The key ingredient in any dish, from fancy cordon bleu to backyard barbecue, that makes taste buds dance the happiest and sing the loudest is not a mystery spice, rare herb, or secret sauce, but rather, simply, the company with whom you eat.
Indeed, enjoyed with the right person or gathering, a nothing-special hot dog surpasses a perfectly prepared meal in a restaurant gastronomique in Paris.
Which is why, although I am not a regular chowhound of hot dogs, one of my all-time favorite meals was a stadium frankfurter. Actually, about 25 of my favorite meals, that being the ballpark number of Ohio State football games I went to during my elementary days alongside my two older brothers and dad.
Frankly speaking, in a blind taste test those ol’ Horseshoe Stadium hot dogs would probably have ranked dead last. Eating them blindfolded would have actually been a good idea because, unlike the Buckeyes’ scarlet-and-grey home jerseys, the wieners, plucked from pots of murky water that looked less potable than a swamp, were grey only.
Add in stale buns, depleted condiment stations, and a Sir Edmund Hillary-like climb back to our upper-deck seats, by which time the wieners were cold dogs, and you had prison-like grub…
…unless you were sandwiched between your two big brothers in the bleachers, in the spring of your life, in glorious Midwestern autumn, in which case it became the standard against which I still measure all hot dogs.
Another of my most memorable hot dogs also involves my oldest brother. It was in New York City, long ago, from a vendor cart. Strolling away, my brother took his first bite and – Splat! – the entire web of sauerkraut fell onto the sidewalk that was grosser than the witch’s brew-like hot dog water in Ohio Stadium.
Rather than turn on his heels and ask the vendor for a replacement bale of sauerkraut or, perish the thought, eat the hot dog naked – let me rephrase that; eat a naked hot dog – he invoked the five-second rule; scooped up the sauerkraut, now flavored with a sullied sundry of sidewalk spices; and gobbled it up with the gusto of Joey Chestnut in Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest.
Ever since, every hot dog I’ve eaten always tastes a little better knowing it isn’t topped with sidewalk-seasoned sauerkraut.
Based on pedigree, it’s hard to top a Dodger Dog. Fittingly, one of my most savored hot dogs was in the Dodger Stadium press box dining room, during a seventh-inning stretch, when my writing idol Jim Murray joined me for a quick chew and chat.
All this thinking about hot dogs was stirred this Halloween when I had another fantastic frank that joined my grand slams of memorable meals. Just as candy tastes better when it’s earned by trick-or-treating on foot, it is similarly true for hot dogs I can now attest.
In addition to sweets for kids, for the past 30-plus years Scott, a friend of a friend, has given out hot-off-the-charcoal-grill chili dogs, complete with all the fixings – sans, thankfully, sidewalk sauerkraut – to adults. Youngsters are welcome to both treats, adding up to few hundred hot dogs served annually.
Scott’s enthusiasm and charisma, assisted by a fun giant wiener hat and aided further by free margaritas and full-size beers, make his hot dogs unforgettably delicious and worth the trip across town.
To be perfectly frank, these neighborhood-famous chili dogs, with the fellowship of my brother-of-a-friend Ken added in, were darn near the equal in my memory to those battleship-grey cold stadium hot dogs of long ago.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
