This is one of those great lists you often find on Wikipedia that seems very cobbled together with little consideration for formal sources, other than someone saying “Hey, I grew up in [geographic area] and this is how grandpa made a hot dog…”, then taking it upon themselves to create a new entry.
My hometown Louisville falls under the cultural influence of neighboring Cincinnati, so I am most personally familiar with the Cincinnati-style Coney dogs (shredded mild cheddar, diced onions and thin, cinnamon-flavored chili); my family eats these all the time.
No regional dog variation representing Minnesota makes it on the list. We seem to have a surprisingly weak hot dog heritage here, which seems especially odd considering that the state is full of the two things that usually make for a great regional hot dog: 19th Century German immigrants and a meatpacking industry. The “dome dog” fails to make the list, but there’s not much to a dome dog, other than you buy it at Twins games and it has a sesame bun (and the concession workers are under strict orders not to give you more than one tiny little plastic cup of sauerkraut, as my friend Andy once learned the hard way). Someday I will pitch the Heavy Table a story investigating this missing legacy. Is there a Minnesota-style hot dog, local readers?
In the meantime, try preparing for yourself such great variations as:
- the Mexico City jocho (grilled, with melted oaxaca cheese, pico de gallo, ketchup, mustard and bacon)
- the Maine “red snapper” 1 (natural casing dog with mayonnaise, sweet onion relish, and celery salt), or…
- the Kansas City-style (saurkraut and melted Swiss).
If there’s a good hot dog recipe from your hometown, leave it in the comments.
1 I like to imagine a fisherman in a Gordon’s fish sticks-style yellow slicker saying “red snapper” in a Maine accent.
