Bruce Kraig - Man Bites Dog: Hot Dog Culture in America

BRUCE KRAIG , professor emeritus at Roosevelt University, is a noted food historian who regularly publishes and speaks on the topic of world and American foodways. He has published widely on the history of hot dogs, including the book Hot Dogs: A Global History (2009), which won a Paris Book Fair Award. As the authority on the culture, lore, and history of hot dogs, he has appeared often in national media, including documentaries by the History Channel and the Discovery Channel.

PATTY CARROLL is adjunct professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She specializes in photographing American popular culture. Her hot dog photographs are on permanent display at the Chicago History Museum and have been shown at the Chicago Water Tower Photography Gallery and in various group exhibitions. She has published and exhibited internationally on American cultural topics including Elvis impersonators, suburban lawns, and resorts at night. Her books include Living the Life: The World of Elvis Tribute Artists and Culture Is Everywhere , and her hot dog stand photos are included in Changing Chicago .

T his book is the result of an almost twenty-year friendship during which we swapped ideas and Bruce swiped (always with permission) Pattys photographs to illustrate lectures on hot dog history and to use in other publications. The idea for Man Bites Dog comes from those lectures, most of which were centered on explanations of the meanings of Pattys pictures. We hope that readers will go to our site, hotdoggeries.com, for more of these pieces of art.

We thank all the people who own and run the hot dog places we visited over the years. All of them were unfailingly kind, generous with their timeand hot dogsand were informative about what they did and about their lives. Both of us have a serious appreciation for the world they inhabit and for them. The same goes for hot dog makers from whom we learned a lot about the science and business of sausages.

We have the great luck to have had guides to hot doggeries in various parts of the country. First is John Fox, the New Jersey guru of all things doggie, who took us on an amazing tour of paradigmatic places in his home statefrom near Newark to the Pennsylvania border. Without the ever-cheerful Doug Duda, who took us around and sampled everything, we would never have gotten through it all. Professor William Lockwood, the authority on Balkan culture and hot dog stands in Detroit and Flint, Michigan, guided us in southeastern Michigan, answered all of our questions, intelligent or not, and ate way too many coneys with us. Dan Strehl, who has written wonderful works on Mexican food history, took us to many a Sonoran stand in Tucson, filling us in on social and cultural history of a surprisingly (to us) diverse and culturally rich Tucson, Arizona. Without Linda Civatello we would never have made it through the traffic and complexities of Los Angeles. A well-known food (and screen) writer who has published the standard food history textbook used in culinary schools, she was amazed at the great varieties of hot dogs in Los Angeles. We have deep gratitude to her and to everyone else who pointed us in the right directions and, seriously, who sampled many a hot dog for us.

Both of us are also grateful to our spouses. Tony Jones came up with the book title, found us many an interesting tidbit to use, and has been subjected to more hot dog sampling and photographing than any respectable gentleman should be. Jan Thompson gave good advice on book organization, but mainly it is her undimmed love for Chicago-style hot dogs that spurs one on, especially when that means a trip to a favorite stand.

Our thanks, too, to Sally and Lisa Ekus, who made the connection to AltaMira Press, and to Wendi Schnaufer, who has shepherded us through writing and illustrating Man Bites Dog : It was like the proverbial herding of catswho love hot dogs.

Once upon a time in New York, Jewish delicatessens could be found in neighborhoods and areas of commerce all over the city. Corned beef, pastrami, chicken soup with matzo balls, knishes, and many other dishes associated with Jewish American cuisine were to be found there. Today, though numbers are reduced, these items can still be found on deli menus. One of them is a simple hot dogcentered dish called a Special, the nickname for a knockwurst, or kosher (usually) sausage. These are basically stubby, natural casing sausages, four to a pound, and seasoned with lots of garlic. Hebrew National makes the best known of these, though before consolidation of the industry there were many local makers.

Bean soups made with ham bones are a historical American staple. A nice, thick, green or yellow pea soup with hot dogs is a widely used variant. When made with canned soup, it is an early convenience food.

Onion sauce is a standard for New Yorkstyle hot dogs. Our thanks to Craig Meathead Goldwyn, AmazingRibs.com, for his version.