Hot Dog!(s)

we didn't talk about corn dogs. I got a little bit on chili dogs, but there wasn't anything in here on chili dogs. Is a hot dog of sandwich? John Hodgman's famous uh lifelong battle? Are we still talking about that? There's a that we're not. But that's the point is there was. There's a lot more to hot dogs. The foot long. Don't even mention it. We won't even talk about the foot long. I think the foot long is illegal now and we're not allowed to talk about it.

I'm on sure nanny state thanks to Uncle Joe Biden. Alright, let's talk about hot dog, dude. This has been a long time coming. I'm surprised we haven't talked about. And you're right, we're biting off a lot here, but we can chew it, pass it through our our guts and out of our pooper. And that's what everybody's gonna hear. Do you like hot dogs? Can we go ahead? And I got two questions. You like hot dogs? I like a good hot dog? Yeah? And do you boil them or grill them? Oh? I don't. I try not to

grill anything. I think grilling makes everything taste worse. What smoking a little bit is okay, but grilling, I'm I'm not a grilled person. That is very strange, Like like a hot dog that's been placed on a grill, blackened and split open is preferable to one that retains all of its taste when it's just appropriately reheated and plumped up and say boiled water, even just in the microwave. I am shocked that you don't like a char on meats. That's no, it's not very you. I don't. It's too

you know why, because I'm a bitter supertaster. I can barely tolerate grapefruit, certainly can't tolerate char on anything like barbecue chicken. I mean, what is the point of barbecue chicken, because you burn that sauce onto it. It's great. No, it's awful. Oh it's so bad, So I'm taking it. You like them grilled most of all? Well, I mean I'll eat a boiled hot dog for sure, but oh yeah, a grilled hot dog that has got some bubbly black that's split open the best. Not for me. But you

do like hot dogs. Are you above below or about at the national average of hot dogs consumed per year among Americans? Well, that is seventy hot dogs, and I am above now well below that. I probably I'd probably eat less than ten hot dogs a year. Oh really, I was gonna say, I've got you beat by a mile. But how many do you eat a year? I would

guess anywhere between forty or fifty. I mean maybe I'm trying to think, because I feel like they usually come in two's mhm, Like at a barbecue or something a cook out, I'll have a couple of hot dogs and and we're not counting this is just hot dogs, because I definitely love me some brought worst and stuff like that, but um, straight up hot dogs. I probably don't eat more than twelve or fifteen a year, I would say, hey, you know the key to beer brots. Everybody does it wrong.

Everybody soaks the brons in beer beforehand. That does nothing to them because boils no soaked. Some people soak them, pre soak them, or even boil them. Yeah, people boil them. Okay, now that would work if the brons were split open. What you want to do is grill them first. And I you think a grill broad is preferable to a microwavor boiled broad be grill at first so that it splits open. Then you soak it or simmer it in beer, and then it sucks the beer in. That's how you

make a beer brought. You don't do beer first. It doesn't do anything. It's a waste of perfectly good beer. Even if it's bad beer, you're still wasting it. I can't wait for the emails on this one. I'm right. I don't care what anybody says they're wrong. I'm right. I've tried it. Alright. So hot dogs seventy per year, supposedly twenty billion hot dogs in the United States alone

annually a year. Isn't that insane? No, it's insane. That's an insane amount of hot dogs, because think about it, if I'm eating forty, that means there's somebody out there eating their seventy plus my extra thirty. Joey Chestni will do that in three minutes. Yeah. Every time I see that, I'm reminded of that huff Post article that Ryan Reynolds wrote about how he's disgusted by competitive eating. Just a great going back and reading in every year or two.

It really it really stands up. It's funny, but it's also very It makes some really good points too. I love Ryan Reynolds, well, you'll like him even more after this. Um. So, hot dogs are sausages, but um, that doesn't mean a sausage is a hot dog. It falls under that category of sausage, which is basically any product where you grind up meat and you put a bunch of spice and stuff in it, and then you cook it in a casing, usually like some sort of sheep skin um as we'll

see with or sheep intestine. Not skin, really tough to eat, threw it. It would be rimmed sheep skin. The hot dogs we know and love this that you get at your regular old grocery store are not generally cooked in that sheep casing. It is a fake casing that goes away. Uh, and they are cooked, you know. Un that's while. You can eat a hot dog right out of the old package, yes, and you should once in a while. It keeps you human insane. I like a hot dog sandwich, like a

raw not raw bread a cold Yeah. When I was a kid, I used to cut it lengthwise into it, like I guess, eight little thin strips and throw a couple of those on a sammy with some mayo and cheese. Oh that sounds I would try that for sure. It's good, but we don't. My daughter eats hot dogs occasionally and she loves them, but we don't. Kids will eat them every day if you if you buy them, but we just don't buy them and keep them in the house.

That's how I eat fourty yr fifty hot dogs a year is buying them at the store and keeping them in the house pack right. Yeah, So over the course of like a week or so, four or five times a year, I will eat a pack of hot dogs. That's how I'm hitting for you. If it were just me being out, I would eat zero because I haven't left my house in two years. But chuck We've now reached to me the fact of the podcast, and I would love to take it if you would be so, yeah,

because I have no idea what you're gonna say. Are you ready for this? Yes, malogney, you know blogney. Yeah, it's like a flat hot dog. It is. It's a giant hot dog. It's cut into slices. That's bolognay. Thanks a lot for taking the fact of the podcast. But yes, I'm sorry you didn't know that bologny. It never occurred to you that the taste is identical. No, no, I hadn't. I had no idea that Bologna is a giant hot dog.

And now I'm just like, I want to see a whole intact bologney before oscar Meyer slices it up, because that must be astounding. Just go to any deli on planet Earth that's different, that's different, that looks that looks different, that looks more like a traditional sausage. I'm saying, like, I want to see the hot dog, the giant hot dog that oscar Meyer produces and then slices up into bolognay and packages the portions of it into bologna packages.

That's what I want to see. Well again, they're right there in the deli case, a big giant log of Bogny. Not the same. I guess I want to see it out of the package. I don't know what I want to see. Well, it's got that red packaging around it. You just want to strip its clothes off and stare it, throw a sheep skin on it. Well, I'm sorry, I ruined that I thought every of knew that Bologny was

a hot dog. No, you're the only person besides the National Hot Dog Council president who knows that Bologna is a giant hot dog. Well, don't you remember the song My Bologne has a first name? It's h O D D O G. Yes, I know that song, but it never really sunk in in the lyrics. All Right, the U s D has a U s D A has a definition for hot dog. Uh should we read it?

I guess yeah. I think it's very instructive. All right, Frankfurter's ak A. Hot Dogs, wieners, or bologny are cooked and or smoked sausages according to Federal Standards of Identity. The standard also requires that they be uh comminuted, which is reduced to tiny particles semi solid products made from one or more kinds of raw skeletal muscle from livestock like beef for pork, and may contain poultry meat. Smoking and curing ingredients contribute to the flavor, color, and preservation

of the product. They are linked, shaped, and come in all sizes wait for it, long than and chubby, chubby chebby hot dog. It's probably too late for a content warning to our vegetarian friends. Hopefully they know better than to listen to one on hot dog. Yeah, but technically, um, a hot dog does not have to be made of meat. It can be made of vegetable protein. Well yeah, but I mean as far as the grossness that's to come, I was just trying to toss them a bone, the

vegans a bone. So the thing that differentiates hot dogs from other types of sausages is how finely ground the internal stuff is. It's ground so much, every bit of it, from the spices, the flavorings, the meat, everything it's ground into is such a granular um constitution. That's not right, but still uh that you can't differentiate one thing from another. It's all just particles and that you kind of stick

together into that casing. And they form a mass. They go from semi solid maybe even almost liquid two a jiggli mass that tastes delicious. That's right. Uh. The USDA says you'r hot dogs can contain no more than fat and ten percent water and three point five percent non meat uh filler, which is generally a binder um like they use cereals or dry milk, sometimes soy protein isolated soy protein. And this is to bind it together. And three point five percent of your hot dog can be

made up of this. Yeah, we'll get a little more into the into the weeds and what's in your hot dogs? I say we take a break first and then jump in. Okay, let's do it. I want to learn about a ters or act, how to take a propect with all about fractal kiscon that's another hun. The Lizzie Border murders that they can have all runs on the plane, everything that we should know. Word up, Jerry, all right, our buddy, the great Dave Ruse. The rooster. Yeah, the rooster. I

can't believe we missed that before. My gosh, just just sitting right there. So the rooster helped us. Um And sorry, David, if you hate that nickname. I think that's it now, just let us know. But he helps us with this one, and he basically said, Okay, yes, like we really should establish that there is actual meat in your hot dog. And no, it's not mystery meat like it can. There can be the horrific stuff that you, um, you suspect as in your hot dog, like lips and noses and

tails and all that stuff. Legally it can be, but you will know if that's in there, because those ingredients have to be listed individually on the packet, and then on the front it has to say that it's a hot dog with byproducts or a hot dog with mine. Your favorite band name Variety meets Yeah that saw that would come in Yeah, it's uh what would have variety? What kind of band would that be? Variety meats jeez, I don't know. I think they play like Calliope music,

like Circus music or something insane. You know what that is? Yeah? Uh yes, And and sort of the takeaway from all of this, after we read you all of these ingredients and things is read the package. If like, if you want to know what's in your hot dog, don't just be like, oh, I don't know what's in these things, Sure you do. It's printed right there, so just just read it. It'll tell you if there's lips in there or organ meat. Even they can't put hearts or kidneys

or anything in there unless they list them. And the other thing that Dave says is the major hot dog brands do not use that stuff. I think it's just bad for business. It's not worth it. Can we read what Day wrote? Is this really low quality meat? It's not filet man on if that's what you're asking, but it isn't nostrils and anuses either, which I think really gets it across, you know. Yeah, so um, we should

say that it can be. You can get your pork hot dogs, your beef hot dogs, you can get chicken dogs, turkey dogs, obviously your vegan dogs that they make these days. I'm sure there's there's beyond sausages. I have not tried them yet. I haven't either. I don't know if they make a hot dog hot dog they make a sausage, but I'm sure they will at some point because they're just you know, they're covering all their bases, I think. And beyond um, I know, I'm sorry that was terrible.

So beef. We're talking about a beef hot dog. Uh, what's the main meat in there? Is going to be what's called trimmings. And this is the meat that is not used as far as like when they're when they're I know, please don't listen if you're a vegetarian, Yeah, you want to stop listening to the rest of this episode. Now. When they're cutting the beef and the cow apart and making steaks and roasts and things like that, they're either doing it by hand or maybe there's a machine involved.

The trimmings are the things that are sort of left over. It's still meat, and it's still like fat and beef. Like if you get ground beef that's not super specific, that's also trimmings. Yeah, and so like with trimmings, Um, it's just it's just the stuff that's left over. There's nothing wrong with it. And as a matter of fact, it's it's like fat and meat. But there can only be like x amount I think thirty of fat that

can make it into meat products. So there's it would be extraordinarily wasteful to just throw that away because it's not fully mignon or it's not round roast like that. It's stupid to just get rid of it. It's actually super disrespectful for to the animal that you just slaughtered to throw away a significant portion of their edible carcass. If you're into eating their carcasses, you should probably be okay with meat trimmings being you used in ground beef

and hot dogs and stuff like that. Right, beef cannot legally be mechanically separated anymore because of mad cow disease. In two thousand four, the U s d A says, you can't mechanically separate beef, but you can mechanically separate um poultry and pork pork um, and you're getting trimmings and poultry and pork as well. If you want to be presented with the full horror of eating meat, watch some trade videos of mechanical separators that like the producers

who make those machines have on their sites. It's just it's insane. It's like, this is what we're eating. It's nuts. But it also is super efficient in that they take the pieces of the carcass that have just little bits of like meat and edible like muscle and tendons and stuff attached to them still and put them under different states of pressure through a sieve, and that that actually forces that little bit left of meat and edible like

muscle off of the bone. It separates them. It's mechanically separating them so that you can use that stuff and make things like hot dogs or ground pork or ground turkey and that kind of stuff. It's it's again, it would be deeply wasteful to just throw that stuff away because again, it's not a chicken breast or it's not a fully mignon, and it's actually very sensible. But it also kind of brings you full circle back to how

horrific modern meat processing and agriculture really is. Yeah, and those mechanical separators are based on my grandmother Bryant's mouth. Oh could she do that? Well? She was. She legendarily would come around and get your fried chicken bones off your plate, be like, you're not gonna eat that? Did she call you? And my brother and I would try

because we knew would happen. We would try and get every bit of meat off that thing, and she would find more meat, and like when she was done with it, it looked like a cartoon bone, you know, like when they pull the fish out of a cat's mouth, nothing nothing left. Uh, and she lived to be a hundred and one. So well that's how she hated all that cartilage, my sweet grandmother, briant Um. They're also uh we talked about spices earlier. They're salt, sugar and spices and hot dogs.

There's a lot of sodium and a hot dog. Um, you've got your regular old table salt, you've got liquid salt, sodium lactate. Uh, you've got sodium diacetate prevents bacteria growth. You don't want listeria, then you're gonna want that sodium diacetate in there. Yeah, a lot of this. These types of sodium are also used for curing too, sure, and well there's a whole Uh there's a lot of laundry to impact with the with the curing that we'll get into in a few minutes. But um, there's a lot

of sodium. I think of your daily sodium intake you can get from a single hot dog, Frank, which who just eats one hot dog? So let's just say it. And I don't call them Frank's either, do you No? And I don't think I know anybody who does call them frank. I've only seen it or heard it on TV before. Yeah, and what we'll get to the naming later on as well. Um, you also can get high fruit tose corn syrup syrup in your dog because of you know, some people do it, some people don't. Um,

it's not a lot. But I saw how it's made. And by the way, if you really want to, yeah, that's a good one if you either do or don't want to eat hot dogs anymore. I don't know how you're gonna come out of it, but just watch the how it's made on hot dogs. The part where they're the finished hot dogs are shooting out of that machine like they're being run up a salmon ladder or something. That's amazing. It's mesmerizing. But but the goop that they put in the casing. But yeah, again though it's just

it's edible meat. It's it's just dorble meat. Like I I know where you're coming from. There. It is it is meat, and it is spices. It is garlic and pepper and coriander and maybe paprika. Um. Maybe some we'll get into the celery salt thing or celery powder thing. So and it's water. Um, it is all these things. But when it's pumped, made into a slurry and pumped out of a tube, it definitely looks like like pretty gross.

It's kind of gray. And it's just just watch the video. Yeah, hot dogs, hot dogs, bologna, all that stuff would be a flat gray if it weren't for some of the curing agents that they put in there. And apparently they also use cherry powder sometimes too for its coloring, to color them a pink. Okay, you might also fly find some msg uh, you might find some yeese extract. You might find some beef stock smoke flavoring. Yeah, that liquid smoke,

cause you know what that is. That's actual liquid smoke where they condense smoke from hardwoods and turn it into water vapor and collect that water vapor. That's what liquid smoke. Isn't that nuts? Yeah? I used to be a fan of that. I would keep some in the house, but I don't know not not do that anymore. I mean, I thought it was like all science, like just completely like isolated flavors and all that, and it's actually no, it's it's it is what it says on the tin. So

should we get into sodium nitrite and the nitrites. Yeah, that sounds like a good band featuring variety meets uh. Because you're gonna find some sodium nitrite and some hot dogs. You might also find hot dogs that are like, we don't use nitrites, no nitrites, Um, we use celery powder or maybe cultured celery juice instead. And people might think, oh, well, that's got to be way better for you, because I've heard nitrites, if you cook them at high heat, can

give you cancer. Yeah. So, like the whole thing is is that under certain conditions, nitrites can turn into uh nitro, same means, nitro, same means, and those, starting back in the seventies were linked to I think bowel cancer and possibly stomach cancer. And so everybody started getting really worried about nitrites and people stopped using nitrites. Well, they still use them, like in any of the classic hot dogs that you see for sale, they use regular old nitrites.

But celery powder was was offered up as like an alternative, a natural alternative to nitrites, and that it did all of the same things. Um, but it was a natural alternative because it's celery. And the problem is is like to your body, a nitrite from celery and a nitrite that was isolated in the lab is the same exact thing, and it's going to have the same exact effects on you.

And if those effects are to give you colon cancer, you're gonna get it, whether it's from celery powder or whether it's from the nitrites that where I selated in the lab. Yeah, and this is I mean, boy, if you start looking up articles on celery powder and nitrites and cancer, it's a rabbit hole. Like there's a lot of information out there. UM. At one point, just a couple of years ago, the National Organic Standards Board, it was up for a vote whether or not to keep

celery powder on the list of acceptable organic ingredients. UM. Largely because of this, uh, not just because of hot dogs, but you know they used on bacon and like in any kind of cured meat you might find a nitrite or celery powder. And they said they voted eleven to one, I think, or maybe it was ten to one, but it was it was super lopsided to keep celery powder on the list. It's so weird organics. There's this really great article by Jesse Hirsch on the site called the

counter dot org worth checking out about that. UM. But it was it doesn't make sense that they would keep it on there like unmolested, because it's just so misleading because if you use celery powder, you can say that your hot dogs are uncured, even though they would as sensibly have the same impact on your body as cured hot dogs. And then even worse, because it's natural. Celery powder can be used in organic products and still be listed as organic, but the celery used doesn't have to

be organic. Yeah, and um celery. It turns out, Jesse Hirst pointed out in that article that um celeries, particularly adept of all the vegetables at really soaking in pesticides and herbicides um into its little body and passing it along well as sensibly passing it along. So it is really weird that they just kind of went whole hog, or continue to go whole hog on on celery being some sort of natural ingredient even though it's it does the exact same thing to your body the lab isolated

nitrite wood. Yeah, it is weird. You know, at one point we should do an episode on organ standards. I think we have, but we could revisit it for sure, did we. I'm I'm pretty sure we've talked about organics versus local. Um. Yeah, we we We've talked about it, but let's do it again. Well, I know the stuff we didn't cover because uh, Emily always has a problem with it in her with her business selling natural body products because people will say, like, this is organic soap

and stuff like that. Like people throw the word organic on something when it doesn't even apply. Sometimes just because it's a people will buy something if it says organic on it, or if it's not even certified organic. Uh, you can get away with it, you know, on on a smaller level, like a small business. Um. And then there was something else too, maybe we could roll in like all the food sort of labeling, like free range chickens.

I remember when I worked for that chicken company, and I know I mentioned this years ago, but they I was at a free range farm and I was like, I thought these were free range, like they're all in there, and he was like, free range just means the gate is open basically. Yeah. I remember saying that before. They can leave, but they don't because this is where the food is, right. So you want to imagine chickens just

roaming around the countryside, That's just not the case. I want my chickens forced out of there and made to walk around in the field for a while. I'm sure there are some local Oh yeah, and we try to go to farmers markets and get local um meat that is like a genuine farm with chickens that are walking around and stuff like that. But anything you're you're getting like in a package of the grocery stores, you're probably being misled in some way. We'll have to take on

meat processing or like that whole thing. I know eventually I've been avoiding it. Yeah, well, we're gonna run out of topics one day and that's going to be left. Uh should we talk about how these things are made before we take our break? Yes, and then also just want to re shout out to how it's made. Video on It's great five minutes. It is time I'll spent so and again you'll either say I'm there eating a hot dog again, or like, who cares? I love it a slurry tube. I feel like I'm in the middle.

I'm definitely notice it didn't make me want to not eat a hot dog, but I wasn't like I gotta have a hot dog, right? Yeah? Sure, So the whole thing starts with grinding the meat. If it was mechanically separated, it's already some sort of paste or goo or batter um. But if it's not, if it's you know, trimmed beef or even trimmed pork, then it has to be ground

and do a slurry. Because remember, the thing that differentiates hot dogs from sausages or other types of sausages is that it's ground up so finely that you can't differentiate one bit from another. That's right. So you've ground the stuff up, then you got to mix in all those ingredients and it goes into this huge industrial mixer. I love watching this stuff. Any industrial processes are fascinating to me, even when meat goo, yeah, because it's worth it when

you get to that that hot dog shoot. Okay, there's a big payoff, uh, so that you know it's mixed together in these huge vats and this is where your spices they're dumping into these huge bags of salt and paprika and garlic powder and apparently, like some mustard powder, depends on where you are according to how it's made, Like different regions have different flavors they like, yeah, which makes you want to kind of do across country hot

dog Doctor Original Tasting Tour. Yeah, well, if we ever get back on the road again, maybe we should make a point to eat a hot dog and every city. That's a good idea. I actually, I don't know if it's a good idea or not, but it is a fine idea. Okay. Uh so this is mixing all that stuff together. Dave has it in here that ice is added because the blades generate heat. Um the video from how it's made, it looked like it was just cold water. But I imagine the water also mixes in those spices

and keeps everything nice and juicy. Right, So, and then it was a lot of water, wasn't it. It seemed like a lot of water. I saw the reason that ballpark Frank's plump when you cook him is because they add even more water. And so that leftover water that they leave in that slurry, the hot dog slurry that gets kind of cooked in. When you heat it up, it turns into steam or water vapor, which expands in volume, which makes the volume of the hot dog itself expand

too amazing. I don't know about that. What's up next? Chuck stuffing the case things? Maybe yep, you gotta get that emulsion. And this is where the you get, not the hot beef injection, you get the cold beef injection. Uh. And this is probably uh cellulose casing. And then it's you know, it's tied off. It looks like a regular sausage. It's been it's in a big long link, long like it's all tied together with that casing and they're twisted up every would it say, like five and a quarter inches?

Is I think standard? Um? It's not for the bunt links. I do too, but you know that they make them thinner. That's not the chubby version, it's the thin version. Yeah, I just I just like it to match the length of the bunt. See why you want to start off with just bread? I know because I would like bread. And I even tend to pinch the un dogged parts of the bun off it. Yeah, pinch it and leave it. And if I'm really hard up, I might dip it

in some leftover catchup and eat it afterward. My friend James from New Jersey would not eat the corners of his omelet. Isn't that weird? Yes? That he might be the only person who ever felt that way. He would cut one off and cut the other one off and eat the rest. Huh. I've never heard that one before. I never heard that. Um. All right, So you got it stuffed, um, then you smoke it, and you know what they're probably doing is adding some of that liquid smoke.

But you're also going to get some smoke as you're cooking it, and they're curing it too. They're bathing it and basically like what amounts to a different type of brine that's that will cure it. And you know the difference between curing and cooking is they're both transforming meat into something that can be preserved, whereas preserved it's just cooking uses temperature and curing uses chemicals. But they both arrive at virtually the same thing, that's right. So then

you're almost done, right you are? Then the fun stuff comes because most hot dogs, I think you said way earlier, they don't they don't sell them in casings any longer. They they prepare them and cook them in casings, but then they take the casings off, so it's like a machine that kind of cuts them, and then another part of the machine that steams them off, and then they come shooting out of that that last machine into into like these giants like trolleys, like a huge laundry trolley. Basically,

it's amazing to watch, it really is. And if you're just grossed out, just fast forward to like the last probably forty forty seconds of that clip. You'll see and pretend their circus peanuts, which is way grosser than then meat. Go man, I have end a circus peanut and probably forty five years and I still remember exactly the texture and taste. Yeah, yeah, it hasn't changed. I'm sure. All right,

So that's it. They get vacuum sealed and packaged, and you've got a hot dog on your hands, you do, and then you put it in your mouth and you say, my god, there's some delicious colon cancer. Should we take a break? I think we should, and then we're going to talk about some of the history and where this name came from, because it's kind of weird if you

stop and think about it. I want to learn about a terrosortic college act, how to take a perfect but with all about fractal get kiscon that's a little hun the Lizzie Border murders that they kind of all runs on the plane. Everything that we should know word up. Jerry took all right, So we did a little bit of a flip flop. We usually will do this history stuff first, but we did a different today. I think it's nice. It feels like a new jacket that makes

you feel cool, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, like a magician's jacket. That's right. So, uh, you've heard him called Frankfurter's, which we mentioned briefly, and of course weener. We haven't said that word yet. Um. They both come from Germany, which is where the sausage comes from. Um, Frankfurt, Germany. They say, Hey, way back in seven we invented this thing, the Frankfurter sausage, and so call it a Frankfurter Vienna.

He says, no, no, no, those American hot dogs you're eating they came from US and Vienna as vien uh in Europe, and veeners or Wieners is where that comes from. Right. I had no idea, did you. Yes? Okay, well you just know everything about hot dogs and bologny and all that. I've traveled in Germany and I have taste buds, so veeners a new Bologna was a hot dog. I'm gonna start calling them that veeners and franc photos a vina. You're right, so Franco love how Dave abandons that he's

like that? That matters not. What really matters is that these things eventually made their way to New York and that's where the whole thing really took off in earnest because yeah, Frankfort has been making hot dogs potentially since Fortune seven. Vienna has been making something similar since who knows when, and that's great, but they never took off.

Like you would not call a vener or a Frankforter like the national dish of Germany or Austria, like you would call it the national dish of America, which suddenly sounds really sad now that I'm saying it out loud. Yeah, like you wouldn't walk, like, take your first visit to New York and go up to a card and say, could I have one of your fine German style veners? Right? They said, what are you talking about? And then yeah, now you wouldn't say that instead you'd say hot dog

as you just said. But they did come from German pushcart vendors uh in the eighteen sixties in the Bowery. That sounds delicious. It says in the Bowery, they were served on milk rolls with mustard and sauerkroud. Even though I don't like mustard or sauerkroud, that still sounds good to me. I know you don't like mustard ser crow too, huh. Although, yeah, you don't like any vinegar based to anything. To you, not a lot of vinegar based things. Fair enough. You

don't like about sarer crowd it's too sour. It is very sour. It's really lives up to its name. That's right. So, um, that's where the whole thing started. I think by the eighteen sixties there were pushed carts in New York. They eventually made their way to Coney Island. Um. There was a guy named Charles Feltman who was the first Coney

Island hot dog king in eighteen seventy one. Um, and then famous Nathan's or Nathan Nathan's famous Sorry I got it Backwards was established by a guy named Nathan hans Burka. I think I said it right. Um in Coney Island, which Coney Allen became kind of like the the capital of hot doggery in America, especially at the turn of the last century. Yeah, So here's where it gets a little weird because when you think of a cony, you

think of a chili dog. Um. But I did a little bit of digging because to me, you want to make a hot dog great, put some chili and cheese on it. Yes, just basically just go to the varsity. That's how you make a hot dog great. Like I love a chili dog. I love I love a chili dog, chili cheese dog, no less with on top, and some fritos happened to fall in there. I'm fine with it.

I don't seek it out. Um. So Chili's appeared in San Antonio in the eighteen seventies, and Coney Islands were the names of restaurants, not a specific chain or whatever, but like these Greek immigrants in like the Midwest and specifically Michigan would open up what they called Coney Islands and there were these restaurants where they were Greek diners,

but they also sold these chili dogs. It was like a chili sauce, no beans supposedly, although I'm that I love beans in my chili, so I don't care about that. But it's just a it's a little much with the Bonton frankly the beans okay, and the chili yeah, well no, just the beans in the bun. It's just too much. It's much better with just just meat based chili. No beans for me in my opinion. But I'm not sure. I'm not gonna yuck anybody's hot dog yams. Do you

like a Cincinnati chili? Didn't they have cinnamon in it? Yeah? That we kind of do our sort of like that, like sometimes some chocolates and cinnamon. Yes, it's good stuff. Skyline chili, yeah, I don't know they've ever had Skyline crazy enough, but cinnamon and chili is good. I think in Toledo you would have had some Skyline chili. There was even a Skyline Chili restaurant, and I didn't eat it. I don't know why. I love it. It's good stuff.

But the all of this to say is that even though Nathan's and Coney Island is known for chili dogs, um, Michigan and Detroit is very uh not abrasive, but defensive about the fact that they say we started the chili dog and like it's verified it came from Michigan, Yeah, which is a bit of a brain buster. But the Coney Dog is a Michigan creation, simple as that. That's right.

What about baseball games? Apparently there was a guy in St. Louis who bought the St. Louis Brown's baseball team in the eighteen nineties and also started selling hot dogs there, and they it was just a match made in heaven from that that time on. Alright, so all of this is great, we're having a good time. We know about Frankfurter's and veeners, but why are they called hot dogs? Josh oh well, allowing to explain chuck, because I just

so happened to know this. So there's this idea that the German immigrants who brought hot dogs over with them and started selling them and became kind of celebrated in places like New York um also brought over docks and dogs with them, And supposedly, anybody who knows anything about hot dog history knows that the association between docksins and hot dogs were made right off of the bath. Okay, that's kind of phase one of this legend, but that

seems to be totally accurate. So it's possible that they called them hot docksins for a time. Yeah, weird name it is, but I mean, you can understand where like a docksin looks like a little sausage with legs and long ears. Well, and there's also well we'll get to that. Um. There was also a cartoonist going in a different direction from the New York Journal. Well this is step two, yeah, this part two. His name was Tad Dorgan, great name, and he as and this story is by all accounts

not true. But he says, in nineteen hundred, how was it a baseball game at the old Polo Grounds in New York City? And uh, there was a vendor saying, get you docks and sausages while they're red hot. And he said he got a mental image of a naxt Well docks and dog in a bun, and he thought, well, that's cute, and so he made a cartoon of it and drew that and called it hot dogs because he supposedly didn't know how to spell docks and And that is the apocryphal story that a lot of people you

will see online have printed this stuff. But by all accounts that is not true at all. Because in the eighteen hundreds, twenty years before that, at Yale University, these students, little John Hodgmans, we're calling them, Uh, these push cards dog wagons. One was called the Kennel Club and they and it was even in print. The word hot dog was found in e and the Yale Record a good five years before Ted Dorgan's story takes place, right, So yeah,

Ted Dorgan, big fat liar. Yale students apparently the ones who coined the term hot dog. And there's this idea that they were it was a play on the hot docks and probably, but there also seems to be some evidence that it was a um kind of a sly nod to the idea that there was potentially dog meat in these sausages, because they were made by immigrants after all, and this was Yale, so there was a certain amount of xenophobia even though they were enjoying these delicious hot dogs.

And so the Yale students said, we're gonna call these hot dogs because who knows, maybe there's dog meat in them? Right? That is part three, I guess, so I would say to be okay, uh. And then you know, of course people are like, well did they really eat dog? In Germany? And apparently in the at times in Germany when things would get really bad, uh, there are verified reports that they would eat dog meat. Uh and in a very bad slang term for a German immigrants sometimes we're dog

eaters back in the day. Uh. And that probably did contribute to the name somewhat. But there there is nothing on record or any truth whatsoever. Um two dogs hot dogs actually being made from dog No, there was never that was never like a trend or anything like that. It just seems to have been an unhappy coincidence between Germany going through some hard times around the time that hot dogs were introduced to the larger republic in America. Yes, so all those things kind of came together to form

in Yale students heads the idea of hot dogs. No ted organ Yale students. Yeah, And apparently early on hot dogs were like people love them, But like you said, there was xenophobias. So there was also the notion that what is in this from the beginning, what kind of mystery meat could be in there? Is? Are they dirty? Should we eat these? Upton Sinclair certainly didn't help later on with his book The Jungle Um. But apparently that's why Nathan hunt Fuka of Nathan's famous early on would

um have signs that say like no horsemeat? He made his employees where white smocks early on, that was their early uniform was because it made him look he thought like more clean or more like a doctor even right. And he also build his hot dogs his kosher style,

which was not the same as kosher. Uh. It was just kind of a playoff on this idea that kosher meat was much cleaner because it was um slaughtered and raised and slaughtered and and packaged under the eagle eye of a kosher inspector and so therefore it had far less adulterents or contaminants in it. And so he kind of build his hot dogs his kosher style. They kind of also further that idea that he had very clean meat, clean hot dogs. Yeah, so you can't get kosher style,

you can. Yeah, we knew. I feel like, if we haven't done a whole episode on kosher, I'm surprised, but we should definitely do one on that. But yeah, there are much stricter guidelines associated with it. And you're never gonna find pork and a kosher hot dog. Um, it's either gonna be before it could be poultry, but never pork because that ain't kosher. Um. But yeah, it's a it's it's separate, like Hebrew National has very famously kosher hot dogs, and people feel like they just kind of

taste differently. But I think that's just because they're different brands, you know. Yeah, when you say something like, let's we should do something on kosher one day, that immediately all I can think of is like, sure, I'd love to get a bunch of stuff wrong, right exactly. That just seems like one of those that we would mess up in some way. Man, do you remember our episode on the Pope. I don't think we've ever gotten more pushback for an episode than that one. I wipe that one

from my memory. Banks. Yeah, it was. It was worse than soccer, I think. Um, I guess we should talk about a few of the famous kinds of hot dogs. You got your Chicago dog, got the poppy seed roll, get yellow mustard relish, chopped onion pickles, tomato slices, little celery salt, got that Michigan coney, The Mexican dog that you can get in Los Angeles wrapped in bacon. Yeah, the Sonoran dog which they might deep fry. Yes, it's it looks lovely on a in a picture. Um, but yeah,

it's I mean it's a lot they put cream on it. Um, it does look pretty good. There's one. Um. I didn't realize this, but Atlanta does kind of have its own version of a hot dog. Did you know that I saw this from David? That a thing? It is, now that I think about it, I had. I never realized that it was an Atlanta thing, but it's it's a Southern thing in Atlanta. Thing that put cole Slaw usually kind of sweet, very Mayo heavy or Mayo forward cole Slaw on a dog that istill delicious. But apparently I

suspect it may have come from the scrambled Dog. I found this on Mental Flaws. Um. There's something called the scrambled Dog from Inglewood Pharmacy in Columbus, Georgia, and it's all kinds of messed up. It's cut up into pieces, bathed in a bowl of chili with pickles on top, oyster crackers, cheese, and then cole Slaw. So I suspect somebody from Atlanta went down to Columbus and said this would be great if it was just cole Slaw and the hot dog. And then that's where the Atlanta version

of the hot dog came from. Wait what else was on there? Chili, pickles, oyster crackers, cheese, and then cole slaw. Some people even could catch up on it, which I just can't even begin to imagine that. Yeah, that's that's almost a chuck special. But I just don't dig the pickles. But a perfect hot dog to me as the bun the dog, mayonnaise baby, and then put on the chili, and then cole slaw and then cheese and then cole slaw on top of that, and I can just have

one of those, because that's a lot of stuff. Yeah, that's that's quite a bit. But I now want to make a pilgrimage to Englewood Pharmacy and try their scrambled dog. Uh So, recently, a few weeks ago in real time, and article came out on the news wire from a study at the University of Michigan that says a hot dog will shorten your life by thirty six minutes. One single hot dog. Yeah, it made it was big, big

news because everyone was like, what thirty six minutes? They did a big study on all kinds of foods and like quantified literally how many minutes they will add or subtract from your life. And they came up with twenty seven minutes just for just a naked hot dog. But thirty six minutes, I think with you know, a hot dog with some trimmings on a bun. And uh, you know that was the study. It was out of Michigan. They know they're hot dogs. I did some math and like,

it's it's not a big deal. Like if you're eating twenty hot dogs a year, yeah, it still sounds like a big deal. It's not is if you do the math like twenty times that it's like you're talking like eight or ten hours um a year, and if that's like ten years, you're talking eighty to hours. Okay, So I just did a little bit of math, and if I eat forty hot dogs a year, that's a day I shave off of my life. Twenty four hours every

year something dog take in. But let's say you do that for over a thirty year period, you're talking about like a month of your life. Would you rather beat hot dogs and kick off a month sooner? No? Because when I eat those hot dogs, I always feel guilty. They're usually cold out of the package. I'm just chomping

them down to like eat something. No from now on I vowed before you and every stuff you should know a listener that if I eat a hot dog, it's gonna be a damn good hot dog, like a scrambled dog or a slaw dog or something that's worth losing thirty six minutes of my life over. Thank you, University of Michigan. Now I'm just picturing you, like in the dark and in the middle of the night, like just cramming a braw hot dog in your mouth. Forgot naked except for my whitey tidies. Um. But as our hot

dogs bad for you, obviously a lot of sodium. Um. I mean it's like any kind of processed meat. It's not great for you. But in moderation you're you're okay, yes, unless you're a vegetarian or vegan. And you now have no hair attached your head as you pulled it all out listening to this episode. Correct, you got anything else about hot dogs? Oh? Boy, nothing else? But I really I think you actually do have some hot dogs upstairs. Well, go shape thirty six minutes off your life and see

if you enjoyed it. You know, I get those organic turkey dogs, though for my kid they're not really organic. I'll bet they say un cured and organic and they're not. I'll bet look it says celery powder on there, and that's what it's. It's just a scam. Chuck, You're being scammed. I know. Um. How do they taste though? Are they good? Well, they're they're great. I don't mind a turkey dog. I think they taste good. Oh yeah, no, that's what I usually eat. Two are turkey dogs, for sure. Know I

meant for the organic part or being uncured. That's what I mean. Okay, Now I think I'll be for the worst of all I do. I think they taste weird. And I don't think a hot dog should be made of all beef. I think it either has to be a turkey dog or it should have pork in it. Okay, but I don't eat pork, so I just eat the turkey dogs. Hey, I respect your point of view. Okay, Uh, Well, since Chuck said he respects my point of view, that is going to roll us nicely into the listener mail.

I'm going to read parts of two males, uh listener males. This is from both Liz mckeller and Jason Marcella after our Statue of Liberty episode we were talking about going up there to that the crown, and they were both like, if you wanted to have an experience straight from hell, to do so does not sound like any kind of fun at all. Yeah. Um, I'll read some of Jason's here. He said, I was one of the quote lucky ones who did that death march back in the late eighties

when my family toured New York City. It was so horrible. I still remember it so vividly. You wait in line for the ferry from Manhattan, then to get to the on you've gotta wait in line to get into the base. Eventually you're waiting in all these lines. You get to the elevator and make it to the top of the base. This is where the smart people stopped their tour. The rest of us cattle started the miserable climb up a

narrow spiral staircase. It rises through Liberty's body. Her body is essentially hollow, and it looks cool for the first two minutes. Uh. The stairs are steep, single file, you can't see where they end, and there are mere inches between you and the people in front and back of you. There's no air conditioning, so you are essentially inside a giant easy bake oven for an hour or so. The

payoff for all that climbing. You walk across inside her crown and see that the windows are smaller than a sheet of paper and you don't even have time to look through them because crush of people behind you is constantly in motion, and soon you were going back down the stairs. Uh. That is from Jason. Liz also says this um the show complimented the stuff you missed in history class episode on Emma Lazarus. Let's go listen to that.

But Liz says she's been to the Statue of Liberty twice and the second time they got tickets to go on the Crown and said this, I do not recommend doing this in winter because you need a heavy coat out on the walking area. But it still ends up being hot. So you've got that coat, Oh you get to carry it around? Well, I guess so, but then you've got this huge coat. It's like that New York

City problem, Like everywhere you go in the winter. Once you get in the Crown, it is tiny and hot even in the winter, very little room, and there's a park ranger. They're keeping everybody moving. They do keep some of those little windows open at all times for air circulation and have a stand up fan. But it did no good. Uh And Liz actually said, I didn't have you know, you can't stop. So she said, I managed to get some decent photos by sheer luck because I

was just kind of clicking and walking. But the pictures actually turned out really great. There was some really cool artistic photos, like looking up through the body and in the crown itself. And uh, that's just pointing out that to say that sometimes just dashing off quick photos you can get some really great images if you're not overthinking it. So that was the point of these two listener mails. That was the point of the end of that second part of the one listener mail. Gotcha and that's it.

I'm just encouraging amateur photography. Basically, go out there and snap stuff. Don't everthink it. And uh so listen Jason both say, don't do it. Okay, that's great, Thanks Liz, Thanks Jason for setting everybody straight. I may have ended up trying it one day, and I'm glad that I never will. Now exactly if you want to get in touch with this, like Liz or Jason did, you can you can send us an email and we will be eternally grateful. Send it to stuff podcast at iHeart radio

dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H