Hot Dog Wars

In the combox of a previous post, esteemed Leaguer Will Duquette comes to the defense of the humble hot dog, and the ever-reliable John Kasaian responds with a theological meditation on the frankfurter, pouring rhetorical gasoline on a furious partisan controversy that threatens to rival the divisive, antagonistic power of the Reformation. Is there no middle ground on hot dogs? Can't we all just get a foot-long?

There is a great deal of satisfaction in defending anything that is really humble, and if anything is humble, a hot dog is. A hot dog has no pretense, no social ambition.

I like hot dogs. Hot dogs are associated with fun and with informal socializing of a particulalrly American kind, like at a ball game or a summer picnic. Pretty dreary if that's all you have to eat, though. A single dude microwaving a hot dog for dinner is not in a very enviable state, and I speak from experience. It's better than nothing, but...

Hot dogs could be made at home, perhaps, but one hardly sees the point. The whole rationale of the hot dog is to work in industrial volume... to convert a huge amount of seemingly irredeemable processed leftovers into a homogeneous, reliable and continuous stream of extruded meat product. It's like pro-active recycling!

But the hot dog stands as an icon of the entire highly processed, mass produced and centrally distributed approach to food (and everything else) that signalled the sad downfall of the American kitchen. Along with reflecting some of the best aspects of American culture, a hot dog embodies some of the worst; a hot dog is unpretentious, versatile, reliable, fun and simple... but it is also (in the worst sense) cheap, easy, unhealthy, homogeneous and bland. Hot dogs are for the appetite what television is for the brain.

It actually appears that the hot dog is a surprisingly complex and significant symbol of American life and culture. Even as I write, I begin to become convinced that if we can ever figure out the true iconographic significance of the hot dog, then balancing the budget and providing universal health care will almost take care of themselves.

In the poem below, G.K. Chesterton speaks highly of the Sausage, but his opinion of hot dogs is, as far as I know, a subject only for speculation.

A Ballade of an Anti-Puritan

  

THEY spoke of Progress spiring round,

Of light and Mrs Humphrey Ward--

It is not true to say I frowned,

Or ran about the room and roared;

I might have simply sat and snored--

I rose politely in the club

And said, `I feel a little bored;

Will someone take me to a pub?'

The new world's wisest did surround

Me; and it pains me to record

I did not think their views profound,

Or their conclusions well assured;

The simple life I can't afford,

Besides, I do not like the grub--

I want a mash and sausage, `scored'--

Will someone take me to a pub?

I know where Men can still be found,

Anger and clamorous accord,

And virtues growing from the ground,

And fellowship of beer and board,

And song, that is a sturdy cord,

And hope, that is a hardy shrub,

And goodness, that is God's last word--

Will someone take me to a pub?

 Envoi

Prince, Bayard would have smashed his sword

To see the sort of knights you dub--

Is that the last of them--O Lord

Will someone take me to a pub?

 

• Poems of G.K. Chesterton - 1915

Comments

[Maolsheachlann]

"Is there no middle ground on hot dogs? Can't we all just get a foot-long?"

That's the "wurst" pun ever!

[Maolsheachlann]

Chesterton might have liked the English punk band Sham 69's 1978 hit "Hurry Up Harry", which contains the refrain, "We're going down the pub", along with the indignant line, "No, I don't want a cup of tea!".

And, come to think of it, the nineties sketch show called The Fast Show, which featured a recurring sketch where a pretentious/melodramatic/period/suspenseful scene is interrupted by one character asking, out of the blue, "Anyone fancy a pint?"

[Shakespeare's Cobbler the ever loginner forgetter who needs to sync all his blog IDs]

Perhaps we should substitute homemade sausage for hot dog? Still humble (unless you went to culinary school or learned from your native German father) but still good.

Of course, I'd have to start by figuring out where to get the meat for it, as I don't have a farm...