The semiotics of the hot dog

[Carrot Top]

A tad bit...yucky.  I have this on impeccable authority.  Check out the latest posts (as of 1/26/06, 11:12 pm ET) in the "Hot Dogs" thread in this forum.

←

Your mention of raw hot dogs reminded me that (along with raw bacon) they were one of the things I used to take from the fridge and just eat, when my mother was not home, as a child.

(This could be the reason for the way I am today, perhaps. )

Anyway - it also came to mind that besides hot dogs in a bun and hot dogs on a plate as a meal, there are several other ways I've seen them eaten.

A babysitter I had in Second Grade (first generation Italian) used to make the same sandwich for lunch AND as an after-school snack (those were the days when one walked home for lunch from elementary school ) for her two daughters and myself, every single day. Sliced cold hot dogs on white bread with ketchup, cut in half (straight across not diagonally of course). It didn't bother me too much, but one day when my mother came to pick me up after school and found me sitting on the front step of the babysitters house where I'd been directed to go till my mother was due to pick me up (for the dreadful sin the sitter had caught me in of playing tag with the boys on the school playground) (again, vastly different times it was in Euclid, Ohio in 1963. . . ) with one of these sandwiches clutched in my hand, it was (apparently) the idea of the sandwich that inscensed her enough to discontinue any visits to that babysitter and instead, to have me make my own lunch and after-school snack at home by myself.

Heh. So indirectly, cold hot dogs were responsible for my being taught responsiblity for self at a rather young age.

Another sliced hot dog story - my Italian mother-in-law used to feed her six children polenta with sliced hot dogs in it. . .a soupy sort of thing. The family apparently loved it.

So there is yet another form here that the hot dog takes in America - as a substitution for whatever sorts of sausages existed in the original recipes "in the old country".

And again, something affordable.

[srhcb]

Anyway - it also came to mind that besides hot dogs in a bun and hot dogs on a plate as a meal, there are several other ways I've seen them eaten.

←

My brother and I also used to walk home from grade school for lunch, and one of our favorites was elbow macaroni and cut up hot dogs in tomato soup. We named the dish "Mixed Getti Soup". When we were a bit older we had the option of adding some grated (Kraft) Parmesan Cheese.

SB

[Carrot Top]

We named the dish "Mixed Getti Soup". 

SB 

←

Somewhat safer to eat than "Mixed Gotti Soup", anyway.

[jsolomon]

I couldn't scrounge up a page with a link in it, but Nebraska fans all love Der Wiener Schlinger. A giant hotdog-shooting hot dog.

[Carrot Top]

Well there you go.

If it was a giant hamburger-shooting hamburger, it just would not be right somehow, would it.

Though I would think that instead, you guys should have a giant corncob-shooting corncob. That would work, too - and the theme would match the team, no?

Here we have a giant turkey. An orange and burgundy giant turkey. With a loopy-sort of look on its face. It is called a "Hokey-Bird". Isn't that wonderful?

But this does bring up mention of competitors to the claim of "America's Food" - whatever happened to "As American as Apple Pie?" or of course, turkey. But maybe turkey is only our semiotic food on Thanksgiving and Christmas - to be tucked away with the decorations for the rest of the year. . .

[srhcb]

But this does bring up mention of competitors to the claim of "America's Food" - whatever happened to "As American as Apple Pie?" or of course, turkey. But maybe turkey is only our semiotic food on Thanksgiving and Christmas - to be tucked away with the decorations for the rest of the year. . .

←

As the old saying goes, "What could be more American than hot dogs, baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet?"

I suspect the hot dog owes quite a bit of it's reputation as "America's Food" to it's close historical relationship with baseball, the erstwhile "America's Past Time".

As for the turkey, which Ben Franklin supported for our national symbol, I suspect the other Founding Fathers found the idea of an edible emblem distasteful?

SB (now the Founding Mothers, on the other hand, might have approved?)

[Carrot Top]

As for the turkey, which Ben Franklin supported for our national symbol, I suspect the other Founding Fathers found the idea of an edible emblem distasteful?

←

Bennie's tastebuds were never quite the same after that lightning incident.