Hot Dog!(s)

No, there aren’t snouts and anuses in your hot dogs, so go ahead and chow down. There are, however, plenty of other things that may give you pause so listen to this episode where we dissect the beloved hot dog and poke around inside.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
and there's Chuck and it's just the two of us.
But that's okay because we are hot dogging it, not
porky pig in it, hot dog in it. On this

(00:21):
episode of Stuff you Should Know. This could have been
a two parter, easy, easy, peasy. Yeah, we could have
done even getting into and then dogs. No, there's so
much here. But at the end of it, I was like, boy,
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

(00:44):
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,

(01:08):
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

(01:31):
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

(01:51):
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

(02:12):
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

(02:34):
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

(02:59):
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

(03:20):
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.

(03:42):
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

(04:05):
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,

(04:29):
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,

(04:50):
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

(05:13):
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

(05:37):
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

(05:57):
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

(06:19):
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

(06:41):
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

(07:02):
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

(07:23):
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

(07:44):
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

(08:06):
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,

(08:27):
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

(08:48):
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,

(09:11):
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

(09:33):
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

(09:53):
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

(10:14):
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?

(10:36):
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,

(11:08):
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.

(11:31):
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

(11:54):
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,

(12:15):
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

(12:38):
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

(12:59):
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

(13:21):
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

(13:42):
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

(14:02):
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

(14:26):
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

(14:47):
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.

(15:10):
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

(15:30):
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

(15:51):
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

(16:12):
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

(16:35):
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

(16:56):
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

(17:17):
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.

(17:43):
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

(18:04):
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

(18:29):
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.

(18:50):
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.

(19:14):
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

(19:35):
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

(19:57):
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

(20:19):
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

(20:40):
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,

(21:04):
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.

(21:27):
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,

(21:50):
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

(22:14):
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,

(22:36):
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

(22:59):
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

(23:20):
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

(23:42):
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,

(24:03):
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

(24:24):
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

(24:45):
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

(25:05):
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

(25:27):
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.

(25:48):
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

(26:09):
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

(26:30):
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

(26:54):
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

(27:16):
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

(27:41):
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

(28:03):
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

(28:26):
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.

(28:51):
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

(29:13):
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.

(29:34):
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

(29:55):
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,

(30:16):
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

(30:37):
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

(30:59):
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

(31:21):
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.

(31:41):
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

(32:03):
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,

(32:24):
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

(32:45):
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

(33:06):
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

(33:29):
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,

(33:53):
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,

(34:15):
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

(34:36):
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,

(34:56):
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

(35:18):
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.

(35:42):
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

(36:04):
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.

(36:26):
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

(36:48):
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,

(37:09):
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.

(37:30):
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?

(37:53):
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

(38:17):
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

(38:38):
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,

(38:59):
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,

(39:20):
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

(39:41):
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,

(40:04):
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

(40:25):
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

(40:48):
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

(41:10):
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

(41:30):
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,

(41:52):
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

(42:15):
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

(42:37):
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

(42:58):
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

(43:20):
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

(43:41):
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

(44:02):
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

(44:24):
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

(44:45):
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

(45:07):
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

(45:28):
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

(45:51):
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,

(46:12):
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

(46:34):
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

(46:55):
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

(47:17):
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

(47:38):
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

(48:00):
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

(48:22):
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.

(48:44):
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

(49:07):
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

(49:28):
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,

(49:50):
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.

(50:10):
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

(50:32):
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

(50:53):
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

(51:13):
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

(51:34):
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

(51:57):
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

(52:18):
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,

(52:41):
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

(53:03):
I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
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