Hot dogs: Best in show
Man bites dogs in quest for winning wiener! We put franks to the taste test.
You might say hot dogs are as American as apple pie.
Except we eat 10 times as many hot dogs a year as slices of pie, according to the market research group NPD. average american has 20 a year.apple pie: an average american eats two servings of apple pie per year.
We down most of our dogs - roughly 7 billioncq that b - between Memorial Day and Labor Day, according to the Washington-based National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. That's 818 hot dogs consumed every second during that time frame.
And on Independence Day alone, we'llAmericans eat 150 millioncq m hot dogs.
Philadelphia ranked fourth in the top hot-dog-consuming cities of 2007, with $46 million worth of franks eaten. New York$103.6m,, Los Angeles$86.4m and Baltimore/Washington$51.1m beat us out.
In the United States, the first Coney Island hot dog stand opened in 1871, and the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 was the first to feature hot dog vendors. It was also around this time that the hot dog first made its appearance at a ballpark, when they were served at a St. Louis Browns major league game.
Those dates explain, in part, why the number of dogs per package didn't match the number of rolls.
Initially, hot dogs were sold in butcher shops by weight, not number. Bun-makers, left to do as they pleased, packaged their rolls in eights. In 1940, when manufacturers began packaging hot dogs, they chose the 10-to-a-pack formula, presumably to give us arithmetic anxiety.
By the hot dog council's computations, you need to buy five bags of eight-to-the-pack buns and four 10-to-the-pack hot dogs to break even.
Meanwhile, the variety of dogs available has become dizzying. Do you want organic, all-natural or grass-fed meat? Cocktail length, bun size or foot-long? Chicken, turkey, tofu? The choice is yours.
Hot dogs contain 85 percent meat and 15 percent flavoring such as spices, salt, water and curing ingredients, the national hot dog council says. The meat can be all beef or a blend, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that if the meat is other than from the muscle of the animal, the dogs must be labeled as byproduct or "variety meats."
Skinless means the manufacturer has already peealed off the casing in which the dogs were precooked. The casing may have been cellulose or "natural," which means it was made from animal intestine. When the casing is left on, the dog has more snap, more bite.
Curious about cured vs. uncured?
Curing salts made from sodium nitrite cq preserve the meat and add that special hot-doggy flavor you may recall from your childhood. But sodium nitrite (nitrate is a close relative) is linked to cancer. The uncured varieties are made with a combination of celery juice, which contains natural nitrates, plus lactic acid and salt.
(Kosher hot dogs, by the way, are all beef, made under rabbinical supervision.)
Oscar Mayer is the best-selling dog on the market, according to the nationalhotdog&sausage council.
But what's the best-tasting hot dog?
That's a matter of personal preference, of course.
We asked adults and children to participate in a taste test, using eight popular supermarket brands of hot dogs.
Three were all beef (Nathan's Famous, Hebrew National, Dietz & Watson); three were a mixture of beef, pork, chicken and/or turkey (Oscar Mayer, Ball Park, Hatfield Phillies); and two were organic, uncured brands from Whole Foods (Applegate Beef and Wellshire Turkey). The hot dogs were simply boiled and tasted plain without mustard or rolls.
For the kids, we offered just four options and kept it to the big dogs: Oscar Mayer, Hebrew National, Nathan's and Applegate Farms.
Although the kids were enthusiastic, their comments weren't entirely helpful. "I like the one I can bite with my teeth," said one 4-year-old of his favorite, the Applegate Farms Uncured Beef franks. Another child gave all the dogs a high score of 9, even though she described them disparately.
Once tallied, the kids' ratings showed a slight preference for Oscar Mayer and Nathan's, though, to be honest, all the kids finished all the franks.
The adults were a bit more discerning.
Hot dogs that were soft or mushy were dismissed out of hand, as were those that had a gray or off-putting color that was deemed "unnatural."
Our tasters liked smoky meat flavors but rejected dogs that had dominating spices.
Nathan's was the clear victor on the adult side, finishing a full 2 points ahead of second runner-up Hebrew National.
Ball Park was a distant third, with the remaining dogs falling further behind. Wellshire All Natural Uncured Turkey dogs were rated dead last by almost all of the tasters.
TASTE TEST RESULTS
Hot dogs are ranked in order of preference, with tasters' comments and price information. Most of the franks came in packages of eight (conveniently also the number of buns in a package); the two exceptions were Hebrew National, which come seven per pack, and Oscar Mayer, sold in packages of 10. - Keri Fisher
TOP DOGS
Nathan's Skinless Beef Franks
75 cents per dogeachprice per package divided by #ofdogs.
Tasters liked the "good spice flavor" of these top-rated dogs, calling them "simply delicious."
Hebrew National Beef Franks
86 cents per dogeach
"Balanced" and "flavorful," these kosher franks were deemed by more than one taster to be "salty but pretty good."
Ball Park Franks
54 cents per dogeach
Fans of these franks praised the "mild" flavor; most agreed with the taster who deemed them "generally good."
IN THE DOG HOUSE
Hatfield Phillies Franks
44 cents per dogeach
Several tasters complained of a "soft," "mushy" texture.
Applegate Organic Uncured Beef Hot Dogs
62 cents per dogeach
Though some tasters praised the "smoky," "meaty" flavor, most complained of the "tough skin" that made these organic franks "too chewy."
Dietz and Watson Deli Beef Franks
62 cents per dogeach
"Tastes like school hot dogs," one taster wrote of these middle-of-the-road franks that were most often described simply as "plain."
Oscar Mayer Weiners
42 cents per dogeach
Many complained of the "artificial" flavor and "manufactured" appearance of these popular dogs, though some tasters liked the "smoky" flavor and "nice spice."
Wellshire All Natural Turkey Uncured Premium Franks
44 cents per dogeach
"I had no idea a hot dog could be this disgusting," one taster wrote of this last-place finisher; others agreed, calling it "gross," "weird" and "scary looking."