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Bill Klapp

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Posts posted by Bill Klapp

  1. I agree with Shel's local and trusted theory, but of course, that will work consistently only for people living near olive groves. It is certainly true that olive oil fraud has been a big issue in Italy historically, and I cannot say that it is not a major problem still, especially at the bulk level, but I can say that, after the PR beating that Italy took over this issue, discovered olive oil fraud now often gets the same television coverage here that serial killers get in most places. (And God help the producer who lies about the added sugar content of confetture (preserves)!)



    The way to buy Italian olive oil is to discover the style or styles that you like (Lake Garda, the Ligurian oil from the Taggiasca (Nicoise) olive, Tuscan (really, many different varieties), Umbrian, Sicilian, Pugliese, etc.), find producers that you like, and buy only DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta) oils, unless you are in Italy buying directly from the source. Also, most important of all, do not buy old oil. "Use by" dates may protect you against rancid oil, but for truly fresh oil, you want a production date, which is ideally month and year of bottling, but close enough if you buy a good DOP oil in early 2013 with a "2012-13" production date. Harvests and pressing times vary, but oil pressed in the fall of a given year will make it to the U.S. before year-end in some cases, and early in the next year in others. Plenty of one- or two-year old DOP oil will no doubt work its way through the distribution system, too, so perpetual vigilance is required. When I lived in the U.S., I often judged the reliability of gourmet food outlets by the freshness and quality of the olive oil they sold.


  2. I did not read the whole thread, but has anybody seen a SWEET black olive preserves product? Seems to me that it was from Lebanon or Turkey (maybe Greece, but I think not), and definitely wonderful for spreading on toast like strawberry jam (with many other uses, I am sure). May sound strange, but it was out of this world. I am not aware of it being a traditional product of any country or culture, but maybe I have just missed that bit of knowledge. It was readily available, and then just disappeared some years back. I can imagine it not being popular with those who had never tried it (and possibly not with some who had!). I would be delighted to know if, outside of Trader Joe's, this is a common product somewhere in the world, so that i can track it down. It would probably be easy enough to make my own, but the Trader Joe's version was first-rate...

  3. The stale-by-the-time-you-get-it-home, wheat and yeast baguette is anything but traditional. Like so many things made from white flour, it's a textural parlor trick at the expense of flavor. This is France's contribution to fast food. At least in that light it's classier than what passes for fast food in the United States.

    Give me Pain Poilâne any day.

    The stale-by-the-time-you-get-it-home, wheat and yeast baguette is anything but traditional. Like so many things made from white flour, it's a textural parlor trick at the expense of flavor. This is France's contribution to fast food. At least in that light it's classier than what passes for fast food in the United States.

    Give me Pain Poilâne any day.

    That seems to me an expression of personal preference, rather than a valid condemnation of the poor baguette. There is no question that the classic French baguette has, in general, deteriorated over time. However, there are still great ones to be had if you seek them out, and sometimes, I want a warm one for breakfast, fresh from the bakery and slathered with one of the many excellent French butters and perhaps preserves. In that moment, some might not want sourdough-driven, heavier, wheat or mixed flour bread. A more apt assault could be made on New Orleans French bread, which, on its own, being nothing but crust and air, LITERALLY goes stale by the time you get it home. However, there is no substitute for that bread in a classic roast beef po boy "dressed". In that context, I would probably spit out one made on Pain Poilane. And do not get me wrong, I love Pain Poilane...as one excellent producer in a wide range of excellent bread possibilities...

  4. Understood on lemon balm and lemon verbena.

    Interesting news on the Ipercoop, which indeed I can find nearby, although I am at risk in being in an area too rural to have the full range of things that I might find in an Ipercoop in a large city. I split my time here with Torino, however, and may have some luck at a large Ipercoop there. A local live plant and herb merchant told me that I was sure to find it at an Esselunga, but had no luck.

    A related question, hinted at above, that I have never had reason to explore: how many countries use lemongrass in their cuisines? That may end up being useful to me here, as Torino has increasingly vibrant ethnic and cultural diversity. I have to admit that I have not had a chance to go stall by stall in Torino's Porta Palazzo market yet, and it is the largest open-air market in Europe. However, three different Asian foods shops told me that they thought it unlikely that I would find lemongrass at Porta Palazzo, and the shops are all across the street from the market...

  5. I would vote for Heinz catsup being incapable of improvement from a taste memory point of view. Every artisanal alternative that I have made or eaten, even when terrific, is a sauce being called catsup for technical reasons. I have found no other bottled catsup in the U.S. or Italy that can match it, and Italy makes a few top brands from excellent, all-natural ingredients. I do not eat a lot of catsup, and use it in cooking even less frequently, but when I do, I seek out Heinz which, like French's mustard, has become a truly international product.

  6. Ugly. Recalls the excellent Mike Steinberger book of a few years ago, "Au Revoir to All of That", which traces a similar decline of many of the great French culinary traditions. But in France, Italy and the U.S., and probably elsewhere, the greatest decline always seems to occur in the larger cities, where the hustle and bustle of urban existence, with long work hours, greater difficulty in child-rearing, etc. almost demand shortcutting on the food front. On the other hand, retired and living in rural Italy, it can take me the better part of a given day to shop for or harvest and prepare dinner. It seems to me that greater care is taken to preserve tradition in the countryside, but even that is being eroded by big-box supermarkets, even here. (No doubt that observation will offend some of the urban foodies here (and hey, I used to be one myself), but one must consider that this forum is food's 1% and focus on what the 99% around you are eating.) in Italy, the effect is devastating. Obesity is almost generational here, seen widely in those under 40 and rarely in those over 40 (the age line being arbitrary on my part), and it is apparently because the older generations continue to avoid fast foods...

  7. But it sounds like frozen will work for me, and if I am lucky and get it shipped untrimmed, I might be able to plant it. But I will not get rich. There is no demand for lemongrass here, because there are no Thai restaurants or even Thai people, as nearly as I can tell! Thanks to all, including the substitute suggestions...

  8. I am in Italy, and will likely not be able to find lemongrass plants until later this fall. While you can find many fresh ingredients from a variety of Asian cultures, no lemongrass. I found cut, dried lemongrass, which, when reconstituted, provides a hint of the real thing, but not much. I also found powdered lemongrass in the jar spices section of a supermarket, and it is worse than uselss. It is possible to mail-order cut fresh lemongrass from London, but at a steep tariff. If I bite the bullet and order, can fresh lemongrass be frozen or otherwise preserved so that it will retain a reasonable amount of its pungency?

  9. However if Bill Klapp offered me the quality sausage he made his guests, I might think twice before putting French's on it.

    Yes, but this must be said: what I fixed was in no way comparable to the Papaya King dog-and-drink experience!

    As an aside, one thing that does surprise me is how widespread hot dogs are in Italy. My area gets a lot of German wine and truffle tourism, and a fair number of Germans have vacation homes here, so at first, I thought maybe that the German presence fueled hot dogs and related sausages. However, after seeing that one of Torino's leading gastronomie goes to the trouble of importing hot dogs and various wursts from Germany and the Alto-Adige, as well as top-notch bottled sauerkraut from Germany, I now understand that the Italians have been enjoying dogs for a long time. Just no chili-slaw dogs!

    Kudos to all here. This thread has become a good deal broader, deeper and more interesting (at least to me) than the original post...

  10. I think there is a meaningful difference between using a very high quality example of the same category of ingredient, and switching to a different ingredient that is perceived as categorically "better."

    For example, I agree that using Dijon mustard may corrupt the experience of a "ballpark" hot dog for some people. But this is not because the Dijon mustard is higher in quality than French's mustard (although this may also be true). It's because "ballpark" hot dogs are traditionally dressed with American-style yellow mustard, which is completely different from Dijon mustard. The lesson here is that mustard types aren't fungible, not that the hot dog was ruined because the Dijon mustard was "too good." The appropriate question to test this thesis would be whether using a much higher quality of American-style yellow mustard would corrupt the hotdog experience. My thinking is that it would not, although it is also possible that the highest quality of American-style yellow mustard is effectively defined for many American palates by French's mustard, simply because for them French's is "what American-style yellow mustard is supposed to taste like." This, of course, brings up the fact that every taster gets to define his or her own hierarchy of quality. Just because I might think that the small batch artisanal organic American-style yellow mustard made by blind nuns is higher quality than French's doesn't make it so.

    So I guess my answer is: no, I don't believe that using the highest quality example of an ingredient would ever have a negative effect on the success of a dish. But very often we confuse "different ingredient" for "better quality example of the same ingredient."

    Pursuant to this, would it be a "better" experience if the dog involved wasn't made of snoots and squeal but rather from a cut of ground high-grade pork? At what point does it cease to be a ballpark weinie and become something different?

    In fact, I did that just a few days ago and posted about it for Holly Moore. I made mustard-onion-chili-slaw dogs for Italian guests almost exclusively from high-quality Italian ingredients. It ended up being one of the best hot dogs that I have ever eaten, in large part because it was a pure-pork dog (and at the current exchange rate, also costly, somewhere between $5-6 a pound) from northeastern Italy. However, it was absolutely something different from the hot dog that I sought to recreate, DESPITE French's mustard being the standout foreign ingredient...

  11. Good post, Kinsey. It IS about "different from an earlier norm" more than about "higher quality", although, as you noted, regardless of which mustard they preferred, many people would no doubt say that Dijon is a "better" mustard by virtue of higher price, being French rather than French's, reputation, etc. However, intention counts for something, and when I am trying to change the ingredients in some classic food from my past, my intention is to try to improve on the product by using what I subjectively believe to be "better" ingredients without losing what made the food attractive to me in the first place.

  12. Two thoughts: there clearly are ingredients like Wonderbread and hothouse tomatoes which, as you suggest, need not be retained, in those cases probably because both are flavorless and incapable of contributing to "taste nostalgia"! With the Fudgesicle example, unlike my Haagen-Dazs example, you may have created something that is related to the original in name only, or, put another way, maybe you created what the Fudgesicle should or could have been but was not. Yet another possible outcome...

  13. Is the divide something like the Hellman's/Best Foods regional naming? I grew up in California and I can't recall what they were called, but I wasn't a fan so that's probably why.

    Exactly. That probably goes on a lot more than we realize, especially after several decades of mergermania in America. I recently learned over here that an outfit called Mondelez International, a Virginia corporation, now owns Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese, Tang, Certs, Dentyne, Chicklets, Hall's, Cadbury chocolates, Suchard, Toblerone, Chips Ahoy cookies, Oreos and all of the other former Nabisco brands! They seem to be pretty liberal in changing product names on a global basis, in some cases adding two established names to the same product, depending upon the name-brand recognition in a given market.

  14. I think some of this trend comes from one-upmanship. The chef who makes burgers that are only as good as the guy across the street needs to differentiate, and some go to foodie hijinx like foie and lobster on a burger.

    In home cooking, most of us when presented with a premium ingredient (that we see rarely), like a great lobster tail, piece of foie, an amazing piece of beef - we're more tempted to make it simply and let it shine so we can indulge in and love it as it is.

    Of course, as the ingredient becomes more common, whether because of our financial situation, location, etc., we're more tempted to experiment with these things and play dress up with our fancy ingredients.

    Some things need to just be what they are. Beef Nachos at the ballpark (for example) are intrinsically more enjoyable (though not necessarily better) than 'Premium Wagyu topped tortilla crisps with aged gruyere and rare indonesian chillies'. Why? 1st because one costs $2 and the other $40. 2nd because nachos are something we want to gulp and laugh and talk around without stopping to savor the exquisite ingredients and contemplate the earthiness of the cheese and marbling of the beef.

    So, yes. Emphatically yes. I believe an ingredient can be too good for a certain dish.

    I think some of this trend comes from one-upmanship. The chef who makes burgers that are only as good as the guy across the street needs to differentiate, and some go to foodie hijinx like foie and lobster on a burger.

    In home cooking, most of us when presented with a premium ingredient (that we see rarely), like a great lobster tail, piece of foie, an amazing piece of beef - we're more tempted to make it simply and let it shine so we can indulge in and love it as it is.

    Of course, as the ingredient becomes more common, whether because of our financial situation, location, etc., we're more tempted to experiment with these things and play dress up with our fancy ingredients.

    Some things need to just be what they are. Beef Nachos at the ballpark (for example) are intrinsically more enjoyable (though not necessarily better) than 'Premium Wagyu topped tortilla crisps with aged gruyere and rare indonesian chillies'. Why? 1st because one costs $2 and the other $40. 2nd because nachos are something we want to gulp and laugh and talk around without stopping to savor the exquisite ingredients and contemplate the earthiness of the cheese and marbling of the beef.

    So, yes. Emphatically yes. I believe an ingredient can be too good for a certain dish.

    This post goes to the very heart at what I was trying to say. I am not at all reactionary about this, having attempted many such "upgrades" myself over the years, and I am sure that I will continue to do so. The surprising thing is always when the upgrade, which in theory should be terrific, ends up being disappointing instead.

    I do have the occasional triumph, however. Creamed chipped beef, which I grew up eating and loving (without ever being forced to eat it in a military or institutional cafeteria context, as so many are), has benefitted dramatically from "upgrading". My first move was from the Armour salted dried beef stuffed into tiny little jars to Weaver's (of Lebanon, PA, of Lebanon bologna fame) smoked beef round, in each case with a good, homemade bechamel. When I moved to Italy, I discovered that I could buy little boxes of prepared bechamel that the Italians use as a labor-saving device when making lasagna. It is made from the same natural ingredients as mine (and you pay a fair price for that quality) and, with a little extra butter, a splash of cream and a little pepper added, as good as homemade. I also discovered that the Italians love smoked beef as a deli-counter item (usually spreading Philadelphia cream cheese on it and creating little rolatini), and you find many qualities and styles, but the best are more delicate and a little sweeter than Weaver's. Add some good Italian bread toast underneath, and ecco! I now have the Italian friends (well, at least the ones who would try it) begging for it. (It is, after all, three things that they like and eat, just a curious combination of them.) But I digress...

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  15. ... I keep recalling Haagen-Dazs's abortive attempt some years back to re-create the old Popsicle product, the Dreamsicle, in a pint carton. (For those of you not old enough to remember the Dreamsicle, it was a core of artificially flavored vanilla ice milk on a stick, but instead of a chocolate coating, it was covered with orange sherbet...not sorbet ...

    The name is interesting. In the New York City of the 50's-60's it was called a Creamsicle. (Still is, actually.) Nothing better on a hot summer day. I totally agree with your point. I want the Creamsicle, but in addition, I want the "madeleine" attached to the creamsicle as well. Haagen-Dazs doesn't deliver.
    Creamsicle is exactly the same thing, except that I think that it has real ice cream inside, whereas the Dreamsicle definitely had ice milk, and I suspect that Creamsicle may, in fact, be the dominant name for that novelty. I think that there were a couple of regional variations in naming, as there was a national Popsicle brand but no central production and distribution. The name, wrappings, recipes, etc. were licensed, but the products were regionally and locally produced. The same was true in the 50s and 60s for many regional or superregional dairy and ice cream brands (Meadow Gold was one, and for ice cream, even the national brand Borden's was produced locally). I think that this remains true today for the handful of remaining national dairy brands.
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  16. I think this has a lot to do with people's nostalgia towards whichever foods they ate when they grew up. I don't think most people have the luxury of eating the best ingredients throughout their childhood, so they find comfort in the familiarity of some things, even if they aren't as rich, flavorful, refined, etc as other versions of the dish.

    I went into the Air Force directly out of high school. Once I got to my first duty station I noticed other GIs complaining about the chow-hall food. Much of it was, for institutional food, quite well prepared. I went on to a small private college (300 students) and for my first semester there enjoyed the food in the dining hall (we got a different cook after that who was capable of burning water). The first cook really worked hard to prepare tasty meals. I listened to some other students faulting the flavors of his food. Then I noticed that it was mostly freshman doing the complaining. I realized then that the complaints were, in my opinion, based on the food not tasting like that which they had grown up with. 40 years later I stand by that conclusion.

    Exactly. I suppose that we are lucky that good chefs are not so limited, but I also think that we all like some things that would probably not be considered good or interesting by most people. However, such things are nevertheless part of who we are, and trying to improve upon them may please those other people, but not likely ourselves. But the next step in the question is: are there some foods whose taste profiles many or most of us so identify with that we do not want the taste improved by better-quality ingredients? (I am not thinking McDonald's hamburgers here.)

  17. I think that you missed the forest in favor of that particular tree. And the formation date of Haagen-Dazs is completely irrelevant, yes?

    Excuse me? It was you who linked the two, not me.

    Your pedantry is excused. Please read my post again and see if you can follow its drift: Rather low-quality, ice-milk Dreamsicle was made in 1950s and 1960s. Popular with kids, as I was then. Haagen-Dazs knocks off the product sometime in the last 15 years, but uses top-quality ingredients. I did not like the new product as well as the old, and I am positing that, sometimes, maybe using the best available ingredients does not deliver the familiarity, comfort and taste sensation that one seeks. Birth year of Haagen-Dazs totally irrelevant. When the English were eating sherbet totally irrelevant, unless it was in fact sorbet and was called sorbet. Otherwise, it could well be that, as I stated, only the French were eating sorbet and calling it sorbet in the 1950s. However, I could be wrong. And, if you follow my drift, whether I am right or wrong on that arcane, purely rhetorical point is, you guessed it, TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. Throw the OED in the irrelevance heap, and there you have it. Or, by all means, if you prefer, feel free to read the OED instead of this thread...

  18. Interesting fact about sorbet in England, but I think that you missed the forest in favor of that particular tree. And the formation date of Haagen-Dazs is completely irrelevant, yes? Low-quality, artificially flavored, ice-milk sherbets may not have been unique to America of the 1950s and 1960s, but probably pretty close to it, since much of the rest of the world was enjoying natural flavors and pure dairy products back then...

  19. That is my point, Chris. And Mjx, you can swap "best" for "better", "top-quality", "good-quality", "more appropriate" or whatever other descriptor you like. "Best" is not important to my question, and this forum would probably not exist absent the sharing of subjective opinions of "good", "best", "workable", etc. Indeed, more often than not in threads that invite it, one witnesses the building of subjective concensus, weird or no. The Blumenthal illustration is perfect. We can all agree, I think, that there are better sardines and bread available today than those of Blumenthal's childhood, but yet using them will not create the flavor that he remembers. (There is, I suppose, a flip side to this, too, if you have flavor memories of absolutely dreadful things that your mother or your grandmother cooked that can be erased by the use of better (or more appropriate) ingredients or techniques.)

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  20. Maybe a really dumb topic, this, but it is something that I have thought about on and off over the years. A lot of time, expense, thought and effort is expended here on sourcing and discovering the best ingredients, equipment and techniques, and even doing that from both the cost-is-no-object (easier to do with food than with most things in life) and best-quality-price-ratio perspectives. The constant is striving for excellence at whatever level, with every conceivable type of food and drink.

    However, for many, a top Dijon mustard would ruin the enjoyment of a hot dog in a baseball park. I keep recalling Haagen-Dazs's abortive attempt some years back to re-create the old Popsicle product, the Dreamsicle, in a pint carton. (For those of you not old enough to remember the Dreamsicle, it was a core of artificially flavored vanilla ice milk on a stick, but instead of a chocolate coating, it was covered with orange sherbet...not sorbet, as that existed only in France back then, but a milk-based sherbet. in the Dark Ages of Foodie-ism, it was something that a kid could love, and a nice change of pace from Popsicles, Fudgesicles and Eskimo Pies.). Haagen-Dazs blended its intense, high-fat natural vanilla ice cream with a natural orange sorbet (no milk). Orange oil or something like it factored into the sorbet, making it both too intense and too bitter to make the experiment work. (I am not certain that I would have bothered to eat the sorbet alone, despite its pedigree and despite loving most bitter foods.) Other things that I have seen screwed up by too much upgrading are Philly cheesesteaks, hoagies/heroes/subs/grinders, pizzas and burgers (I still chuckle over the Burger Bar in Vegas, which can turn out a number of different and perfectly fine burgers, but also will plop a half a lobster tail and/or foie gras on a Kobe burger), which makes me suspect that perhaps the problem is confined to popular junk food for which there is a common taste expectation for many people.

    I am curious as to whether others have experienced the "damn, my ingredients are too good!" problem along the way, and with what foods...

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  21. High praise from a man who I am confident has eaten better hot dogs in West Virginia than I ever did, and I was born there (in or near a coal mine, as I recall). At some point, Holly, my task is going to be complicated by language concerns, the Country Club pepperoni roll being an excellent example. Something much more flavorful than pepperoni exists in Calabria and elsewhere in the south (and can be found throughout Italy, along with some local variants in the north), but it travels under the generic name "salsiccia piccante". "Pepperoni", on the other hand, refers to sweet bell peppers. If you were to put the two together in a roll, you would probably need to name it in Esperanto for clarity's sake!

  22. A wild dinner here in Neive, Italy last night. Four people in attendance, including myself, a retired American lawyer from Atlanta with a home here, and two lifelong natives of Torino, one of whom speaks almost no English. We started with the obligatory Aperol spritzoni. One of the two Torinese had just returned from Valle d' Aosta, and brought us mocetta (a cured beef or goat product somewhat similar to speck), which we drizzled with a fine, mild Sicilian EVOO, and the famous lardo d' Arnad to start with, and three cheeses (to which I added two excellent local tome) to end with, along with several of the local preserves and honeys made to serve with cheeses, such as pear and Moscato preserves and walnuts in honey. We also had fresh-picked peaches and pears from my orchard.

    But what does all of this have to do with Holly, you might well ask? The entree...what we called in my childhood in West Virginia "hot dogs with everything"! The two Italians had eaten hot dogs (usually called "wurstel" in Italy) before, but never like this: chili and slaw are, as nearly as I can tell, unknown in Italy. And the ingredients, with the exception of chili powder bootlegged from the U.S. and the extraordinary demi-sel butter shipped in from Brittany that I used to grill the buns, were 100% Italian. There were Senfter's top-of-the-line "puro suino" dogs from the Alto-Adige (home of some of the finest hot dogs on earth, with crisp natural casing or skinless, as you like) , the 100%-pork hot dogs of my childhood and my dreams, but of dramatically better quality than any I had found in America in a very long time. For the chili, there was tender, intensely rich ground-to-order beef, not far removed from being veal (almost always the case here) from a great local butcher. (I probably should have used some ground pork, too, but this was, after all, a lark.) There were the legendary sweet, red/purple onions of Tropea, a very close relative of the long-lost Bermuda onions of my childhood (presumably put out of business by the ubiquitous Vidalia, Texas Grano and Maui onions), both in the chili and chopped raw on the dogs. There were Italian hot dog buns, very soft and just a tad sweet, a valiant attempt at the American bun that could not help remaining Italian. Oops, and one more American (or perhaps in this case, international) ingredient, but purchased here, French's yellow mustard. (As good as many brown mustards are with other hot dog preparations, nothing but a yellow mustard like French's will do for the melding of flavors of the classic mustard, onion, chili and slaw "hot dog with everything", at least as found in West Virginia in the 1950s and 1960s!) And finally, slaw made with a particular type of cabbage grown here for use in making kraut, which is possessed of a striking and pure cabbage taste (almost reminiscent of eating a raw turnip), a bit of julienne carrots, more for color than for taste, and a superb Italian mayonnaise called Gaia, which is sold only in butcher shops for some reason. (No reason why I could not have made my own mayo, but the Gaia is so good that I saved myself the trouble.) A pinch of sugar, a little mustard and a splash of white wine vinegar, and hot dog slaw it was.

    To drink? A good Italian beer with the dogs, and a 1947 Lopez de Heredia Vina Bosconia Gran Reserva Rioja with the cheese course!

    The result was, frankly (and to the Italians, surprisingly), stunningly good. The Atlantan, no stranger to the hot dog with everything, declared it to be by far the best that he had ever eaten, and he fairly begged for a repeat performance. Despite the strange ingredients, the Italians are both foodies, and they instantly understood the complimentary nature of the flavors involved, and why some American would have thought to gunk up a hot dog that way. The flavors of all of the ingredients retained great delicacy, as not a lot of mustard was used, and the dog remained the star of the show. I now have the distinction of having made the best pizza and the best hot dogs that my Italian friends have ever eaten. Not bad for a lifetime's work! Getting an Italian to even eat a hot dog is something of a feat, much less a hot dog with everything...

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