It is a question for the ages, one so deceptively simple that both the one who asks and the one who answers finds themselves drawn into a vortex of clarifying, of shades of meaning, intentions, prejudices and a range of human quirks and foibles. Friendships have been lost, houses divided and battle lines have been drawn over this seemingly innocuous query:
Is a hot dog a sandwich?
The debate appears to have started either in a professional sports team’s locker room and then spread to the Internet or perhaps the other way around. As Food & Wine put it in a recent article, there is a likely connection given the popularity of hot dogs sold in ballparks.
When the question was first posed to Carly Fiorina, the Republican candidate for president said that a hot dog does not count as a sandwich. It’s a view she maintains to this day.
Turning to the government for clarification yielded predictable results. Frankfurters, according to the United States Dept. of Agriculture, are also known as hot dogs, wieners or bologna. They are cooked and/or smoked sausages according to the Federal Standards of Identity. The official description discusses smoking and curing ingredients that contribute to flavor, color and preservation. They are link-shaped and may have a casing.
They can be made from beef, pork, turkey, chicken or a combination – the label must state which. And there are federal standards of identity for their content. But federal guidelines offer nothing in the way of defining whether they are to be considered sandwiches for the purpose of consumption.
Historically, according to Food & Wine, the first item to be called a sandwich was simply salt beef between two slices of bread. And there is a legal definition of a sandwich, again from the USDA: “a product that contains at least 35 percent cooked meat and no more than 50 percent bread … [typically] consisting of two slices of bread or the top and bottom sections of a sliced bun that enclose meat or poultry.”
But just when it appears Uncle Sam is leaning toward calling a hot dog a sandwich, the government offers a subdefinition of foods that are “sandwich-like,” including the burrito.
When Fiorina polled supporters this past summer at a campaign cookout in New Hampshire, only a few hands went up in agreement with the notion that a hot dog is a sandwich. The candidate sided with the majority, saying, “A hot dog is a unique thing.”
The last word may belong to one of the Rhode Island icons of wienerdom. Spike’s Junkyard Dogs have been a great success in the state and beyond for more than 20 years. Proprietor David Drake spoke for the brand’s ambassador and symbol, Spike, a 9-year-old bulldog. Drake’s immediate answer to the question – an emphatic, “No!”
He explained that although hot dogs are generally listed as sandwiches, they are in fact a category unto themselves.
Who is going to argue with a bulldog? •
Bruce Newbury’s Dining Out talk radio show is heard on 920 WHJJ-AM, 1540 WADK-AM and on mobile applications. He can be reached by email at bruce@brucenewbury.com.
