Regional Dogs

Many cities have a signature method for dressing their frankfurters. I love throwing parties with a hot dog road trip as the theme. Here are some of the most iconic styles.

The Chicago Dog is a juicy, crunchy, sloppy combo that leaves your fingers fragrant for hours. It starts with a garlicky all-beef frankfurter with a snappy natural casing, simmered in water laden with flavor from other dogs. This “dirty water” method is standard, but there are a few renegades like me who grill or griddle them. They are served on a bun studded with poppy seeds and topped with seven ingredients, no more, no less, no variation allowed: solar-yellow mustard, kryptonite-green sweet pickle relish, chopped raw onion, juicy tomato slices, spicy hot “sport” peppers, a crunchy salty kosher pickle spear, and a sprinkle of that magic dust, celery salt. Ketchup is strictly forbidden. The result is a sandwich with so much vegetation that it is called a “garden on a bun.”

The Coney Island Hot Dog, found all over New York City, is an all-beef frank wrapped with a natural casing, cooked on a griddle or simmered, and most often dressed with spicy brown mustard, sauerkraut, and griddled onions. Sometimes those onions have been mixed with a sweet mustard sauce. That’s all. No relish, chili, and especially no ketchup. A purist orders only mustard, kraut, and onions.

The West Virginia Slaw Dog is a tasty but improbable construct of frank, bun, beanless ground beef sauce sometimes forming a bed beneath the frank (they insist it is a “meat sauce” and not to be called chili), yellow mustard, and finely chopped creamy coleslaw crowning it.

The Cincinnati Cheese Coney is a pork-and-beef frank with a natural casing topped with mustard, then chili, then chopped onions, and finally an ungodly amount of shredded cheddar mounded on top.

The Detroit Coney Dog is a skinless beef frank loaded with mustard, then a chili made mostly from beef hearts, no beans allowed, and crowned with chopped onions. It is served all around the state in restaurants called Coney Islands.

And then there’s the Texas Wiener served in Connecticut, the New York System Hot Wieners in Rhode Island, the North Jersey Italian Dog, the Rochester Garbage Plate, the Montana Tater-Pig, the Sonoran Hot Dog, the Seattle Cream Cheese Dog, the Hawaiian Puka Dog, the Fenway Frank, and the Dodger Dog. Ironically, there is no such regionality with hamburgers—maybe because there are so many huge burger chains that have globalized the genre. Let’s hope the same fate never befalls hot dogs!