Local Food: “Tube Steak”

This article originally appeared in The Local Voice #207. To download a PDF of this issue, click here.

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How the phallic frankfurter became our nation’s favorite recreational food should be a subject of deep cultural concern. Americans grasp this tumescence with relish every summer when weenies are thrust relentlessly into our salacious collective psyche.

While you will find diners that serve hot dogs—most often places that make it a specialty—they aren’t really considered restaurant fare. (When I asked Randy Yates if they served hot dogs at Ajax, he said, “We serve anybody.”) Hot dogs are popular with kids (and parents), but for the most part, dogs are still considered road food (you’ll often find them on roller grills or in countertop rotisseries in convenience stores) and more especially food for fairs, festivals, and sporting events.

Rick Cleveland says, “Hot dogs were big at my house growing up in Hattiesburg because: 1) they were cheap and we had no money; 2) we all loved them. We had two “go-to” places for hot dogs. One was the Frostop and the other Coney Island. Both specialized in chili dogs and just typing this is making me hungry.  I ate mine with onions and mustard and well remember the day I graduated from one chilidog to two at Frostop. Their root beer, by the way, was nectar from the gods.

“I have been on a low carb diet for more than two months and one of the hardest facets has been: no hot dogs. It is damned near impossible for me to go to a ballgame and not order a hot dog or a sausage dog. At a game, I will usually go for the biggest dog they have and dress it with mustard, catsup, pickles and onions. I much prefer hot dogs cooked over charcoal. In fact, I like almost everything, including asparagus, cooked over charcoal. My tastes have changed. I now prefer a good Chicago dog, replete with real tomatoes, mustard, onions, peppers, pickle spears and—really important here—celery salt.”

At Trustmark Park in Pearl, home of the Mississippi Braves, the options for toppings include chili, cheese, onions, peppers, guacamole, jalapeño, and olives, but according to Dr. Bruce Kraig, who is the final court of authority when it comes to frankfurters, slaw dogs seem more characteristic of the South, typically franks loaded with mustard, slaw, and onions, though in Georgia, you have the “scrambled dog,” which is topped with chili, beans, and oyster crackers, and in New Orleans offers the legendary Lucky Dog famously peddled by the elephantine Ignatius Reilly, whose mother found it appalling that he was “selling weenies in the French Quarter,” though I suspect more often than not he was buying them (“12 Inches of Paradise”!).  

I’m not about to tell you how to cook a hot dog, and I’m not going to tell you what kind of bun to stick it in, either; those are purely private considerations. You heat up a wiener any way you find best, and stick it into whatever bun you like. I will suggest that if you boil your dogs to toss a Zatarain’s sack in for a little kick. As to toppings, mustard is the premiere condiment when it comes to sausages of any ilk. Eschew French mustards; while France has been an ally since the dawn of our nation, putting Dijon mustard on a hot dog seems vaguely unpatriotic and approaches the epitome of pretention. Creole mustard is a laudable and appropriate compromise. For yellow mustard, I prefer Griffin’s out of Muskogee, Oklahoma, and while ketchup is acceptable in some circles, mayonnaise on a hot dog is just wrong; if you slather Blue Plate on a weenie, you need therapy.

Hot chow-chow (get Mrs. Renfro’s if you don’t make or can’t get homemade) is wonderful on dogs, and your favorite chili should always be an option, and though I realize this will put me in peril with those Paleolithic purists, chili with beans is best. Chopped fresh onion is a must; use a white with bite instead of a sweet yellow or red. For cheese, use sharp cheddar, and for Pete’s sake, buy a hunk of cheese and grate it. Likewise with pickles; instead of buying sweet or dill pickle relish, simply take your favorite sweet pickles (I like bread and butter) or kosher dills and chop them up; you don’t need all that other junk they throw in the jars. And a hot weenie deserves a warm bun; just sayin’.