One summer, comedian Jamie Loftus ate hundreds of hot dogs at some 150 joints across the country. Loftus chronicled that hot dog summer in her new book “Raw Dog.” It’s essential reading about America’s favorite summer food and our occasionally complicated relationship to it.
“There’s very little written about hot dogs, which is crazy to me,” Loftus said on Boston Public Radio on Friday. Loftus said most of what she read before writing this book was either “very pro-hot dog” or “the vegan lobby.”
“I was excited to look at the pros and cons of hot dogs,” she said.
Many people consider the hot dog an quintessentially American food, but the pink meat tube was born from a combination of food traditions from Germany, Greece, Poland and Austria, Loftus said.
"Over a period of time, there were so many immigrants coming to the U.S. from those countries during the Depression and during the World Wars, and it just became a popular cheap food," she explained.
During her hot dog tour, Loftus ate everything from a fish cake hot dog in Philly (a well-cooked hot dog with a fish cake flopped on top) to a bologna-wrapped and fried dog in Baltimore.
Eating so many hot dogs was not always easy on the body, Loftus said.
“I felt like I was on the verge of death,” she said about eating the Baltimore dog mere hours after enjoying a chili-drenched hot dog from Ben’s Chili Bowl.
Her favorite hot dog stop in the country? Rutt’s Hut in Clifton, New Jersey. “They put it in the deep fryer for 4 seconds, and it just explodes,” said Loftus. “It costs like $3 on the side of the highway and it’s just the greatest thing in the world.”
But after trying so many grilled, boiled and fried dogs that summer, Loftus says she prefers to keep it classic: a hot dog, split and grilled, on a toasted bun with ketchup, mustard and relish.
Beyond the tastebud trials in her book, Loftus also explores the labor conditions for meatpackers and slaughterhouse workers who create the tubed meat. She said the already dangerous meatpacking plants remained open during the pandemic, and “it became the most dangerous job in the country.”
In 2022, ProPublica published an investigation that revealed meatpacking giants Tyson and Smithfield ignored pandemic health warnings and pushed back against public health officials, exposing their workers to the coronavirus.
Outrage over working conditions has spilled over into more joyous hotdog events, like the Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest. Protestors in 2022 crossed in front of famed eater Joey Chestnut with a sign that read “ Expose Smithfield Death Star.” This was a great event to protest at, said Loftus, because Smithfield distributes a lot of Nathan's hot dogs.
Loftus also writes about another hot dog cultural touchstone, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. She interviewed drivers of the hot dog-shaped vehicles, most fresh out of college when they took on this yearlong job. Before getting behind the wheel, they attend training in Wisconsin for two weeks. Then the company pairs up its 12 drivers to take six Wienermobiles across the country and hand out Wienermobile-shaped whistles.
“They basically put you into an arranged marriage with another Wienermoble driver, and then you're just with them nonstop for six months,” said Loftus. “And it ends with them either hating each other or getting married.”
