When did I become so obsessed with hot dogs?

It’s a question that echoed from the back of my mind when I first decided to move forward with this project. Honestly, I’m not sure I would have even moved forward with it had it not been for the overwhelmingly positive response I received from my friends and followers after my Instagram announcement.

For those of you who missed my IG press release, on July 23’rd I declared that I was going to go on a Hot Dog Journey for the remainder of the summer season. Broad strokes – I took suggestions from the collective on restaurants, carts, dives that serve glizzies and have been trying as many as I can with as many friends as possible. The result of this journey is still taking shape. It’s more than just me reviewing the hot dogs I’ve eaten or experiences with them that I’ve had. There is a culture here that I would like to take the journalistic opportunity to really dig into.

More questions, not unlike the ones I have asked at the top of this piece, have surfaced since my undertaking of this project.

When did everyone become so obsessed with hot dogs? Philly Inquirer released a piece NOT TOO LONG after I started my research touting Philadelphia’s hot dog scene. Who knew.

Why are hot dogs considered the quintessential summer food?

Where did they come from? What’s their history?

Why “hot dog”? Were “wiener” or “frankfurter” insufficient or are those different territory entirely?

Are hot dogs only for children?

Regional hot dog toppings – i.e. how did the fine folks of Seattle decide they needed cream cheese on a hot dog?

From my community I wanted to understand what some of their favorite toppings were to put on their hot dogs and when, where, how, why they wanted to enjoy them.

Ordering hot dogs at a sit-down establishment feels forbidden to me. I’ve somehow equated it to going out and ordering a bowl of cereal. Why would you spend money on something you can make for yourself so easily?

With that, are they an “appropriate” dinner item? Why or why not?

Why do they get such a bad rap? Are they any worse for your health than any other “junk” food? Maybe they were once only made with scrap meat, but that must be mostly fallacious now as many grocery store packages read “all beef”!

For this question, a particular movie scene comes to mind. In M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening (hey – more local flavor) Mark Wahlberg’s character is going to get a ride away from the apocalyptic events of metropolis with a nurseryman who has a theory that plant life is responsible for wreaking the recent havoc. ANYWAY, this man is packing hot dogs for the escape. He says, “Why do hot dogs get a bad rap? They got a cool shape, they got protein. You like hot dogs, right?” That scene has stayed with me for the past 15 years. It also made me think of 2 other questions:

How divisive are hot dogs? For every person I’ve met who really bangs with them, there has been another who is utterly disgusted AND

What are some other movie scenes, or anything having to do with modern pop culture that mentions hot dogs?

I’ve made it my charge to try and answer these questions to the best of my ability, along with a sprinkling of short and sweet hot dog reviews.

Thank you all in advance for joining me here and support me/bearing witness via my Instagram. It’s already helped me to shake taboo I’ve had up until now to express how much I just really friggin’ like hot dogs, ok?! Maybe the truth is, I was always obsessed.