I have many fond food related memories, but, one of my fondest was eating hot dogs on the steps of the Museum of Natural History as a child. I can't remember exactly how old I was. If I had to guess, maybe 10, but... I distinctly remember having 3 hot dogs and still being hungry, so maybe I was a little older.
These dogs were long, very thin, darkly colored, pretty garlic-y, and bursting with flavor. At the time, I didn't know what natural casing was, but I'm pretty sure they had the distinctive snap. It kind of felt like this hot dog was the NY archetype for this 1980ish era, although I probably didn't consume enough of them (maybe once every two months) to have my finger on the pulse. For years, I mistakenly assumed that the cart's Sabrett umbrella meant something, but now I know that the umbrella had no connection to the brand of dogs they were buying.
As I've grown older, for a long time I assumed that these were wholesale dogs that the public didn't have access to, so I didn't even look for them. Eventually I figured out what natural casing was and tried every brand that I could. Not only did nothing match up, but, anything that, at the time, might have been close, over 40 or so years, has evolved further and further away as intensively flavored garlic-y hot dogs have fallen out of fashion (case in point, Hebrew National).
It might sound like I'm looking for help, but, really, I'm just lamenting. I don't think I'm ever going to repeat that experience. And, just to be clear, this isn't about viewing the past through rose colored glasses. I worship at the bagel altar just as fastidiously as the hot dog altar, and I'm confident that I can walk into one of my favorite bagel places tomorrow and experience the same bliss I might have experienced decades ago. But not hot dogs.
