Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Hot Dogs

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

This week on Flightless Bird, David Farrier dives headfirst into one of America’s favorite foods, the humble hot dog. He learns that Americans eat around 20 billion hot dogs a year, which means the average American eats about 70 hot dogs per year. Why? How did this simple food get so popular here? To understand, Farrier decides to talk to the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council. Eric Mittenthal picks up and answers some of Farrier’s burning questions. David then takes foodie and Flightless Bird producer Rob Holysz out to eat some hot dogs - first at the iconic LA joint Pinks, and then to the very niche Wurstküche in the Arts District. There David and Rob dine on rabbit, buffalo, and rattlesnake. They also set out to answer the burning question: “Is a hotdog a sandwich?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, it's David here. This is just a quick note before we start the episode. I wanted to let you know that Flightless Bird is taking a little break after this episode, returning in February next year. February the 6th to be exact. I wanted to say a big thanks for listening this year. I get a lot of feedback through email and DMs, and while I can't get back to all of you, it's always really great to hear your point of view on the episodes that have just gone out and your ideas for future episodes. I love hearing from you and I really can't wait to get stuck in again next year. You're about to listen to episode 71 of Flightless Bird. So maybe while we're on a break, you can go back and revisit some of the

old ones. I think episode one about religion is really fun. So is episode 11 about circumcision. Episode 20, we did porn and that goes places, or there's maths or toilets or Waffle House or Waco. I also wanted to give a big thanks to everyone who works on this show. Rob, our producer, editors Billy and Jake, and Jake and Matt who score every episode. It's a really tiny team and I sort of can't believe we get this thing out every week. So thanks to them. And of course, a big thanks to Monica, who I get to hang out with every week, and Dax, who gives us the space to do our own thing. I really love discovering America with my little team.

And most importantly, with you, who listens to this show. Thanks, and have a happy holiday. I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now, the obvious answer to this question is, of course, food. Food makes America tick, because without food, there'd be no Americans. But it's the food that America chooses to consume that's fascinating to me, and consume it to a level that boggles the mind. With 62 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, for his 16th win, I give you the number one ranked eater in the world, Joey Chestnut.

That clip was from ESPN, who covered an American man named Joey Chestnut winning his 16th Nathan's hot dog eating contest. 62 hot dogs downed in 10 minutes. It's extreme, but then the average American doesn't feel that far behind, because Americans eat 20 billion hot dogs each year. Average that out, and the average American eats 70 hot dogs each year. So grab that wiener and bun and prepare to cover it in mustard, ketchup, onions, relish, and cheese, and all all sorts of stuff because this is the Hot Dogs episode. How's it going, Monica? Well, I'm grateful we're doing this episode because I do think hot dogs are extremely American. They're so American.

Did you have them in New Zealand? Yeah, we have hot dogs. If you order a hot dog in New Zealand, you'll get a wiener on a stick, which here is a corn dog. So that gets confusing. But yeah, we definitely have them, but they're not as much in our culture as they are here. I guess the equivalent to the American hot dog would be the mince pie, which I bought you on a while ago.

That's our kind of like unhealthy, delicious thing that we eat. I do love a hot dog. My mom loves hot dogs. So I associate hot dogs a lot with my mother. Yeah. You'd grow up and have like hot dogs on weekends and stuff. Yeah. But also we had the processed, you know, the brand that I won't say so we don't get in trouble, but has a fun rhyme song to it. I can't stop reading about hot dogs and so that was that brand there's the weenie mobile which is a fleet of motor vehicles shaped like a hot dog on a bun and they've been around

since 1936 wow yeah they're they're a big they're like the thing they're the thing and we would have those hot dogs constantly my mom would, I guess like boil them or microwave them. Like we would just eat them all the time. Like the classic, you cut up hot dogs and eat with ketchup. I had that meal so often growing up. Do you still today, having eaten so many hot dogs in your life already, like do you still enjoy them? Are you ever drawn to the hot dog or are you like, I'm done with it now? I am drawn, but if I'm at a cookout, I normally am choosing the burger over the hot dog. Yeah, right. Yeah.

But if I am at a sporting event, like a baseball game specifically, gotta have the hot dog. I think I had one with you, Rob, right? We had a hot dog at a game a while ago and they're pretty nasty. They're a very basic soggy dog, aren't they? I wouldn't say soggy. I felt like the hot dog, the sausage bit was like, I felt like it had just definitely come out of the water. I felt wet.

At the baseball game? I felt wet. I just remember eating this dog and thinking it feels damp. I feel like hot dogs are very specific at baseball games. Like maybe you'll get a stale bun. I don't feel at all like the hot dog at a baseball game is wet i had one wet bear dog it was raining that day so maybe maybe it was yeah maybe just got rained on just got rained on this is slightly on a tangent and probably wildly out of date by the time we

release this but i came across a funny thing during the rounds where Uber Eats is generating AI-generated food. And the food images, like instead of getting stock images of a pizza, they're getting AI to do it. And because it's AI, it's kind of messing up. And so these foods are popping up as ads on Uber Eats. And they're all a bit warped and a bit wrong. So they'll be like a pizza, but it looks like it's off. Oh, weird. Like it looks like a dessert.

So the AI is kind of messing it up. Weird. Anyway, that's some new food news. Okay. Well, I'm really excited to hear about your adventures. So you and Rob went out eating hot dogs. I'm a little, okay, like what the fuck? It was a boys trip.

Sometimes boys just need to be boys. We were out there talking about babes and stuff. You had to eat those wieners. You had to eat wieners. We had to man stuff, you know? 2023, and you are not to do that. Like, really. So that's not a good excuse.

It was disgusting. So, yeah, this is our journey into the world of the hot dog. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the chocolate starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. Look, I'm sorry to do that to you, but early on in researching hot dogs, I was reminded of 90s new metal band Limp Bizkit and their seminal album Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. The reference to the Hot Dog Flavored Water Water. The reference to the hot dog flavoured water was apparently a nod to Crystal Geyser bottled water, which the band joked tasted like meaty hot dogs. Ding ding ding to the bottled water episode of Flightless Bird.

For this episode, it seemed like a good idea to just go experience some hot dogs. As in a bun, the wiener, sauce, the mustard, all the stuff. Now, in New Zealand, if you order a hot dog, you're likely to get a fried sausage on a stick, which in America I think you call a corndog. Ding, ding, ding to the Disney episode. So, on a warm, sluggish LA day, Rob picked me up and he grimaced with a slight level of disgust, but also intrigue, as I suggested we go to Pink's. Pink's is a Hollywood landmark.

Started by Paul and Betty Pink in 1939, today it serves about 2,000 hot dogs a day. It's not a place for hardcore foodies, but Rob was in a kind mood and said yes. foodies but Rob was in a kind mood and said yes and so 15 minutes later we pulled up outside Pinks which as the name suggests is very pink. What are your initial thoughts on Pinks? Describe this place in Los Angeles. All I really know about it is it's famous for their hot dogs. There's always a big line. The line today is mild and we look at our options. There are a lot of dogs here. Classic Stretch Chili Dog, the Brando Dog,

Bacon Chili Cheese Dog, Polish Pastrami Dog. This feels like it's all about the filling almost. It's almost what goes in is important, because these are huge. Yeah, I'm a little overwhelmed with all these options. They look good. They've got a Chicago Polish sausage. Hello, they got a Lord of the Rings. That's right up my alley. Is that what you're going to get?

I think I might have to. It looks like it's covered in onion rings. My stomach hurts a little bit already from looking at these photos, though. I get the Lord of the Rings dog and Rob gets the bacon chili cheese dog. No tomatoes. Can I get no tomatoes on that? On the side, we get some onion rings and some bacon nachos with cheese. And some cream sodas. Good lord. Heart attack coming up. We walk to our tables out the back passing an assortment of signed celeb photos on the wall. American celebs

who have attended Pink's. Mario Lopez, got Jimmy Kimmel. Bill Hader. Jamie Lee Curtis. It's always nice to know you're dining where one day, years ago, possibly decades ago, a famous person also dined. They were in this room we're standing in right now, David. I noticed Pinks is also selling merchandise. Another very American thing that fast food chains seem to do here.

And speaking of American, are hot dogs American? Well, the wieners you find in the hot dog originally came from Germany, but America took to them with gusto, and the hot dog became a go-to for America's working class. It's rumored the bun element was added in 1901 in New York, when a vendor ran out of paper to hold the sausages in. According to Wikipedia, which should not be the source of all knowledge, but it's also very, very handy, hot dogs are now a traditional element of American food culture, having obtained significant cultural and patriotic status from their association with public events and sports since the 1920s. And today, as I look around Pinks,

it's sort of nice seeing everyone enjoying the same thing. Hot dogs. There are couples here and tourists and parents with their kids and me and Rob. I go and talk to Anthony, who's just sitting alone, but looks utterly satisfied. Just them and their dog. What do you like about Pinks? What do you like about Pinks? What do you like about this

place? Oh, I've been coming to Pinks since about 1969, since I was young. But if anyone asks, I'm only 32. Who brought you here? What was your first experience like at Pinks? Do you remember? I think I came with one of my girlfriends back then. I was pretty young and we came here and I brought her out to eat and I've been coming here ever since. What makes their hot dogs good? They make their hot dogs special for them. You know, you go to the market, you get those skinny little hot dogs that don't taste very good. These are really good. What is it about the hot dog that makes it such an American meal? Gee, I don't know. You know, every time you go to a baseball game,

they don't serve hamburgers, they serve hot dogs, you know? I guess it's the American favourite. I wander over to another table. There's a couple in their mid-30s, Paige and Spencer, and they've brought their dad, Greg, out for a hot dog. Well, I've actually never been here and it's been about 10 years since I've lived in LA. So I figured I gotta do it, you know, I gotta try it out.

So this is your first trip here? This is my first trip, yeah. You've got a beautiful hot dog in front of you. Can you sort of describe what you've ordered and what's sitting in front of you there? So I got the Brando, which is a nine inch stretch hot dog with mustard, chili, onions, and cheddar cheese. And I'll let you know how it is right now. He's biting into it. It's a big hot dog. It's layered in chili, cheese. It's intense.

You got it in there. How are you feeling? I feel complete now. I feel like I... Those sirens are for you. I know these sirens are for me. Victory sirens. It is a very American kind of pastime. I honestly couldn't tell you where it was actually invented. It's also super easy and a lot you can do with it as there's like so many different

types here. So it's kind of fun what would you say I think it's simple and it's something we could call ours you know the pizza we can't say that I don't the hamburgers from Hamburg although we call it ours but yeah I think we just we love it just quickly you've got a much healthier dog you've sort of almost got some vegetables on here what's going on well I was gonna get exactly what my girlfriend got and then I figured I I'd get something else which is the Chicago dog which they say drag it through the garden it's got all sorts of like the

tomato and usually as pickle this is a little different but I said that way we could share and then she said oh I'm not sharing I don't share my hot dog we've been together for six years I I didn't know that. This is my dad. He's visiting. What do you think of your hot dog here? It looks like there's been a few bites you've taken. What do you think? Delicious. Best one I've had today. I see our hot dogs have just been delivered to our table, so rush back to see Rob. I'm hungry. And these hot dogs are stacked. It's more condiments than hot dog.

There's almost so much on these that they almost, you know, it's going to just be a disgusting mess to eat. But there's no way to get your mouth around this, right? No, it's like full appetizer on a hot dog. Yeah, I've just got onion rings and sauce stacked all over mine. You've got a lot of bacon, a lot of chili, a lot of real nasty cheese. Yeah, unmelted crab cheese. I mean, the cheese is kind of overpowering everything. That's all I'm tasting. It's a hot dog. It's good. Oh, and the sides. My God, the sides. I mean, can you describe what is sitting here? You got this as like a side, essentially. What the fuck is this? french fries with four pounds of

cheese it looks like melted on top like nacho cheese and a ton of bacon crumbled all over it americans do love cheese like cheese has come into a few of these episodes now it's a popular thing here i mean cheese is great you should do an episode about cheese in wisconsin next time you're in the midwest upcoming episode alert cheese heads eventually me and you're in the Midwest. Upcoming episode alert, cheeseheads. Eventually, me and Rob are done. We're at capacity. We're wrecked. We're full. Full of bread and sausage and cheese and onions and bacon and God knows what else. Just like many things in America, everything's delicious, but I am worried that it is slowly taking days and weeks and months off my life. You get that feeling, right?

Yeah, I feel like we're dying a week earlier after this meal, for sure. At least. And you know what? Today, it feels like a price worth paying. It was really delicious. Would you go back to Pink's, Rob? Or just once in your life? I want to go.

I've never been, and it's been on my list. It's an LA institution. I'll go back there with you. Rob's out. He's done. He's two. I think once was enough. It's the foodie and I'm talking.

A couple of things. Yeah. I came across a video on YouTube called How It's Made, Hot Dogs. Oh, yeah. And I suggest you Google that at home and watch watch it i'm just going to play it for you monica just a little bit of it the mechanics of hot dog making to create a homogenous mixture the ingredients are combined in a large mixing tank this mixture is then loaded into a sausage stuff which creates a continuous stream i mean this is how all sausage is made, by the way. Yeah, you forget sometimes about, it's sort of a slurry.

It is. It's nasty. It's nasty. The weaner, the sausage, it's really nasty stuff. I know, but it tastes so good. Well, you know what, Monica? What, David? I've been recording a Costco episode for a while.

Oh. Just before I got here, I met up with your friend Andy. Andy Rosen. Our friend Andy now, who is a big Costco enthusiast. Yes, he is. So he took me for my first Costco experience, which will be an upcoming episode. I can't wait for that. But of course, Costco, I learned, has the cafeteria and the dollar 50 hot dog. People are obsessed with it.

Did you have it? I had it. And I, well, I bought some in for you. You did? Yeah. So I'm just going to,

you know, abandon my mic. That's really nice. Thank you. I thought it's crazy to do a hot dog episode without letting you have a hot dog. I really am grateful. And we had just had Jersey Mike's, but I am still excited. Oh, wow. Do we have condiments? Oh, look at you. Okay. This is

controversial. What do you put on your hot dog? Do we get into this? No, we can get into it now. Okay. So I will say that Costco dog has been sitting in the car for about three hours now. Oh. Enjoy. But look, I just wanted you to have a hot dog in your hand. I appreciate it. I'm going to take a bite of it. I'm going to take a photo of you.

I'm going to take a photo where you've got that dog there. Okay. This will be a controversial photo because I'm choosing. You've got the ketchup. Ketchup. You've got the Heinz. Yeah, I'm a mustard Heinz combo. Wait, you mean you like both?

I like both. I'll put the mustard and the tomato sauce on. I might do both. But I used to, as a kid, I would only do ketchup. I was like, ew, mustard. The older you get though you realize it's childish to like mustard i mean i'm sorry i'm sorry ketchup i just like ketchup they like allison roman would be mad at me for putting she will be mad at me for putting um

but i feel like this is like a hot dog can be a happy place you can be a child and you can just live your best life you know that's probably been in my fridge for a while. Is it old? No, it's not old. It's not past its use by. It's fine. Yeah, it'll be all right. Yeah, it's good.

It is past. No, is it? But only barely. By how much? This is past by a month. Oh, that's all right. It's fine. Yeah, it'll be all right.

I think it's fine. It's all... It's refrigerated. Yeah. It'll have a lot of chemicals in there. Exactly. Yeah. All right, here we go.

I'm just going to have a little bite of the hot dog. How is it? It's really good. It's good, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, dog's really good. So it's $1.50 at Costco for one of these things. I feel like it's an all-beef hot dog. It's all beef. Yeah. Which is good. So $1.50 at Costco for one of these things. I feel like it's an all-beef hot dog.

It's all beef. Yeah. Which is good. I think so. I just Googled the whole Costco sort of $1.50 phenomenon. When longtime Costco president W. Craig Jelinek once complained to Costco co-founder and former CEO Jim that their monolithic warehouse business was losing money on their famously cheap $1.50 hot dog and soda package, Senegal enlisted, nodded, and then did his best to make his take on the situation perfectly clear.

If you raise the price of the fucking hot dog, I will kill you. Oh, my. Senegal said. So figure it out. Wow. And that's sort of taken on. I mean, this does the round every couple of years, the story, but it's such a great bit of Costco myth myth making doesn't costco also have pizza they do this costco episode is going to be fun it was so delicious i ate so much i was eating ice cream i

was eating pizza did andy get a hot dog too he got a hot dog as well oh my god how fun time but yeah the costco hot dog is allegedly one of the best hot dogs in the United States. And I have to agree, after having one. It's very good. They're really good, right? I'm impressed. Another thing, after I wrote this documentary, I found this book about hot dogs, which I love. It's called Raw Dog.

Oh my God. Which is a great title by Jamie Loftus. It's such a fascinating deep dive into the hot dog it put me to shame I can't compete with this stuff David do you wear condoms when what is this David do you raw dog

is what you wanted to say absolutely I'm a big condom user whenever I haven't used condoms it always leads to trouble that's my motto always leads to trouble just use's my motto. Yeah. Always leads to trouble. Just use them. I think that's right, right?

I mean, look, it depends what your situation is, obviously, whether you use them or not. But I think unless you're in like a long-term partnership, in my experience, stop using condoms. Something's going to happen. Yeah. You know? And do you show up to the date with your, you bring it in your new wallet? In your condom wallet. I haven't used any of those condoms you gave me. Are they still in that wallet?

Yeah, they might still be in the wallet. It's good to keep in there. I've been too busy raw dogging. But really, do you bring? No, that's a really good question. I definitely have occasionally bought condoms if I think sex might be on the table on the cards yeah but also i've definitely been in situations where i haven't had condoms and that they've had condoms so it's been fine i'm trying to think if there's ever been an instance where it's like oh my gosh we've got to go and find some condoms right because that's

a bit of a mood killer when suddenly you're on a shopping trip and when you turn up at like a gas station and you're just buying condoms i thought it's embarrassing like everyone knows what you're doing you're up to but i kind of feel like this is old school of me but i wish men would come with the condoms i do it should be i think it's sort of the responsibility like i feel like if you have a penis i agree do you have the. Well, it happened to me. You were expected to have the condom? I guess. I mean, we didn't end up using one. And I don't like that.

Oh, okay. Yeah. No, I think my general philosophy is, yeah, if you have a penis and you're going to use it, you should have your little penis cover ready to go on there. Okay. I'm glad we covered that. No, completely reasonable. 100%.

But isn't raw dogging such a horrible like a horrific term to use? Yes, it is. That's why this book got my attention. It's called

Raw Dog The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs. Raw Dog really does look like a penis. A dick. Yeah, I mean penises are horrible things.

They're such awful. They look either hilarious or disgusting. It's not often you look at a penis and go, wow, God did a really great thing with that. You know? It's a fun appendage. Yeah like it's not often you look at a penis and go wow god did a really great thing with that you know it's a fun appendage yeah it's fun i love having one but

um so i just want to quickly read you a little excerpt from raw dog because there's this great bit about the history because obviously it came from germany but there was a great line in here going even further back just sort of about sausages, she writes, the ancestral sausage goes back 20,000 years to the Paleolithic era. The primordial dog pops up again in the Middle East during the first millennium BC, appearing in Assyrian texts. And then again, when Homer's The Odyssey turned blood sausages into a metaphor for you tell me what. And the metaphor was this.

As when a man near a great glowing fire turns to and throw a sausage full of fat and blood, anxious to have it quickly roast, Homer write. I don't know what the hell he meant. It's a really weird sentence. Wow. And blood sausage has real blood in it, right? Yeah. Look, I'm not going to just suddenly read this book out to you on the podcast,

but it's a really good book. And if you want to know more about hot dogs, dog is the shit it goes very deep she goes and spends time at the hot dog eating contest in coney island which is something i'd quite like to get to me too next year i want to know so much about that personality type yeah that person that can down 62 hot dogs at a time and wants to. And finds real glory. It's all about glory. Yeah, it's all about the glory. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

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Eric picked up. I'm Eric Mittenthal. I am president of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, the hot dog top dog. And I lead the council's efforts to share facts and bust myths about hot dogs. I should note that the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council is hardly a neutral platform. They're very pro hot dogs. I should note that the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council is hardly a neutral platform. They're very pro-hot dog. The council was established in 1994 by the American Meat Institute and is funded by hot dog and sausage makers across America. In short, big meat is pulling their strings. If there was a hot dog scandal, they'd be the ones pushing it under the

carpet. I'm so curious now, what is a typical myth that you find is very prevalent about the hot dog scandal, they'd be the ones pushing it under the carpet. I'm so curious now, what is a typical myth that you find is very prevalent about the hot dog that people might have slightly wrong in their minds? Well, the biggest myth about hot dogs is how they're made and what's in them. People have all kinds of crazy ideas about both. The answer for both is very simple. How they're made is they are pieces of meat that are cut away from steaks and roasts. They're ground up really finely, mixed with spices, stuffed into a casing, and cooked. And so it's a very simple process. What's in them is what you see on the package as far as the ingredients are concerned. It's meat, beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and various spices. It can be garlic, nutmeg, things like that. And then it's put in the casing,

and so that's it. So people have ideas about various other things that might be in there, but that's just not true that they're not in there. Yeah, I feel like hot dogs in people's minds are sometimes mythologized in a similar way. In New Zealand, the McDonald's soft serve cone was always said that the ice cream was like all the other bits of animal thrown in, which is clearly just incorrect. Yeah, no, I mean, it's a similar idea with hot dogs. People say it's everything but the oink. But in the U.S., there's actually specific laws around what can go in hot dogs. what can go in hot dogs. And for the most part, it is meat. If there were to be things like organ meat, which in some parts of the country, it's a delicacy where you would find organs like liver in a hot dog, it's required to be labeled on the package. Do you eat hot dogs yourself occasionally?

I mentioned it's not the only thing you eat. No, certainly not the only thing I eat, but I love hot dogs. To be the president of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, you have to be able to eat a few hot dogs. What's your typical go-to Hot Dog and Sausage Council, you have to be able to eat a few hot dogs. What's your typical go-to? What are you putting on your hot dog? Yeah, I'm from the South. And, you know, one of the fun things about hot dogs is that really depending on where you are in the country, there's a lot of different varieties. You can have a very different experience with hot dogs depending on where you are.

In the South, we love hot dogs with chili. So I'm a chili dog guy. Mustard and onions, that to me is a perfect hot dog. But whenever I'm in a different part of the country, I like to go enjoy the hot dogs in that region. And you can really find some great hot dogs no matter where you are in the country, but different varieties depending on where. According to the Hot Dog Council's website, over the last year, Americans spent more than $8.3 billion on hot dogs and sausages in American supermarkets. Now I would have assumed that New York ate the most hot dogs, but turns out LA consumes more hot dogs than any other city, about 30 million pounds of hot dog, leaving cities like New York and Dallas in their meaty dust.

When it comes to airports, ding ding ding airports episode, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport consumes six times more hot dogs than LAX and LaGuardia combined. And on Independence Day, ding, ding, ding, the Independence Day episode, Americans eat 150 million hot dogs just on that one day. Stretch all those hot dogs out and then make it from DC to LA more than five times. I think hot dogs are uniquely intertwined in American history as an American food because, like many Americans, it came over as an immigrant from Europe. And they grew up through immigrant populations spreading out throughout their country. And so it just grew up with American culture. Americans certainly like convenience

when it comes to their food, of course, delicious foods. And so hot dogs fit the bill on both of those. And so it just was a very natural fit. And the tie to sports is really important too. Baseball is America's pastime from a sporting perspective. And hot dogs and baseball have been associated really since the early days of baseball in the late 1800s. The immigrant population is coming over at that time, introducing hot dogs into American culture, baseball taking off as part of American culture. They really grew up together and just became a key part of American culture. Apparently, peak hot dog season is from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Over that time, Americans consume about 7 billion dogs. That's 818 hot dogs consumed every second over that period.

With those hot dog stats banging around in my head, and now your head, I decided it was time to visit one more hot dog place with Rob. We're done, Pinks, the tourist trap option, but this was Rob, a foodie, and so we decided to go to a hot dog place at the other end of the spectrum, a foodie. And so we decided to go to a hot dog place at the other end of the spectrum. It's found downtown in the Arts District, which is a trendy part of LA, I guess. There are a lot of trendy people walking around, so I assume it is. All right, so we're at Wurstkusch in downtown LA. It's an exotic sausage place. So it's a fancy hot dog.

The word means sausage kitchen in German. And seeing as hot dogs had their origins in Germany, it seemed appropriate to go there. Plus, it might be fancy, but they serve their sausages on buns with condiments, so I think it's a hot dog. What are you getting today? I really like their vegetarian Mexican chipotle sausage. Their Louisiana hot link's really good too. The options available links really good too. The options available are pretty out there. Options certainly not on the menu at Pink's. I guess this is less hot dog, more sausage. Rabbit and pork. We've got pheasant, duck and bacon, rattlesnake and rabbit. That's extreme. Have you had that?

I have. That's good. You should definitely get that. Sort of gamey? How would you describe rattlesnake? Yeah, a little gamey. I mean, it still tastes good. They season it well. I do feel like you need to go with the most bizarre. Like, I think you need to do the buffalo with cherries and the rattlesnake and rabbit. Do you have rattlesnake in New Zealand?

We don't have rattlesnake in New Zealand. No, nothing can kill you in New Zealand. There's no rattlesnakes allowed in. Robbie ends up ordering the vegetarian Mexican chipotle with some caramelized onions, and I get the buffalo and a rattlesnake and rabbit. I try to talk to the man serving us to inquire if I can interview them about their amazing food, but he looks at me with a sort of disdain that I don't see too often. It's like a podcast to murder his puppy, and I've just brought those memories crashing back. I've been coming to this place for almost 10 years. It was one of the first things

in the arts district. My friend lived about a block over from it, and you'd come walk over this way and it looked like there was a club because there'd just be a huge line of people waiting for sausages, and it was just a was a club because there'd just be a huge line of people waiting for sausages. And it was just a really good sausage place. And this is a really interesting thing and it's something I'm curious about. What makes a hot dog different from a sausage? Because arguably, at its very best,

it's like a high-end hot dog place, right? Or it's not at all, but what's the difference? I mean, I'm not an expert on it. I think it's probably the meat. I think a hot dog meat is just everything, just beef mashed together, like a thousand cows thrown into the one dog. Yeah, I think it's just beef. And then sausages, like here they're mixing different kinds of meats and seasonings within the casing. But I mean, it's still just meat ground up into a casing. Probably similar health benefits as well.

Yeah, no health benefits. Okay, so sidebar, to settle this debate once and for all, the difference between a typical sausage and a hot dog, I went to a butcher that Monica recommended, McCall's Meat and Fish, to get their take. My name is Randy Saviejo and we're at McCall's in Los Feliz. There's many differences between the two. The difference between the hot dog comes from like the grinding, how much you're grinding down. It's more of like a puree sausage, also smoked, cured, will last a lot longer than a raw sausage. With the sausage that we carry here at McCall's, they are handmade, only grinding down once.

So really it's mainly a consistency thing, like the hot dog is like a paste and a sausage is much more, I guess, chunky. Yeah, consistency, also parts we use pork shoulder for our sausage and for hot dogs depending on who you get them from could be using sinew chicken parts pork parts if it's all beef i mean it's just a certain specific parts they're using that that are much different from a classic sausage over a hot dog. Would you ever eat a hot dog over a sausage? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I love hot dogs. There is something about them, isn't there? There's something about that taste. Yeah, I grew up around Tucson, Arizona, where they make Sonoran dogs, where they wrap it in bacon. And yeah, they top it with amazing ingredients. So it's hard to say no to those.

And they're just a staple, I mean, everywhere. Okay, so with that cleared up, back to Rob. Where do hot dogs sit on the nutrition scale? How often would you feed your kids hot dogs? We don't feed the kids hot dogs often. I've been told by my wife that they're very high in sodium. So that's why we don't feed them them a lot. But, I mean, you can get healthy hot dogs.

They're plain and kids like them. Calvin loves chopping them up, eating them with ketchup. Some people like to slice it down the middle too. Our hot dogs arrive and we eat. As Rob said, he's been coming here for about a decade and he's as happy as ever. And me, well, I dig into my big old buffalo dog.

Buffalo. It's delicious. It's not too gamey. It's not too crazy. Rattlesnake is the thing that I'm nervous about. I needn't have worried. It was fine. A bit tart maybe, but at the end of the day, it all just tasted very meaty. With the buffalo and rattlesnake and rabbit combined in the outdoor heat, I was starting to get the meat sweats. Rattlesnake is a really unusual flavor. It's good, but it's not something I'd rush back to. I mean, eating this rattlesnake, I just think of the rattlesnake that was hypothetically on the path with Monica that I wouldn't kill to save her, you know, and now I'm eating a dead rattlesnake. I feel somewhat guilty for that. I've never asked you this. Where do you think you got your love of food from? Cause you do, you like food more than your, I think you're like

typical bog standard middle of the road American. Where did that come from? When I get interested in things, I go very hardened to it and I like to know a lot about it so I think it was really just that I mean I got into watching Top Chef and then nicer restaurants and wanting to taste all of these different places that were featured on these things and then once you go in it's there's really no going back. Best hot dog you've had is there a memory or a location or a city? Where are you going to go? It's your last day on earth. You got to get one good hot dog. What are you doing? There's a Chicago chain, Portillo's, that for me, I don't know that I would say it's the best hot dog. No, I would. I would. I would. There is a Portillo's in LA and we were debating going,

but we were too full. I was full of animals I'd never eaten before. And while they were delicious, I also felt kind of shitty about it and started considering vegetarianism. Maybe I should take a leaf out of Rob's book. I'm pretty full too. I had a lot of these truffle fries and I had this vegetarian sauce because they make really good vegetarian sausage. I'm not vegetarian, but I choose their vegetarian chipotle sausage over in their meat ones. Before we wrap up this little audio documentary, we must address that one big question. You're going to ask me this question? We've had this debate. I don't think it's a sandwich.

To get the final word, I return to Eric from the Hot Dog Council. I know I can't trust big meat, but this is an episode about hot dogs. So to the Hot Dog Council, I return. Well, the number one question that we get these days is, is a hot dog a sandwich? And the answer is no, the hot dog is not a sandwich. People argue with me that that's an opinion. But as the president of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, I can say that's a fact. A hot dog is not a sandwich because if it's on a bun, it's a hot dog. And when it's not on a bun, it's a hot dog. The bun is irrelevant. It's just a hot dog. It's its own category and doesn't fit into the sandwich category.

And that is that question answered once and for all. No arguments. Wow. Not a sandwich. I agree. Yeah, when I was eating that rattlesnake, I did remember that sort of scenario with you where I refused to kill a rattlesnake to potentially save you. Did not want to protect me.

You were lying, right? You had not eaten that. I've had the rattlesnake sausage. You had? And the rabbit? Yeah. I thought you were doing a rascally prank. No, no, no.

And you were going to get David to order it. And then you were going to reveal that you have not indeed had it. No, I've had miles for the sausages they have there. Okay. I know the owner, Tyler. Oh, no way. Shout out. Yeah, the particular staff member I talked to.

Certain people, which is completely fine, just don't want to be interviewed. Sure. And it was an amazing look of death as I posited the idea of asking him a few questions. But yeah, that place was delicious. Both were delicious for like very different reasons. Definitely. Did you have the urban legend in Georgia that there was rat hair in hot dogs and like all hot dogs?

I've heard there's everything in it brains and guts and stuff like i have heard that i thought you were gonna say the like horrible urban legend that circulates all high schools where like a girl got a hot dog shoved up her vagina yeah i've heard that one too like everyone everyone has that yes where it's oh, there was a senior in my high school and they were at a party and they, well, it can get, it can range like horribly of like she passed out and then they shoved a hot dog up her pussy. Right. Or she did it herself.

Horrific. I know. But turns out everyone thinks that about their school. So it's like made up. It is just this deeply embedded urban legend everywhere. Yeah. I don't think that made it to New Zealand, which I feel sort of grateful for.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe via this podcast it will. Yeah, mine was more tame. It was that there's like six rat hairs in every hot dog. And it was like, where's Waldo? Like, find it. Just don't eat hot dogs because there's rat hair. Oh, I see.

Yeah. Yeah, I have heard the whole animal is in the hot dog well if you watch that how it's made video yeah it's funny because it's got this beautiful voiceover that makes it sound really idyllic and beautiful but the imagery you're watching is so just viscerally awful so yeah it's it's hard not to watch that video and thank god knows i'll never eat that. What's in there. Also love that there is a sausage council. Their whole job is to like spread the gospel about how great hot dogs are.

Well, they need a PR department when there's videos like that going around. Yeah. I think that about the pink, we won't say the brand, but the pink sludge video. You know it. you know it i know it the pink sludge video man that did put a damper and i think the pr department has done a great job at that institution of building pulling things back i mean it's amazing how quickly things can go wrong for a brand i mean like subway having their main spokesperson be like a pedophile it's so dangerous basing your whole brand on one individual it is because individual they're human do something it's and that's why but i think subways bounce back they're

doing okay i love subway yeah i see that you're fresh yum yum well this was really fun i enjoyed this little venture yeah i think it's important to check off still got quite a few american foods to go great i'm really keen to do a cheese episode the costco episode is going to include some more food as well if i could eat one thing for the rest of my life it would be cheese if i could only eat one thing for the rest of my life oh my god it's it If I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life. Oh, my God. It's good. The cheese aisle in Costco. What's your favorite cheese of all time? It's good.

I'm a blue cheese guy. Oh, not for me. Yeah, just that horrific, smelly, awful stuff. I love blue cheese. Just a little dash of it, you know? Okay. But not while I'm raw dogging. All right.

That's an awful thing to leave everyone. That's I think the perfect way to end. Go and enjoy a hot dog in your day, wherever you are in the world. Have a little hot dog. You got more American. This is an American episode. It's very American. I like it. 10% more?

5% more? I'll give you 7.5%. Let's meet halfway. Yes. Thanks, Monica. Bye. Bye. Bye.