These two have a history of confrontations, but luckily this wiener war shall remain lighthearted. After delving into a bit of the history of the hotdog as we know it today, I wanted to compare its German roots to its present American form – and to be honest I’m curious about its future, but we can muse on that together, later.

Let’s start with my October 11th trip to Brauhaus Schmitz on South St. where Ellie, who you should remember joined me for my very first hotdog experience at the Royal Tavern, her partner Ted and good ole Jim all met to eat some sausages and drink some German beer. We had just missed Oktoberfest, but still enjoyed some half liters of the festival beers they had on tap while we waited for our food.

I simply couldn’t resist ordering the wurstplate which the menu describes as a “sampler” of their sausages served with potato salad and sauerkraut. You can make a wurstplate with 2 out of the 6 available varieties for 20 bucks or hell, get all 6 for 40. I think we already know what I went with...if I am not going to sit and try 6 sausages at a time now, amid this project, then when? Also, I think it’s a great deal? I’ve made bigger disbursements for this research already and have gotten less in return so, I felt justified in my order.

Ellie, Ted and I all got wurstplates. They chose a sampler platter of 2 sausages because they are not maniacs. Jim ordered a doner kebab and in return received a massive eye roll from my side of the table. The 6 sausages are as follows:

Bratwurst – traditional fresh pork. I believe this is the one most commonly served at Oktoberfest and Christmas Market celebrations, and is probably the German sausage (besides the hot dog since after last week I’m counting that as ours) we are most familiar with here in the states. I’m fine with them. I’m super into sauerkraut now because of this experiment and so I enjoy brats as a vessel for kraut consumption more than anything else. Remember my squirt rating? I’d give this...3.5 squirts out of 5.

Knockwurst – pork, veal and garlic. It is very reminiscent of my good friend Kielbasa. It must be the garlic. Both Ellie and Ted ordered this as one of their samplers. 4 squirts.

Speckwurst – smoked bacon and pork. This one to me tasted most like a hotdog and... bologna? Is bologna just a scaled-up hotdog served in thin slices, so that we can enjoy the taste of a hot dog in a more “traditional” sandwich form? Our reliable pals at the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (god DAMN get me an application) have this to say, “much like hot dogs, bologna is commonly made of beef, pork, turkey or chicken that is finely ground and stuffed into a casing for cooking which is often later removed. The bologna is cooked or smoked and then either packaged whole or sliced.” Welp. I will set aside a day to go through a bologna (nee baloney) tasting now that I have made the connection and verified the relation.

Feuerwurst – these are getting hard for me to spell. This one is made with spicy pork and as a heat-lover this one was my fave. They even cooked it to extra-blistery perfection. 5 squirts.

Kasewurst – pork, beef and cheese. I recommend cutting this one open and letting it sit for a minute before diving in or you will have third degree burns on the inside of your mouth and down the front of your chin. That cheese comes out HOT (temp)! I did like this one a lot – probably another 4 squirter, but I kept getting stuck on how much I wanted volcanic cheese to have come out of the feuerwurst instead. Ted got this as a part of his platter as well.

Weiswurst – pork and veal. Worstwurst, more like. Weis is “white” in German making the sausage aptly named. This guy tasted as bad as it looked and it looked – sick. The mixture of the veal must be what made it so pallid and possibly what also made it so “gross” - Ellie’s words. I happen to like veal, but in this sausage, there was a distinct gamey/organ taste that I was not a fan of. Jim said he had been let down by this one in the past too. If you’re going to get all 6 sausages at Brauhaus, definitely try for the experience – it’s not like its inedible - but be warned.

The potato salad and sauerkraut were both bomb, but I was remiss in not trying any of the mustards that were on the table. Was there mustard on the table? There must have been, but I was so distracted and overwhelmed by my pornographic platter that it was overlooked.

Even though he was served a little attitude, Jim still offered me a bite of his kebab which was also stellar. We shared a plate of spaetzle, because I simply wanted it. Everything was capped with apple strudel and vanilla ice cream for dessert and a round of differently flavored schnapps, served in small, fancy, cut-crystal glasses. We left Brauhaus to go get a nightcap at Le Caveau where there was friggin’ FRENCH HOT DOG on the menu but leaving that here as a teaser for a future entry.

So, I enjoyed mostly everything I had at Brauhaus. I was surprised as how much I was able to consume but realized I probably didn’t get too full too fast as none of the sausages are served in rolls! Remember, this was something that our German immigrant food cart operators added in for convenience. It is not the traditional way! Even though this absence of bread helped me feel less bloated, I have to admit I missed it. There was something wrong to me about eating all of those sausages with a fork and a knife. Kinda too fancy; very first world. I’d like something a little less – refined.

Less refined and more casual, like eating in your car. I mean, not even having to leave your car to order the food you’re going to eat there. Drive-ins, like the hotdog, are another cultural symbol of Americana. A drive-in establishment is one where a customer can simply drive in and park their automobile to receive service. Drive-ins generally come in the form of restaurants and movie theaters (or a combination of the two) and were most popular in the 1950’s. I associate this period very closely with that true, blue Americana culture - something I either arrived to myself or learned from my mother and Lana Del Rey. I would also like to differentiate the drive-in from the drive-through, where customers are more likely to take their food elsewhere to eat, instead of remaining parked at the facility.

Some of the most well-known drive-ins are Sonic, Stewart’s, A&W, but for the purpose of of my study, I headed across the bridge to a place I had passed a million times before (on the way to the Cherry Hill Mall with my parents) but had never experienced: Weber’s.

It’s hard to miss the bright, orange-grounded facade and bold, black lettering that wraps around the outside of this squat, square building. Just about a 15-minute drive away from South Philly, along Route 38 in Pennsauken, she’ll sneak up on your right-hand side. The first thing you’ll see right at eye level is a sign that, doesn’t shout, but projects clearly with its stage voice, “ROOT BEER.” If you weren’t thirsty before, you will be upon sight of this sign. Above that, “Weber’s Famous” with 4 orange circles on 2-axis, which I believe rotate around each other when the drive-in is open ~mid-March to mid-October. Decelerate, put on your indicator, pull-in.

I first visited Weber’s only a few weeks into research, August 13th. It was a real bluebird of a late summer day and not too hot. Weber’s is only open until 6:30, so we had to make sure we left the city with enough time to sit and enjoy. The early closing time makes me kind of sad, in the movies drive-ins always seem to be open pretty late, making them the spot to be! But also, maybe Route 38 isn’t much of a destination these days.

We claimed a spot on the side of the building, where they had a very simple menu, and very simple instructions posted. “Turn your lights on for service.” The carhop came over almost immediately. She took our order from the driver’s-side window. Making a choice at Weber’s is easy, because there are really only a handful of things to decide on. Hot dogs, hamburgers, fries and shakes. The classics! They do also offer veggie burgers, floats and because Jersey, pork roll.

Naturally, I ordered 2 franks – one just with mustard (brown, they will ask you to specify) and one just with cheese. The cheese thing for me was huge, because the cheese they have to offer here is not whiz a la a Texas Tommy, but rather a slice of white American cheese place whole and melted directly onto the bun. This is how I eat my dogs at home. How did they know? Very comforting to me that I could also find this out in the world. The mustard dog came with a beautifully zig-zagged distribution of my favorite condiment and – I already hinted to this – the buns were toasted. Perfect.

We also got fries and 1 “Black Cow” apiece. "Black Cow” is Weber’s name for their root beer float which was – wow. I went for the dogs, but remember that omniscient “ROOT BEER” sign I mentioned earlier? Webers knows what they’re doing. The root beer they serve is their proprietary brew. It is very lightly carbonated, so when it is mixed with vanilla ice cream, there is none of that weird foam waste that blows up to the top of your cup like when your mom used to throw a hunk of freezer-burnt Breyer’s into your Mug. No, no, no – this combo is smooth. Almost too easy to drink, because once I got that straw to my lips I couldn’t stop – hooked. They allegedly will sell this root beer to you by the gallon which is what brought us BACK to Weber’s about a month later, but alas they were out of the correct containers. To be continued.

All of this goodness comes out to you on a tray that the carhop hangs on to a half-open car window. Nerve-wracking, but it held. If I wasn’t taking pictures, there would have been no reason for me to get out of the car at all. It was so quick and convenient – we were barely sure what to do with ourselves after we ate. 6pm on a summer night and we paid $6 just to come out here we might as well – go to the mall? The Americana just keeps on coming.

In retrospect, I thought I had favorite of these two businesses and felt I was tipping toward that in the beginning of this entry. Now that we have arrived to the end, I am having trouble determining a clear winner between the European and the American wieners. The eating of both were such different affairs that it doesn’t really seem fair to pit them against one another. In a sense, they are one. We have already determined the clear connection linking international sausages to the American doggie. If only all wars could end with a realization of similarities instead of a persisting exploitation of “differences.”

For a moment I thought I could say German sausages were the past where the American variation is the present? That’s not correct either. Because for one, it’s my opinion that American interest in German sausage has made a resurgence thanks to the hotdog and for two, the establishment I voted to be my American champion for this face off felt very dated. This does bring me back to the question I raised at the top of this entry – if the past is the present and what I thought was the present is the past – forget all of that, what is the future of hotdogs? Are we living it now? To use a German word and bring it back to source once more, are we in a modern-day dog zeitgeist?