You can get a hot dog in every city in America, but certain regions have developed a reputation all their own. Here are several of the more well-known varieties.
New York City: New Yorkers eat more hot dogs than any other group in the country. They also carry more handguns. Are either of these things good? We'll leave that to the philosophers. Served from their famous hot dog carts, they enjoy red hots, smothered, and Sabrett's, served with its horrendous onion "gravy" like substance. Not quite sauce, not quite grilled onions, it has the consistency of snot, but with minced onion chunks in it. Mmmmm. However, if you ever eat one in front of a New Yorker, you better grin and say you love it. Otherwise they will shoot you with their gun.
Chicago: As with pizza, Chicago set out to make their hot dog as different as they could from New York. Scrapping the east coast culinary logic of, "its great because its what I grew up wit", Chicagoans dress their dog in yellow mustard, bright green relish, chopped raw onion, tomato slices and topped with a dash of celery salt and served in a poppy seed bun. Even better, you can get it most places with sport peppers. God bless you Chicago. Your hot dogs are clearly White Sox (that's south side speak for "winners").
Atlanta and the South: Take any food item down south and its gonna get one of two things: deep fat fried or coleslawed. Luckily, cole slaw won this battle. At Atlanta Braves games you can get cole slaw on your dog by ordering it "dragged through the garden." Wait, that sounds, never mind.
Texas: Everything is bigger in Texas, but not necessarily more creative. The foot long is rumored to have originated in Texas as their contribution to the frankfurter arts. That's just like Texas, not too bright, but really big.
Colorado: At a Rockies game, you can get a footlong served with peppers, kraut, and onions. Six of them are perfect after you've been hitting the bong all day.
Ohio: Not terribly exciting, they wrap their hot dogs in a paper towel, microwave them, then eat them plain on a bun. If they do a good job they get a Buckeye sticker.
Vegas: Vegas is for value, and hot dogs are value. You can get some of the worst hot dogs in the world here. They ran a special at Westward Ho! one time (a classy joint if ever there was one) where you could buy a footlong hot dog and a beer for 99cents. A coke was $1.25. Only in Vegas.
San Francisco: Its probably fish or something, I don't know.
Nebraska: At Memorial Stadium you will enjoy a Fairbury dog. As red as the fans themselves, these thick dogs are as recognizable as a Runza in these parts. You can pay for one, or get lucky and catch a free one shot from "Der Wiener Schlinger", an air-powered hot dog shooter that can reach the upper deck with the dog still in tact. Yeah, we've got a little extra time on our hands out here. I even know a guy who is blogging about eating hot dogs.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, so feel free to comment on your favorites that I've forgotten.
Dog on . . .
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Mayura has lived in Ohio or has lived with someone from Ohio. Her hotdogging style is similar minus the sticker.
ReplyDelete