of ketchup folded into them. Gives them a little bit of a tanginess and a little bit of tomato-y-ness. Not — if you look at them, they don't look red, or they look sort of brown, they're not like ketchup. So anyway, and that's it. No, no.

TM: Which type of mustard?

ST: It's deli mustard, right? It's not your standard yellow, but it's not a whole grain mustard either.

TM: Is it Gulden's?

ST: Gulden's, that's the right, yeah, thank you. Yeah. So you're going to get this onion jam, kraut, mustard.

TM: Nice. We will have later on our first ever listener-submitted and friend-of-the-show submitted recipe for our New York onions. Just teasing that one here. Chicago.

ST: Can't wait. Chicago, famously dragged through the garden. It's a Vienna all-beef frank, steamed bun. They go an extra step, the bun in Chicago is studded with poppy seeds. Like, it's crazy. We see hamburger buns all the time with sesame seeds; hot dog buns, there's only one that I know of that has anything on the outside of it, and it's the Chicago poppy seed bun. You can't even find them anywhere else. Go to your local store and try and find a poppy seed bun. Can't find it. There's a spot that I like to go to here in Brooklyn called H&H, and in the back of this place they have a place called Dog Days. Dog Days, yes. And it's a Chicago hot dog joint, and he has the poppy seed buns. And I'm like, where do you get these? He's like, I have to ship them from Chicago.

TM: Where is this place?

ST: It's in Williamsburg, right across the street from Kellogg's Diner.

TM: I got to check that out.

ST: Yeah, we'll go. Let's go.

TM: Vienna Beef, established 1893.

ST: Oh yeah, cool. This one gets yellow mustard, it gets chopped onion, tomato wedges — which seems, but it's true, and it's exactly as you're picturing it, it's a wedge of tomato — a full dill pickle spear running down the length of the thing, a heavy dose of celery salt, sport peppers, which are the little — they're almost like the same pepper that goes on a Gilda, but they're not —

TM: Like Piquillo?

ST: They're just little pickled green peppers. And then the real marker for the Chicago dog is pickle relish. As well as a dill pickle — pickle relish. But the thing about the pickle relish is it is absurdly green. It is neon food color green, and that's like a marker.

TM: No ketchup ever?

ST: No ketchup. And that's a running theme.

TM: Why — yeah, why has the hot dog turned its back on ketchup? New York is tolerated but not celebrated.

ST: You know, I don't know, to be honest. I don't like it myself.

TM: Why?

ST: I'm a mustard guy. If you sat me down and said, I'm bringing you a plate full of sausages from Germany, I would expect there would be mustard nearby. I would not expect there to be ketchup. So just because I put it in a bun doesn't — but still a sausage, you know.

TM: But this is a hot dog. Is it a sandwich though? Someone should make a podcast about that.

ST: Oh my gosh, that's still later in the episode, because it's not a sandwich, and I have plenty of evidence to prove it.

TM: Evidence? Wow. Anyway.

ST: Anyway, Chicago dog, kind of a salad course that happens to contain a sausage. Mustard —

TM: So we mentioned Sonoran earlier.

ST: Yep.

TM: Just a reminder: bacon-wrapped bolillo, pinto beans, jalapeño sauce, tomato, onion, mustard, mayo.

ST: Again, no ketchup.

TM: Detroit.

ST: Detroit, the Coney. Beef or beef and pork chili meat sauce with —

TM: No beans.

ST: No beans, thank God. Mustard, chopped onions. And Coney Island — here it's called the Detroit Coney Island dog, refers not to New York's Coney Island directly. It was a Midwestern tradition where mostly Greek immigrants had passed through New York on their way to Detroit, and they opened up diners, and they simply called their — you know, it's like a — what's a great example that I always use? Philadelphia cream cheese. Philadelphia cream cheese never was associated or affiliated with Philadelphia, but at the time that they created their product, Philadelphia was like the hot city. So they just put that on there, you know. Like the — well, you're from a different place, but when I was a kid I had a wagon, right, a little wagon to drag my toys around in, and it was called the Radio Flyer, right. The only reason that — and that wagon predates me by a long time, but they still make them — but the reason it's called a Radio Flyer is because when that wagon was introduced as a toy, radio was brand new and air flight was brand new. You just name your thing the popular things. So you get associated. So yeah, it has no real connection to Coney Island, but it's called the Coney dog, the Coney Island dog, in fact.

TM: Coney Island dog. DC.

ST: Ooh, I don't have DC. Who do you have? I have — we can keep going for sure. What do you got for DC? And I used to live there too, I didn't know it had its own thing.

TM: So half pork, half beef, coarser grind, grilled and split, served with chili and mustard. And Ben's Chili Bowl, 1213 U Street, is the landmark institution apparently.

ST: Grilled and split, meaning split the meat itself and then hit it on the griddle?

TM: Grilled and split. So I don't know whether it goes back on the grill, probably. But just sort of mimicking the bun, I guess.

ST: Yeah, I bet they're poached and then they split and finish, and then it goes on with everything on there.

TM: And then they finish, and you get a bit of texture.

ST: Yeah.

TM: Nice into it. Seattle.

ST: Love Seattle. Seattle is a cream cheese and grilled onions, often with mustard. There are other toppings beyond that. Scallions often comes into play, weirdly. It's kind of based, or associated — which came first, the Seattle hot dog or the Seattle roll in sushi, which is cream cheese, scallions, you know what I mean? Yeah, and I think imitation crab or whatever. But a —

TM: We used to, in Argentina, almost every sushi roll I would get was laden with cream cheese. Why? Because it was cheaper than the fish. I told you times were tough when I was out there. I know that wasn't a personal preference, that was just what people were doing.

ST: Yeah.

TM: Do you have any other regions?

ST: A few, yeah. I'll run them down pretty quickly though. Cincinnati, cheese Coney. It's similar to the Detroit one we just talked about, but it has Cincinnati chili, which is its own crazy thing. And it can be any of the styles, with mustard, diced onions, shredded cheese. New Jersey has the hot Texas wiener, which is weird — it's New Jersey, not Texas. All-beef dog is fried like a ripper, then topped traditionally with a spicy mustard, chopped onions and chili sauce. Kansas City, topped with sauerkraut, melted cheese and mustard. Again, the running theme here is ketchup never really rears its head. One of my favorites of ever — and again, because I used to live there — Carolina. Carolina chili dog. So it's chili, Carolina-style coleslaw and onions. And it's basically — it's more of those things than it is the hot dog.

TM: I don't think Carolina should be allowed its own style of hot dog.

ST: Why not? Because there's two Carolinas?

TM: No, because they're —

ST: Okay, 'cause they're the whole hog capital of the country? What do you mean, they don't allow their own hot dog?

TM: Exactly. A, they don't need to get rid of any excess pork because they're cooking it whole hog. And B, they've got too many styles of barbecue already, as we learned recently when we posted our barbecue map. So you can't do everything. I don't know, I mean, that's New York and Chicago just going at it for hot dogs and pizza, so I guess —

ST: They're ambitious.

TM: I led you astray earlier, and I said I might stumble across this later, and I did. Americans do not actually eat 7 billion hot dogs a year. Americans eat 20 billion hot dogs per year. The average is around 70 dogs per person per year.

ST: Wow.

TM: I can't remember the last time I had a hot dog, so who's having my 70?

ST: I mean, I had two hot dogs last Saturday at Subject.

TM: July is the peak, and — around this is where I got that figure from — around 7 billion are consumed between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

ST: That's wild.

TM: Yeah.

ST: Of your 70 dogs, a huge percentage of them you're eating just in the summer. I mean, I guess it tracks, but does it? Like, isn't everybody trying to be very conscious of their beach body, and they're just shoveling hot dogs all summer long?

TM: Well, the beach party prep comes beforehand, then you ruin it with the dogs. I don't know. I mean, yeah, that's wild. Anything else here? That's been a lot of ingredients.

ST: That's a lot of regional styles, and I'm sure there are many more. And I'd love to hear, like, from the audience, please, shoot us some of your regional style hot dogs that are famous where you're from. I'd love to read about them and maybe try one.

TM: I think we're going to have to map it out.

ST: Let's do a hot dog map.

TM: Let's do a regional hot dog style map and get that up there on the old Instagram.

ST: And then we'll road trip. Let's go.

TM: Every Costco in America, let's do it. All right, Sother, before we get into our preparation segment here — I mentioned it earlier, friend of the show. I mentioned hot dogs as well. Well, we've got a Frank entered the conversation here. None other than good friend of the show, Mr. Frank Caiafa.

ST: Frankie.

TM: Brooklyn born and raised.

ST: Yes, this guy is Brooklyn, and —

TM: Director of Handle Bars NYC, author of the updated Waldorf Astoria Bar Book. Friend of the show, longtime friend of the show. One of my favorite friends.

ST: Friend in general.

TM: In general. One of my favorite people here in New York. So earlier this summer, sent me his recipe for something called like Jimmy's onions. And it was — Jimmy's Hot Dogs was a cart under the BQE at Graham and Meeker in Williamsburg, which operated from the 1960s to the early 2000s.

ST: Wow.

TM: If you are familiar with the bar the Richardson, it's right there. I think there's like a bus stop now, I guess, where it might have been. He sent me a photo of it as well. Fantastic. And at the time, the Richardson was apparently a liquor store. Anyway, Jimmy's Hot Dogs. Jimmy was the neighborhood vendor for decades. He loved the Cincinnati Bengals, and didn't they rank quite highly on the — hold. And I believe he enjoyed a flutter at the Aqueduct. Frank was saying that, like, on Saturday afternoons there'd be a big line there. Local guys fighting about who gets to pay. You know, guys going, all these guys, here, it's all me, Jimmy. No, Jimmy, I told you I got this one.

ST: Right.

TM: You know, imagine it. Frank's uncle used to take him to Jimmy's cart for the dogs. And his uncle also passed on an early version of the recipe, supposedly from Jimmy himself. Frank and his uncle constructed it together at his mother's apartment. And he said to me, like, once you make it a couple of times, it'll become your own, as it should. Just how Jimmy would have liked it. So that's that kind of onion sauce that we're talking about here. So we've got thinly sliced onions. And once again, well, with Frank's permission, we will share this with our premium subscribers. But just so you get the kind of the gist of it: thinly sliced onions, olive oil and butter, cooked until nicely golden brown. He added his own — he described it like a little bourgeois addition — dill weed. Then we got ketchup, German mustard, garlic powder, black and crushed red pepper. And the kicker: a can of workaday beer, Bud or Miller, nothing fancy. Low and slow until soft and jammy.

ST: Yeah, till all that beer is mostly evaporated.

TM: Sounds amazing.

ST: Yeah, it really does sound amazing.

TM: Frank Caiafa, folks, friend of the show. Big thank you, Frank.

ST: Let's make a big mess of this and just have it in jars in the fridge.

TM: Yeah, Jimmy — our interpretation of Frank's interpretation of Jimmy's.

ST: Yeah, our of Frank's interpretation of his dad's interpretation of —

TM: His uncle's —

ST: Uncle —

TM: — of Jimmy's jam.

ST: I love it.

TM: Fantastic. All right, well, that might be one of the things folks want to prepare before they're preparing their hot dogs.

ST: Correct. Gotta get your mise en place.

TM: We got to get our head around that one, and we shall do so in a quick break now. And then we'll be back with the preparation. All right, so here we go, preparation. I've made my Jimmy jam. Funnily enough, that was also a nickname for pajamas when I was growing up — your jim jams. I've made my Jimmy's jam. We're going to pull some natural casing beef and pork franks. We're going to have a couple of cans of beer, workaday lager, on hand. I'm going to mix that, as we said earlier, Lum's-style, with water, caraway seeds, garlic powder, sugar, some onion. It doesn't need to be fancily chopped, but chopped up to sort of infuse the braise. We're going to bring that all together. We're going to let it — you know, between the beer and the other ingredients we're going to marry that flavor, get it going. We will do, as you say, we'll use that liquor for a gentle simmer.

ST: I'm almost like a braise, really.

TM: Yeah.

ST: Yeah. It doesn't even have to be submerged.

TM: It doesn't need to be fully submerged.

ST: Yeah, you can roll them over, you know, halfway through.

TM: Exactly. Call that like 15 minutes. So it cooks them, heats them evenly — or they're already cooked, we know, heats them evenly — infuses that flavor without splitting them. Then we're going to pull it off onto a hot grill or griddle. Not too hot, but we want to get that Maillard going, one to two minutes either side until charred. I'm probably at this point going to take some of that liquor and just on top of it, just because that's how I watch them do it on The Irishman. And I would feel bad if I didn't do that. Separately, we're going to have our —

ST: Get your sear first.

TM: Oh yeah, yeah, no, going to sear it.

ST: Okay. Adding that liquid is going to make steam, but yeah, that'd be one final burst of like good heat.

TM: For me, to release it from the griddle. Are we toasting our buns or steaming?

ST: I'm game for either. Again, for me it's less about the hot dog, it's more about what I'm gonna put on it. Honestly, for me it's steamed.

TM: Steamed. That's where I want it to go. So we'll have our steaming device, we'll have that there. No butter for me. No, saving that for ketchup. No.

ST: Well, yeah, don't need butter unless we're toasting.

TM: And then build and serve and have your thing of choice. I mean, I do like to pick the easy preparations, and I don't think it could have gotten easier than that today.

ST: That was a pretty easy one, but also it still had some steps to be considered, you know. And then, you know, our liquid for the braise slash steaming was beer. There's other ways to get alcohol, and there's some beer in our Jimmy's jam. Jim jams. You could also certainly make yourself a nice — I love to make homemade mustards, right. So you could make a nice homemade mustard and add whatever booze you like. Frankly, I have one that I've been making for years that's whole grain, and I finish it with Amaro Montenegro. So you have this sort of like bitter orangey whole grain mustard situation. And then yeah, there's ways to —

TM: Personalize it.

ST: Well, for our ethos of cooking with booze, there's ways to get booze into the hot dog, just like we did with the hamburger, you know.

TM: I would say, like, I would be in favor of us doing an exploration of making the dogs from scratch. But I think grinding meat at home is one thing, making sausages is another, and it's not —

ST: It's a level of equipment necessity that is not —

TM: It's going to take a long time to pay itself back, to pay you back for it.

ST: Yeah, unless you're making a bunch of sausages. You don't need a sausage stuffer, and this is near impossible to do without one.

TM: Do you have any preferred brands or tips for people shopping for hot dogs, for what to look out for, what denotes quality?

ST: Well, I think we talked about some of them already. I'm looking for whatever style I want, either it's all beef, beef and pork, or all pork. For the sake of today's discussion, let's not bother talking about turkey and chicken and all the other varieties. Let's just stay with the main known hot dogs. So look for what the product is made of. Look for the words natural casing somewhere on there. Yeah, I think that's about all you really need to look for. And honestly, I would look around for smaller, more regional brands wherever you live, because they're gonna be more in tune with A, where you live, and B, because they're smaller, they're probably just not cranking out an inferior product just for volume sales. We're lucky, we live here, we've got two that are local to here that we love, right? Of course, Sabrett and Nathan's. But again, my local butcher, he makes hot dogs and they're incredible, and that's the hot dog we serve at Subject. Ends Meat here in Brooklyn.

TM: Nice. Love it. If in doubt — and if in doubt, check out The Mix by Robert Simonson. He's covering it a lot. He does a lot of New Jersey, now based over there in Milwaukee. Right up his alley, and like I said, writes about all of this stuff. If you sign up, I'm sure you can look through the archive, and he has written extensively about hot dogs. So there's your regional styles. One thing we did not discuss — and we got into it a little bit on the old lobster roll — what's your side?

ST: Depending on what's on the dog, right? If I'm having a Carolina dog with slaw and chili on there, then I don't want slaw on the side, I'm having it on the dog. So depending on what's going on the dog, I'm gonna look for things like — there's gonna be potatoes, right? We were talking potato chips, French fries, potato salad.

TM: Don't they put that on the hot dogs at Papaya as well? They put the chips on there?

ST: You can get that too, yeah. Those little sticks, and also I think I've seen actual chips. So there's a potato aspect that could be a side dish. Baked beans, but probably not if I'm having a chili dog. You know, I don't want beans and chili to come in contact with one another.

TM: Like Heinz Meanz Beanz.

ST: I mean — oh right, you guys have baked beans. You don't do baked beans like we do here, like Boston baked beans. Literally you put them in a big pan and you bake them with a lot of bacon and brown sugar. Oh yeah, yeah, this is the cultural thing that we always run into with you and I. Yeah, so it's not Heinz baked beans from a can. Baked beans are actually baked. They usually have little whole strips of bacon across a lasagna pan size, but not that deep, with brown sugar, some kind of tomato product, the beans themselves, some really finely diced onion, maybe some beer, a little bit of molasses sometimes. And then you put all that down and you literally lay strips of bacon across the top and you bake it, and the bacon renders down into it.

TM: Does anyone — maybe this is extremely common — does anyone have a restaurant where, or like, I'm thinking more of a food truck, right, rather than saying, do you want the Chang dog — you basically choose your own, build your own adventure?

ST: Oh yeah, you know, like you're saying, go to a Subway sandwich shop and be like, I want that bun and that dog, and then these are my toppings. Chipotle or whatever.

TM: What made me think of that is there's a couple of Instagram accounts from the UK that are jacket potato vendors.

ST: Oh yeah, I love those. I follow those. They're weirdly soothing to watch.

TM: And that's where you get your Heinz baked beans and your, you know, cheddar cheese and whatnot. But I'm like, yeah, why stigmatize? Why not allow people to choose their own adventure? And hey, if I want to go half Carolina, half DC — I don't know, split the difference.

ST: Other ones that I have on my list here: pasta salad, like macaroni salad kind of thing.

TM: Wow, that's not what I was expecting.

ST: It's very picnic-y food here in America, and hot dogs are very backyard picnic-y food. Corn on the cob, any number of pickles — but again, if I'm having relish or pickles on the dog, I don't need that on the side. Onion rings I can take. What I don't want — I am not looking for like a salad.

TM: Oh right, yeah.

ST: If I'm having a hot dog, we're going all in. I don't need anything healthy on the side.

TM: You've got four months.

ST: To get our beach body back.

TM: I was going to say, to hit my 70. How many is that a month? How many is that a week? Let's see. All right, that's been the preparation, the sides, a few tangents. Time for us to take our final break, and then we'll be back with the pairings.

ST: I mean, I feel like this whole episode is tangents, and we still haven't got to the sandwich debate, which I'm going to win.

TM: We'll see. Time for the final break, and then we'll be back with the pairings. All right, so we're back. Pairings. Just as you don't want salad, you don't mind —

ST: I don't think I want wine with a hot dog, but if you've got a pairing —

TM: Bubble Dogs.

ST: But if you've got a pairing — like, it's not uncommon to pair hamburgers with wine, as we know, so why can't we pair a hot dog with wine?

TM: My thinking was, we're talking either Austria or Germany. So by all means, have at it with a Grüner Veltliner. By all means, pick up a bottle of Kabinett Riesling. Or what is the — there's a traditional to Germany sparkling white wine that has a little bit of sweetness, it's called Sekt, even though that would be counterintuitive. But there's a sparkling German wine with a touch of sweetness, I think, would go really nicely with our relishes, our mustard, because we're keeping it in Germany, our ketchup. But white wine, I think. Or you know what, just a bag-in-box dry rosé. Up the bag.

ST: Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, if you're old enough to have wine, you're too old to have ketchup on your hot dog, just saying. We'll allow it up to age nine.

TM: Beer is the obvious.

ST: The clear and present winner. I mean, you're at the ballpark or wherever you are, you're eating a hot dog with one hand and there's a beer in your other hand. That's just the fact, right?

TM: Oversized and overpriced, the beer.

ST: If you're at the ballpark, yeah. Unless you're in the bleachers at Wrigley Field, they still serve an Old Style beer for a reasonable price, but you have to go get it, they have no vendors walking around. If you're in the bleachers, you gotta go back to the — but small price to pay. Anyway, beer, obviously. Pilsner. You don't want anything that's gonna cut the fat, but you don't want something that's gonna overwhelm maybe whatever cool toppings you have on there. You want something a little bit maltier, especially if you're eating again that beef frank. Let's do a Helles, right? Eyes back to Germany too. I know I've been talking about it a lot lately, maybe just because it's been on my mind, but Kölsch. Crisp, nice and cold. But this is a situation where you don't need to spend a lot of money on the beer. Just have a nice beer. And when I say nice, I mean delicious. You don't have to spend money.

TM: I want Miller High Life out the bottle.

ST: Yeah. And a pony, so it stays frosty cold. Because that's another thing we didn't talk about. The hot dog, for me, it's five bites at the most, right?

TM: Yeah.

ST: And it's also because of the nature of it, and especially if you've got a lot of toppings on there, you don't ever put it down. So it's gone pretty quickly. So a pony in one hand and a dog in the other — guess what that is? The dog and pony show.

TM: Is that what they call it?

ST: No — I recently did an interview on The Speakeasy with a bartender who has it on their menu. They have a High Life pony and a hot dog, and they call it the dog and pony show. And I totally forgot it until this moment.

TM: Brilliant. Yeah, I'm all for it.

ST: Liebling — Champagne of beers.

TM: Ah, yes. Champagne of beers.

ST: Some people like to drink Budweiser because it's the king of beers, but kings drink Champagne.

TM: King of wines, wine of kings.

ST: Yes.

TM: Talk-y. Cocktails.

ST: Cocktail's a tough one for this one. It's a tough one for me. I think I might want to have a little sidecar with my frosty cold beer of rye whiskey.

TM: Why not go Aquavit?

ST: Aquavit would be a great — sure, sure, sure. Oh man, yeah, and not something I always say, but I would like that Aquavit out of the freezer.

TM: Yes.

ST: I'm usually a neat person, off the shelf, not out of the freezer. But yeah, frosty cold Aquavit and a chilled beer with a hot dog, that sounds amazing, way to go. And that's making me think of a whole lot of other things. Some sort of a daisy or a daiquiri. The margarita comes to mind. Again, the Tommy's we talked about in another episode. Just because it's refreshing and quenching, and it has a salty component that's gonna tie back to the dog itself. But I think overwhelmingly beer is the winner. Now, here's the thing, I want to challenge myself to do something maybe inspired by our friend Hannah Chamberlain, Spirited LA. I'm gonna make a hot dog — a full hot dog, I don't know what I'm gonna put on it yet, but I'm making a full, probably just mustard — but then I'm gonna hot dog slash fat-wash something and make a hot dog flavored spirit that then I'm gonna make a michelada. Because I think beer is the winner on this dish, I'm gonna make a michelada augmented with that spirit. So we're gonna have like hot dog, let's call it vodka for now.

TM: Why not Aquavit?

ST: Hot dog aquavit — hot dacavit.

TM: Aquavit.

ST: But I don't have a recipe for this one, because I was stuck on beer.

TM: Yeah, I've got a recipe for us here today.

ST: Excellent.

TM: Although I will put my hand up and say, personal preference sometimes does lead me into the martini camp. I'm going to apologize for it here ahead of time, but I'm like — just because we were talking about earlier the Please Don't Tell connection, the craft cocktail bars, also that cultural moment that we spoke about, the hot dogs having, again — a couple of years ago Lily Star in Williamsburg, from the Broken Shaker team, they did a cocktail called Hot Doggin' It: mezcal, tomato water, and mustard seed agave. And a couple of years ago I was interviewing Holly Graham, who runs a bar called Tokyo Confidential out there in Japan — very difficult for us to schedule that and get the times to align just for the time difference — they do themed menus, and I think they were doing like a baseball themed one.

ST: They did? The social media around that was awesome.

TM: They came up with a glizzy-tini. So I was like, all right. And then, as you say, kind of made it onto social media, Instagram became a thing, TikTok. So yeah, let's do a hot dog inspired martini. We're going to go with potato vodka, inspired by my fries that I'm having on the side.

ST: Or your potato bun.

TM: Or my potato bun. Half an ounce of tomato infused dry vermouth — let's go sun-dried tomato infused, just to give it that more concentration of flavor. Half an ounce of pickle brine. Two dashes of celery bitters, which I know you're a fan of. And an optional bar spoon, if you have it on hand — not most people won't, but we have pickle mustard seeds here, we always have a little pickle mustard seed stash for salads and whatnot. Just a little bar spoon of that in there as well. Stirred up and garnished with a cornichon. And I don't have a name for it, but I did come up with this, so you're going to have to name it.

ST: Oh man, you got your potato vodka, sun-dried tomato — what was it, sun-dried tomato infused dry vermouth, a bit of pickled mustard seeds, celery bitters and a cornichon. This is — I mean, is it too on the nose? It's a ballpark martini.

TM: I like it. This is Chicago. That's a Chicago dog, right?

ST: Yeah, I mean, yeah.

TM: Yeah. The ballpark martini. In that ballpark somewhere, yeah.

ST: Yeah, yeah, I dig it. But I am gonna challenge myself to make this hot dog infused situation and a michelada, and we'll get that recipe in there as well.

TM: Nice.

ST: Bonus, bonus recipes.

TM: There we go. Yes, I know you've been sitting on it.

ST: Now, I'm not sitting on it, I don't have anything prepared here, I'll flip my notes over. I just know where I stand on this. The hot dog is not a sandwich.

TM: Okay.

ST: Simply from a linguistic point of view, if I were to say to you, or you, dear audience, come over to my house, we're having sandwiches, and you showed up at my house and there was a big spread of hot dogs, you would not think to yourself, this sucks. You'd think, these are awesome hot dogs, but I thought he said sandwiches. There's that. The one I mentioned earlier — you didn't know it, but that is a term that's used here in America for showing off and acting out.

TM: Hot dog, in it.

ST: Hot dogging. We don't go out there and sandwich. I'm not out there sandwiching around on my bicycle. Right? So those are the two big ones for me. Just linguistically, it doesn't work as a sandwich.

TM: Just from a sort of aristocratic point of view as well, you know, what we have —

ST: And you're around the corner, by the way. We're not even — I could hit it with a slingshot if it weren't buildings in the way — of Defonte's, one of the most famous sandwich establishments in the world. They don't have a hot dog. Now granted, Katz's does, but you know, it's the Katz's hot dog, it's a whole separate line. You have to get in a different line if you want the sandwich.

TM: You got the Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Sandwich. What would be the something of hot dog?

ST: I don't know. The Frankfurter.

TM: The Viscount of hot dog.

ST: The Viscount.

TM: Yeah. I mean, look, it's not something I really give too much emotional energy to.

ST: I don't give it a ton, but I think linguistically again, if I just said to you, hey, you want a sandwich, you'd start listing off, you have a turkey, cheese — you wouldn't say, yeah, do you have a hot dog sandwich for me.

TM: Okay, let me give you a different opinion here.

ST: Yeah, that's why we're here. There's my opinion, and then yours is wrong.

TM: So there is the expectation that people have, and a literal definition. Why was the sandwich invented?

ST: Gambling is the story, right?

TM: You'd have to ask Mr. Barry Enderwyck. But the notion of — you mentioned meat pies earlier, right? A lot of the things that were invented in the UK or popularized in the UK, Cornish pasties — grab-and-go food that you could eat with your hands during the day and not, like, shoveling it up or whatnot, right. So you're encasing something in bread to get the majority of your meal from the thing that's inside, the protein. You're improving its flavor with different condiments and other ingredients and sauces. That's everything that we've been describing here today.

ST: Sure, but that also describes a burrito. That also describes a sushi roll.

TM: No, that's — burrito is not bread. Sushi is not bread.

ST: So now flour and water isn't bread? You're saying a tortilla isn't bread?

TM: Bread has been leavened.

ST: Lavash isn't leavened, and it's called lavash bread.

TM: That's because — that's why they have to specify.

ST: It's a slippery slope. People start to think, well, if the hot dog's a sandwich, then so's a taco, right? It's still encased, I can pick it up.

TM: What I don't understand is where is the slippery slope leading? It's not world ending.

ST: I didn't say it was world ending, I just said it's confusing. Again, if I said, come over to my house for sandwiches, and you showed up and there were nothing but tacos, you'd be like, these tacos are delicious — I didn't say yours was wrong with them — but you'd be like, but didn't he say sandwiches?

TM: I'll be the judge of the —

ST: Anyways, I think there's only two things left to do.

TM: Well, before we do, can I just state my final closing argument here to the judge, the jury out there, our peers, a jury of our peers? It might be hot, but there's not a dog in sight, so I don't care.

ST: Mm hmm.

TM: Does that annoy you?

ST: It doesn't matter whether he dived or he dove, he still came up wet.

TM: Quality. Ha ha ha.

ST: Now there's only two things left to do.

TM: Time to put on the apron —

ST: And break out the shaker.

TM: And let's get cooking —

ST: And drinking. Cheers, buddy.