Refrigerator Copy

Column published the week of July 2, 2007 www.theleeonline.com © 2007, Lee Ostaszewski

Hot Diggity Dog

By Lee Ostaszewski As we approach the July 4th holiday, the birthday of our great nation, we should take a moment to pause and reflect on the fact that no other single processed meat food product screams out “America: Home of the Brave, Land of Opportunity, Your Company Name Placed Here,” more than the hot dog. Hot dogs are 100 percent, through-and-through, all-American despite the fact that, technically speaking, they originated in Germany. The point is, we Americans took the German hot dog, or wiener, and using a technique known as Cooking As If It Were Hospital Food our ancestors removed all spices, flavor, taste and texture, leaving us today with the much cherished tube o’mushy pink stuff that has come to be more closely identified with the Fourth of July than even Thomas Jefferson’s bland-tasting yet high in fiber Declaration of Independence. But it is not the upcoming holiday that has me thinking about hot dogs. Instead, it was the shocking news from the world of sports. I am of course referring to the tragic story out of Japan that the six-time Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating champion, Takeru Kobayashi, might not defend his title this year because of an arthritic jaw. The arthritis makes opening his mouth painful. Despite rumors, Jason Giambi has refused to implicate Kobayashi in the ongoing steroid investigation. Kobayashi’s condition not only could sideline him for this year’s contest, but might put his entire competitive eating career in jeopardy by hindering his tremendous athletic ability to shove 50 or more hot dogs into his mouth in twelve minutes. Some people might be thinking, “Good, he was Japanese anyway, maybe now an American will rightfully win. After all hot dog eating contests are as American as French fries, Dutch apple pie, and Italian dressing.” That does not sound like the America I grew up in. I grew up in an America that relished competition from all corners of this round world. And should one of those foreign outsiders happen to somehow, probably by cheating, win then we congratulated them by saying “good job” as if we meant it.

If the individual continued to be highly successful, then we hoped he eventually moved full time to the United States where he could become an active consumer as well as someone who paid abundant amounts of federal, state and local taxes. The Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest is a tradition that dates nearly as far back as the signing of the Declaration of Independence itself, give or take 150 years. For the record, it is one of the most disgusting events to watch on television, at least what I see of it on the news highlights every year. Not only are the contestants inhaling hot dogs at a rate that would make a golden retriever’s eating habits appear dainty, but to make the hot dogs go down faster they first dunk them AND THE BUN in water. The thought of soggy bread grosses me out. I would rather watch eyeball surgery on one of those educational medical shows they have on cable TV in high definition than watch someone scarf down wet hot dog buns. I don’t know what horrific childhood event caused me to be this repulsed by soggy bread – I’m guessing it had something to do with chipped beef on toast however – but just thinking about it is making me dry heave right now. Getting back to hot dogs as enjoyed during July 4th cookouts, as a nation we are not totally united in this. First, there is the ketchup versus mustard division, which historians now believe led to the famous feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. (The term yellow-bellied came about because the McCoys were notoriously messy eaters.) But there is also a regional divide when it comes to the bun type. While most of the nation uses hot dog buns with crust covering all outer surfaces similar to a mini sub roll, New Englanders use buns whose sides resemble slices of bread. I am not saying this issue is on par with the French versus English speaking division in Canada; I’m saying this is worse. But perhaps a compromise is possible, one involving another great American culinary mainstay: the croissant. We could instead make pigs in a blanket using those poppin’ fresh crescent rolls. It might be the only way our nation survives for another two centuries. ■