It’s the sound more than the smell that takes me back. Not a loud sizzle like bacon, but quieter, softer. As a kid, when I heard that low hiss from a cast-iron skillet, it meant supper was going to be hot dogs.
Hot dogs – also known as tube steaks, franks, weenies or coneys – are so deeply American that we practically wrap them in the flag and give them a seat of honor at every Fourth of July barbecue or Labor Day picnic. It’s hard to believe the hot dog, which is ranked right up there with baseball and apple pie, actually came from German immigrants. Leave it to us to take another country’s wurst and make it our best.
Hot dogs established themselves as street food in New York City about 150 years ago. At first, they were a quick lunch for working men. Before long, their popularity spread to Coney Island and beyond.
Summer officially marks the beginning of hot dog season in America. But growing up, it was a year-round meal in our house.
My dad fancied himself a coney connoisseur, so the kitchen became his kingdom anytime hot dogs were on the menu. His specialty was slightly blackened wieners cooked in a cast-iron skillet, then topped with kraut, onions, a dusting of cayenne and his “secret sauce,” a concoction of mustard, ketchup and what seemed to be the contents of every bottle on our spice rack.
He was also a regular at several hole-in-the-wall hot dog joints scattered across Birmingham back when there was one on every street corner.
His favorite was Pete’s Famous Hot Dogs, a local landmark so small you could reach out and touch both walls. I accompanied him there more than once and watched as he consumed a half-dozen dogs like a competitive eater warming up before the main event. All of it was washed down with a pint of sweet milk. Don’t ask me why – lots of Pete’s customers did the same thing. I tried it, too, although my favorite beverage was a Grapico.
My mother claimed that one time Dad ate 10 hot dogs at Pete’s and was too embarrassed to order any more. So, he walked half a block down to Tom’s Coneys and finished out the dozen. That story has become family legend.
Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Americans consume nearly 8 billion hot dogs. That is not a typo. That’s about 23 franks for every man, woman and child in the country. If they were laid end to end, it would be enough wieners to stretch almost 1.2 million miles – roughly five trips to the moon, fueled entirely by nitrates.
Honestly, I think my father could have been personally responsible for at least a quarter of that mileage.
The city that consumed the most hot dogs last year was Los Angeles, which surprised me. I always heard California was full of health nuts. Maybe they’re topping their coneys with kale instead of kraut.
Hot dogs have never been fancy fare. Nobody lights candles and serves them on fine china. You don’t make reservations at a hot dog emporium unless your life has taken a very strange turn. Instead, it’s paper plates, paper napkins and plastic cups.
But maybe that’s part of the appeal.
Hot dogs belong at baseball games, church picnics, lake trips, backyard cookouts and family reunions where your uncle tells the same stories every year.
They’re tied to summers when kids ran barefoot through sprinklers and ate hand-churned ice cream. When parents sat in aluminum lawn chairs, sweating through their shirts while sipping beer or iced tea, and insisting the heat “wasn’t that bad.”
Even now, the sound of a hot dog cooking carries me back to that place and time.
I can still see my dad standing over that skillet as if he were preparing a five-star gourmet meal instead of browning discount wieners from the Piggly Wiggly.
And honestly, to me, they probably tasted better than anything served in a fancy restaurant.
Joe Hobby is a barbecue-loving comedian from Alabama who wrote for Jay Leno for many years. Find more of Joe’s stories on his blog: www.mylifeasahobby.blogspot.com. Follow him on Facebook at Joe Hobby Comedian-Writer.      
