Stuff You Should Know - Hot Dog!(s)

Episode Date: November 16, 2021

No, there aren’t snouts and anuses in your hot dogs, so go ahead and chow down. There are, however, plenty of other things that may give you pause so listen to this episode where we dissect the beloved hot dog and poke around inside. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and it's just the two of us, but that's okay because we are hot dogging it, not porky pigging it, hot dogging it on this episode

of Stuff You Should Know. This could have been a two-parter, easy. Easy, peasy, yeah. Because there's so much we're not even getting into. And then dogs. Well, no, there's so much here, but at the end of it, I was like, boy, we didn't talk about corn dogs. I got a little bit on chili dogs, but there wasn't anything in here on chili dogs. Right. Is a hot dog a sandwich? John Hodgman's famous life long battle. Are we still talking about that? No, we're not, but that's the point is there's a lot more to hot dogs. The foot long, don't even mention it. We won't even talk about the foot long. I think the foot long is illegal now and we're not allowed to talk about it.

Come on. Sure. Nanny State, thanks to Uncle Joe Biden. All right, let's talk about hot dogs. Yes, dude, this has been a long time coming. I'm surprised we haven't talked about it. And you're right, we're biting off a lot here, but we can chew it and pass it through our guts and out of our pooper. And that's what everybody's going to hear. Do you like hot dogs? Can we go ahead and, I got two questions. Do you like hot dogs? I like a good hot dog, yeah. And do you boil them or grill them? Oh, I don't. I try not to grill anything. I think grilling makes everything taste worse. What? Smoking a little bit is okay,

but grilling, I'm not a grilled person. That is very strange. A hot dog that's been placed on a grill blackened and split open is preferable to one that retains all of its taste when it's just appropriately reheated and plumped up and say boiled water, even just in the microwave. I am shocked that you don't like a char on meats. That's not very you. I don't. It's too, you know why? Because I'm a bitter supertaster. I can barely tolerate grapefruit. Certainly can't tolerate char on anything. Like barbecued chicken. I mean, what is the point of barbecued chicken? Because you burn that sauce onto it. It's great. No, it's awful. Oh, it's so bad. No, I don't. Oh, it's so good. So I'm taking it. You like them grilled most of all?

Well, I mean, I'll eat a boiled hot dog for sure. But oh yeah, a grilled hot dog that has got some bubbly black that's split open, the best. Not for me. But you do like hot dogs. Are you above, below, or about at the national average of hot dogs consumed per year among Americans? Well, that is 70 hot dogs. And I am well above, no, well below that. I probably eat less than 10 hot dogs a year. Oh, really? I was going to say I've got you beat by a mile. How many do you eat a year? I would guess anywhere between 40 or 50. I mean, maybe I'm trying to think because I feel like they usually come in twos like at a barbecue or something. Right.

I cook out, I'll have a couple of hot dogs. And we're not counting this as hot dogs because I definitely love me some bratwurst. Sure. Oh yeah. And stuff like that. But straight up hot dogs, I probably don't eat more than 12 or 15 a year, I would say. Hey, you know the key to beer brats? Everybody does it wrong. Everybody soaks the brats in beer beforehand that does nothing to them. You mean boils? No, soaks. Some people soak them, pre-soak them or even boil them. Yeah. I see people boil them. Okay. Now that would work if the brats were split open. What you want to do is grill them first. And I do think a grill broad is preferable to a

microwave or boil broad. Okay. You grill it first so that it splits open, then you soak it or simmer it in beer and then it sucks the beer in. That's how you make a beer broad. You don't do beer first. It doesn't do anything. It's a waste of perfectly good beer. Even if it's bad beer, you're still wasting it. I can't wait for the emails on this one. I'm right. I don't care what anybody says. They're wrong. I'm right. I've tried it. All right. So hot dogs 70 per year, supposedly 20 billion hot dogs in the United States alone annually. A year? Isn't that insane? No. It's insane. That's an insane amount of hot dogs.

Because think about it. If I'm eating 40, that means there's somebody out there eating their 70 plus my extra 30. Joey Chestnut will do that in three minutes. Yeah. Every time I see that, I'm reminded of that HuffPost article that Ryan Reynolds wrote about how he's disgusted by competitive eating. Did he really? Just a great, going back and reading it every year too. Is it funny? It really stands up. It's funny, but it's also very, it makes some really good points too. I love Ryan Reynolds. Well, you'll like him even more after this. So hot dogs are sausages, but that doesn't mean a sausage is a hot dog. It falls under

that category of sausage, which is basically any product where you grind up meat and you put a bunch of spice and stuff in it. And then you cook it in a casing, usually like some sort of sheep skin, as we'll see with our sheep intestine, not skin. That'd be really tough to eat through. It'd be ribbed sheepskin if you want to cook it. The hot dogs we know and love that you get at your regular old grocery store are not generally cooked in that sheep casing. It is a fake casing that goes away and they are cooked. That's why you can eat a hot dog right out of the old package. Yes, and you should once in a while. It keeps you human and sane. I like a hot dog sandwich, like a raw. Okay. Not raw, it's cooked, but a cold.

Yeah. When I was a kid, I used to cut it lengthwise into like, I guess eighths, little thin strips and throw a couple of those on a Sammy with some mayo and cheese. Oh, that sounds, I would try that for sure. It's good, but we don't, my daughter eats hot dogs occasionally and she loves them, but we don't, kids will eat them every day if you buy them, but we just don't buy them and keep them in the house. That's how I eat four to your 50 hot dogs a year is buying them at the store and keeping them in the house. We come in a 10 pack, right? Yeah. So over the course of like a week or so, four or five times a year, I will eat a pack of hot dogs. That's how I'm hitting for you. If it were just me being

out, I would eat zero because I haven't left my house in two years. Right. But Chuck, we've now reached to me the fact of the podcast and I would love to take it if you would be so confident. Yeah, because I have no idea what you're going to say. Are you ready for this? Yes. Bologna. You know, bologna? Yeah, it's like a flat hot dog. It is, it's a giant hot dog that's cut into slices. That's bologna. Thanks a lot for taking the fact of the podcast, but yes. I'm sorry, you didn't know that bologna yet never occurred to you that the taste is identical? No. No, I hadn't. I had no idea that bologna is a giant hot dog. And now I'm just like, I want to see a whole intact bologna before Oscar Meyer slices it up because that must be

astounding. Just go to any deli on planet Earth. That's different. That's different. That looks, it looks different. That looks more like a traditional sausage. I'm saying like, I want to see the hot dog, the giant hot dog that Oscar Meyer produces and then slices up into bologna in packages, the portions of it into bologna packages. That's what I want to see. Well, again, they're right there in the deli case, a big giant log of bologna. Not the same. I guess I want to see it out of the package. I don't know what I want to see. Well, it's got that red packaging around it. You just want to strip its clothes off and stare at it and throw a sheepskin on it. Boy, I'm sorry I ruined that. I thought everyone

knew that bologna was a hot dog. No, you're the only person besides the National Hot Dog Council President who knows that bologna is a giant hot dog. Well, don't you remember the song? My Bologna has a first name. It's H-O-T-D-O-G. Yes, I know that song, but it never really sunk in the lyrics. All right. The USDA has a definition for hot dog. Yeah, I love this. Should we read it, I guess? Yeah, I think it's very instructive. All right. Frankfurters, aka hot dogs, wieners, or bologna, are cooked and or smoked sausages according to federal standards of identity. The standard also requires that they be comminuted, which is reduced to tiny particles, semi-solid products made from one or more kinds

of raw skeletal muscle from livestock, like beef or pork, and may contain poultry meat. Smoking and curing ingredients contribute to the flavor, color, and preservation of the product. They are link-shaped and come in all sizes, short, long, thin, and chubby. Chubby hot dog. It's probably too late for a content warning to our vegetarian friends. Hopefully, they know better than to listen to one on hot dog. Yeah, but technically, a hot dog does not have to be made of meat. It can be made of vegetable protein. Well, yeah, but I mean, as far as the grossness that's to come, they may not want to tune in. No, I was just trying to toss them a bone. Yeah, yeah, but not a bone. Trying to toss the

vegans a bone. So, the thing that differentiates hot dogs from other types of sausages is how finely ground the internal stuff is. It's ground so much, every bit of it, from the spices, the flavorings, the meat, everything. It's ground into such a granular constitution. That's not right, but still, that you can't differentiate one thing from another. It's all just particles in that you kind of stick together into that casing and they form a mass. They go from semi-solid, maybe even almost liquid to a jiggly mass that tastes delicious. That's right. The USDA says your hot dogs can contain no more than 30% fat and 10% water and 3.5% non-meat filler, which is generally a binder. They use cereals or dry milk,

sometimes soy protein, isolated soy protein. This is to bind it together and 3.5% of your hot dog can be made up of this. Yeah, we'll get a little more into the weeds and what's in your hot dogs. I say we take a break first and then jump in. Let's do it. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send

an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikulur. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like

smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the

iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, our buddy, the great Dave Ruse, the rooster. Yeah, the rooster. Wow, I can't believe we missed that before. Oh my gosh, it's just sitting right there, clocking. So the rooster helped us. And sorry, Dave, if you hate that nickname, I think that's it now. Just let us know. But he helped us with this one. And he basically said, okay, yes, we really should establish that there is actual meat in your hot dog. And no, it's not mystery meat. No. No. There can be the horrific stuff that you suspect is in your hot dog, like lips and noses and tails and all that stuff. Legally, it can be. But you will know if that's in there because

those ingredients have to be listed individually on the packet. And then on the front, it has to say that it's a hot dog with byproducts or a hot dog with my new favorite band name, Oh, yeah. Variety Meats. Yeah, that's all that one coming. Yeah, it's a good one. What would a variety, what kind of band would that be? Variety Meats? Geez, I don't know. I think they play like Calliope music, like circus music or something insane. I don't even know what that is. Yes. And sort of the takeaway from all of this after we read you all of these ingredients and things is read the package. If you want to know what's in your hot dog, don't just be like, Oh, I don't know what's in these things. Sure you do. It's printed right there. So just read it.

It'll tell you if there's lips in there. Or organ meat even. They can't put hearts or kidneys or anything in there unless they list them. And the other thing that Dave says is that the major hot dog brands do not use that stuff. I think it's just bad for business. It's not worth it. Can we read what Dave wrote? Yeah. Is this really low quality meat? It's not filet mignon if that's what you're asking, but it isn't nostrils and anuses either. Which I think really gets it across, you know. Yeah, so we should say that it can be, you can get your pork hot dogs, your beef hot dogs, you can get chicken dogs, turkey dogs, obviously your vegan dogs that they make these days. I'm sure there's beyond sausages. Yeah, I have not tried them yet. I haven't either. I don't

know if they make a hot dog, hot dog. They make a sausage. But I'm sure they will at some point because they're just, you know, they're covering all their bases, I think. For sure. And beyond. I know. I'm sorry. That was terrible. So beef, if you're talking about a beef hot dog, what's the main meat in there is going to be what's called trimmings. And this is the meat that is not used as far as like when they're, when they're, I know, please don't listen if you're vegetarian. Yeah, you want to stop listening to the rest of this episode now. When they're cutting the beef and the cow apart and making steaks and roasts and things like that, they're either doing it by hand or maybe there's a machine involved. The trimmings are the things that are sort of

leftover. It's still meat and it's still like fat and beef. Like if you get ground beef that's not super specific, that's also trimmings. Yeah. And so like with trimmings, it's just, it's just the stuff that's leftover. There's nothing wrong with it. And as a matter of fact, it's, it's like fat and meat, but there can only be like X amount, I think 30% of fat that can make it into meat products. So there's, it would be extraordinarily wasteful to just throw that away because it's not filet mignon or it's not round roast. Like it's stupid to just get rid of it. It's actually super disrespectful for, to the animal that you just slaughtered to throw away a significant portion of their edible carcass. If you're into eating their carcasses, you should

probably be okay with meat trimmings being used in ground beef and hot dogs and stuff like that. Right. Beef cannot legally be mechanically separated anymore because of mad cow disease in 2004. The USDA says you can't mechanically separate beef, but you can mechanically separate poultry and pork and you're getting trimmings in poultry and pork as well. If you want to be presented with the full horror of eating meat, watch some trade videos of mechanical separators that like the producers who make those machines have on their sites. It's just, it's insane. It's like, this is what we're eating. It's nuts, but it also is super efficient in that they take the pieces of the carcass that have just little bits of like meat and edible like

muscle and tendons and stuff attached to them still and put them under different states of pressure through a sieve and that that actually forces that little bit left of meat and edible like muscle off of the bone. It separates them. It's mechanically separating them so that you can use that stuff and make things like hot dogs or ground pork or ground turkey and that kind of stuff. It's, again, it would be deeply wasteful to just throw that stuff away because again, it's not a chicken breast or it's not a filet mignon and it's actually very sensible, but it also kind of brings you full circle back to how horrific modern meat processing and agriculture really is. Yeah, and those mechanical separators are based on my grandmother, Bryant's mouth.

Oh, could she do that? Well, she was, she legendarily would come around and get your fried chicken bones off your plate and be like, you're not going to eat that? Did she call you the P word? And my brother and I would try because we knew what would happen. We would try and get every bit of meat off that thing. And she would find more meat. And like when she was done with it, it looked like a cartoon bone, you know, like when they pull the fish out of a cat's mouth. Nothing, nothing left. And she lived to be 101. Well, that's how she ate all that cartilage. My sweet grandmother, Bryant. There also, we talked about spices earlier, there's salt, sugar and spices and hot dogs and everything. There's a lot of sodium and a hot dog. You've

got your regular old table salt. You've got liquid salt, sodium lactate. You've got sodium diacetate prevents bacteria growth. You don't want listeria, then you're going to want that sodium diacetate in there. Yeah, a lot of these types of sodium are also used for curing too. Sure. And there's a whole, there's a lot of laundry to unpack with the curing that we'll get into in a few minutes. But there is a lot of sodium, I think 20% of your daily sodium intake you can get from a single hot dog, Frank. Which who just eats one hot dog? So let's just say it's 40% when you eat hot dogs. And I don't call them Franks either, do you? No. And I don't think I know anybody who does call them Franks. I've only seen it or heard it on TV before.

Yeah. And we'll get to the naming later on as well. You also can get high fructose corn syrup, syrup in your dog because of, you know, some people do it, some people don't. It's not a lot, but I saw how it's made. And by the way, if you really want to. Yeah, that's a good one. If you either do or don't want to eat hot dogs anymore, I don't know how you're going to come out of it, but just watch the how it's made on hot dogs. The part where the finished hot dogs are shooting out of that machine, like they're being run up a salmon ladder or something. That's amazing. It's mesmerizing. But the goop that they put in the casing. But yeah, again, though, it's just, it's edible meat.

I know. It's just edible meat. I know where you're coming from, though. It is. It is meat and it is spices. It is garlic and pepper and coriander and maybe paprika. Maybe some, and we'll get into the celery salt thing or celery powder thing. So in its water, um, it is all these things, but when it's pumped, it made into a slurry and pumped out of a tube, it definitely looks like, like pretty gross. It's kind of gray. Yeah. And it's just, just watch the video. Yeah. Hot dogs, well worth it. Hot dogs, bologna, all that stuff would be a flat gray if it weren't for some of the curing agents that they put in there. And apparently they also use cherry powder sometimes too for its coloring to

color them a pink. Okay. You might also find some MSG. You might find some yeast extract. You might find some beef stock. Smoke flavoring. Yeah. That liquid smoke. Do you know what that is? That's actual liquid smoke where they condense smoke from hardwoods and turn it into water vapor and collect that water vapor. That's what liquid smoke is. Isn't that nuts? Yeah. I used to be a fan of that. I would keep some in the house, but I don't, don't do that anymore. I mean, I thought it was like all science, like just completely like isolated flavors and all that. And it's actually, no, it's, it is what it says on the tin. So should we get into sodium nitrite in the nitrites?

Yeah, I think this is a good spot for featuring variety meats. Because you're going to find some sodium nitrite in some hot dogs. You might also find hot dogs that are like, we don't use nitrites. No nitrites. We use celery powder or maybe cultured celery juice instead. And people might think, oh, well, that's got to be way better for you because I've heard nitrites. If you cook them at high heat can give you cancer. Yeah. So like the whole thing is, is that under certain conditions, nitrites can turn into nitrosamines, nitrosamines. And those starting back in the seventies were linked to I think bowel cancer and possibly stomach cancer. And so everybody started getting really worried about nitrites and people stopped using

nitrites. Well, they still use them. Like in any of the classic hot dogs that you see for sale, they use regular old nitrites. But celery powder was, was offered up as like an alternative, a natural alternative to nitrites. And that it did all of the same things. But it was a natural alternative because it's celery. And the problem is, is like to your body, a nitrite from celery and a nitrite that was isolated in the lab is the same exact thing. And it's going to have the same exact effects on you. And if those effects are to give you colon cancer, you're going to get it, whether it's from celery powder or whether it's from the nitrites that were isolated in the lab. Yeah. And this is, I mean, boy, if you start looking up articles on celery powder and nitrites

and cancer, it's a rabbit hole. Like there's a lot of information out there. At one point, just a couple of years ago, the National Organic Standards Board, it was up for a vote, whether or not to keep celery powder on the list of acceptable organic ingredients. Largely because of this, not just because of hot dogs, but, you know, they used bacon and like any kind of cured meat you might find a nitrite or a celery powder. And they said they voted 11 to one, I think, or maybe it was 10 to one, but it was super lopsided to keep celery powder on the list of acceptable organics. There's this really great article by Jesse Hirsch on the site called thecounter.org worth checking out about that. But it was, it doesn't make sense that they

would keep it on there like unmolested because it's just so misleading. Because if you use celery powder, you can say that your hot dogs are uncured, even though they would ostensibly have the same impact on your body as cured hot dogs. And then even worse, because it's natural, celery powder can be used in organic products and still be listed as organic, but the celery used doesn't have to be organic. That's nuts to me. Yeah. And celery, it turns out, Jesse Hirsch pointed out in that article that celery is particularly adept of all the vegetables and really soaking in pesticides and herbicides into its little body and passing it along, ostensibly passing it along. So it is really weird that they just kind of went whole hog or continued to go whole hog on

on celery being some sort of natural ingredient, even though it's, it does the exact same thing to your body that a lab isolated nitrite would. Yeah, it is weird. You know, at one point we should do an episode on organic standards. I think we have, but we could revisit it for sure. Did we? I'm pretty sure we've talked about organics versus local. Yeah, we talked about it, but let's do it again. Well, I know there's stuff we didn't cover because Emily always has a problem with it and her, with her business selling natural body products because people will say like, this is organic soap and stuff like that. Like people throw the word organic on something when it doesn't even apply sometimes just because it's a, people will buy something if it says organic

on it. Or if it's not even certified organic, you can get away with it, you know, on a smaller level, like a small business. Yeah. And then there was something else too. Maybe we could roll in like all the food sort of labeling like free range chickens. I remember when I worked with that chicken company, and I know I mentioned this years ago, but they, I was at a free range farm and I was like, I thought these were free range, like they're all in there. And he was like, free range just means the gate is open basically. Yeah, I remember you saying that before. That's crazy. They can leave, but they don't because this is where the food is. Right. So you want to imagine chickens just roaming around the countryside. That's just not the case. I want my chickens forced

out of there and made to walk around in the field for a while. I'm sure there are some local. Oh, yeah. And we try to go to farmers markets and get local meat that is like a genuine farm with chickens that are walking around and stuff like that. But anything you're getting like in a package at the grocery store is you're probably being misled in some way. We'll have to take on meat processing or like that whole thing. I know. Eventually. I've been avoiding it. Yeah. Well, we're going to run out of topics one day and that's going to be left. Should we talk about how these things are made before we take our break? Yes. And then also just want to reshout out the how it's made video on it. It's great five minutes. It is time we'll spend. And again, you'll either

say I'm never eating a hot dog again or like, who cares? I love it. Give me a slurry tube. I feel like I'm in the middle. It didn't make me want to not eat a hot dog, but I wasn't like, I've got to have a hot dog. Right? Yeah, sure. So the whole thing starts with grinding the meat. If it was mechanically separated, it's already some sort of paste or goo or batter. But if it's not, if it's trimmed beef or even trimmed pork, then it has to be ground into a slurry. Because remember the thing that differentiates hot dogs from sausages or other types of sausages is that it's ground up so finely that you can't differentiate one bit from another. That's right. So you've ground the stuff up, then you got to mix in all those

ingredients and it goes into this huge industrial mixer. Love watching this stuff. Any industrial processes are fascinating to me. Even when it's goo, meat goo. Yeah. Because it's worth it when you get to that hot dog chute. Okay, totally. There's a big payoff. Yeah. So it's mixed together in these huge vats and this is where your spices are dumping in these huge bags of salt and paprika and garlic powder and apparently like some mustard powder. It depends on where you are. According to how it's made, like different regions have different flavors they like. Yeah, which makes me want to kind of do a cross-country hot dog regional tasting tour. Yeah. Well, if we ever get back out on the road again, maybe we should make a pointy, the hot dog in our city.

That's a great idea. It's a good idea. I actually don't know if it's a good idea or not, but it is a fine idea. Okay. So this is mixing all that stuff together. Dave has it in here that ice is added because the blades generate heat. The video from how it's made, it looked like it was just cold water. It will work too. But I imagine the water also mixes in those spices and keeps everything nice and juicy. Right. So, and then it was a lot of water, wasn't it? It seemed like a lot of water. I saw the reason that ballpark Frank's plump when you cook them is because they add even more water and so that leftover water that they leave in that slurry, the hot dog slurry that gets kind of cooked in, when you heat it up, it turns into steam or water vapor, which expands in volume,

which makes the volume of the hot dog itself expand too. Amazing. I don't know about that. What's up next, Chuck? Stuffing the casings maybe? Yep. You got to get that emulsion and this is where the, you get not the hot beef injection, you get the cold beef injection. Yeah. And this is probably cellulose casing. And then it's, you know, it's tied off. It looks like a regular sausage. It's just been, it's in a big long link. Long. Like a mile long. It's all tied together with that casing and they're twisted up every, what did it say, like five and a quarter inches is, I think, standard. It's not for the bun length. Sure. I do too, but you know that they make them thinner. It's not the chubby version. It's the thin version. Yeah. I just, I just like it to

match the length of the bun. I don't see why you want to start off with just bread. I know because I like bread and I even tend to pinch the undogged parts of the bun off. Yeah, you pinch it? Yeah, pinch it and leave it. And if I'm really hard up, I might dip it in some leftover ketchup and eat it afterward. My friend James from New Jersey would not eat the corners of his omelet. Isn't that weird? Yes. He might be the only person who ever felt that way. He would cut one off and cut the other one off and eat the rest. Huh. Yeah, never heard that one before. Never heard that. All right, so you got it stuffed. Then you smoke it and, you know, what they're probably doing is adding some of that liquid smoke, but you're also going to get

some smoke as you're cooking it. And they're curing it too. They're bathing it in basically, like what amounts to a different type of brine that will cure it. And, you know, the difference between curing and cooking is they're both transforming meat into something that can be preserved, whereas preserved, it's just cooking uses temperature and curing uses chemicals, but they both arrive at virtually the same thing. That's right. And then you're almost done, right? You are. Then the fun stuff comes because most hot dogs, I think you said way earlier, they don't sell them in casings any longer. They prepare them and cook them in casings, but then they take the casings off. So there's like a machine that kind of cuts them. And then

another part of the machine that steams them off, and then they come shooting out of that last machine into like these giant like trolleys, like a huge laundry trolley basically. It's amazing to watch. It really is. And if you're just grossed out, just fast forward to like the last probably 40 seconds of that clip, you'll see it. Yeah. And pretend they're circus peanuts. Which is way grosser than meat goo. Man, I've had a circus peanut in probably 45 years, and I still remember exactly the texture and taste. Yeah. Yeah. It hasn't changed, I'm sure. All right. So that's it. They get vacuum sealed and packaged, and you got a hot dog in your hands. You do. And then you put it in your mouth and you say,

by God, that's some delicious colon cancer. Should we take a break? I think we should. And then we're going to talk about some of the history and where this name came from, because it's kind of weird if you stop and think about it. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander

each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and

pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So we did a little bit of a flip-flop. We usually will do this history stuff first,

but we did it different today. I think it's nice. It feels like a new jacket that makes you feel cool. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, like a magician's jacket. That's right. Right. So you've heard him called Frankfurters, which we mentioned briefly. And of course, Wiener, we haven't said that word yet. They both come from Germany, which is where the sausage comes from. Frankfurt, Germany, they say, hey, way back in 1487, we invented this thing, the Frankfurter sausage. And so call it a Frankfurter. Vienna says, no, no, no. Those American hot dogs you're eating, they came from us and Vienna is Wien in Europe and Wieners or Wieners is where that comes from. Right. I had no idea. Did you? Yes. Oh, okay. Well, you just know everything

about hot dogs and bologna and all that. I've traveled in Germany and I have taste buds. I knew bologna was a hot dog. I'm going to start calling them that. Wieners and Frankfurters. A Wiener and a Frankfurter. I love how Dave abandons that. He's like, that matters not. What really matters is that these things eventually made their way to New York and that's where the whole thing really took off in earnest because Frankfurt has been making hot dogs potentially since 1487. Vienna has been making something similar since who knows when. And that's great, but they never took off. You would not call a Wiener or a Frankfurter like the national dish of Germany or Austria. Like you would call it the national dish of America,

which suddenly sounds really sad now that I'm saying it out loud. Yeah, like you wouldn't walk, like take your first visit to New York and go up to a cart and say, could I have one of your fine German style Wieners? They said, what are you talking about? Yeah. No, you wouldn't say that. Instead, you'd say hot dog as you just said. But they did come from German push cart vendors in the 1860s in the Bowery. This sounds delicious. It says in the Bowery, they were served on milk rolls with mustard and sauerkraut. Even though I don't like mustard or sauerkraut, that still sounds good to me. Oh, really? I know you don't like mustard,

sauerkraut too, huh? Although, yeah, you don't like any vinegar based anything, do you? Not a lot of vinegar based things. Okay, fair enough. You don't like about sauerkraut? It's too sour. It is very sour. It really lives up to its name. That's right. So that's where the whole thing started. I think by the 1860s, there were push carts in New York. They eventually made their way to Coney Island. There was a guy named Charles Feldman, who was the first Coney Island hot dog king in 1871. And then famous Nathan's, or Nathan's famous, sorry, I got it backwards,

was established by a guy named Nathan Hanverka, I think I said it right, in Coney Island, which Coney Island became kind of like the capital of hot doggery in America, especially at the turn of the last century. Yeah. So here's where it gets a little weird, because when you think of a Coney, you think of a chili dog. Yeah. But I did a little bit of digging, because to me, you want to make a hot dog great, put some chili and cheese on it. Yes. Just basically just go to the varsity. That's how you make a hot dog great. Like I love a chili dog. I love, love a chili dog. A chili cheese dog, no less. With chili cheese, Fritos on top.

Oh, some Fritos happen to fall in there, I'm fine with it. How do you beard under the hot dog? I don't see it. I don't seek it out. So chilies appeared in San Antonio in the 1870s, and Coney Islands were the names of restaurants, not a specific chain or whatever, but like these Greek immigrants in like the Midwest, and specifically Michigan would open up what they called Coney Islands. And there were these restaurants where they were Greek diners, but they also sold these chili dogs. It was like a chili sauce, no beans supposedly, although I'm not, I love beans in my chili, so I don't care about that. But it's just, it's a little much with the bun, frankly.

Oh, the beans? Okay. And the chili? Yeah. Well, no, just the beans in the bun. It's just too much. It's much better with just, just meat-based chili, no beans for me, in my opinion, but I'm not gonna yuck anybody's hot dog gums. Do you like a Cincinnati chili? Doesn't they have cinnamon in it? Yeah, we kind of do our sort of like that, like sometimes some chocolate, some cinnamon. Yes. It's good stuff. Skyline chili? Yeah, I don't know that I've ever had skyline crazy enough, but yeah, cinnamon and chili's good. I think in Toledo you would have had some skyline chili. There was even a skyline chili restaurant and I didn't eat it. I don't know why.

I love it. It's good stuff. But all of this to say is that even though Nathan's and Coney Island is known for chili dogs, Michigan and Detroit is very not abrasive, but defensive about the fact that they say we started the chili dog. Yeah. And like it's verified, it came from Michigan. Yeah, which is a bit of a brain buster, but the Coney dog is a Michigan creation. Simple as that. That's right. What about baseball games? Apparently, there was a guy in St. Louis who bought the St. Louis Brown's baseball team in the 1890s and also started selling hot dogs there, and it was just a match made in heaven from that time on. All right, so all of this is great. We're having a good time. We know about frankfurters and veners, but why are they called hot dogs,

Josh? Oh, well, allowing me to explain, Chuck, because I just so happened to know this. So there's this idea that the German immigrants who brought hot dogs over with them and started selling them and became kind of celebrated in places like New York also brought over doxen dogs with them. And supposedly, anybody who knows anything about hot dog history knows that the association between doxens and hot dogs were made right off of the bat. Okay? That's kind of phase one of this legend, but that seems to be totally accurate. So it's possible that they called them hot doxens for a time. Yeah, weird name. It is, but I mean, you can understand where like a doxen looks like a little sausage with legs in long years. Well, and there's also,

well, we'll get to that. There was also a cartoonist going in a different direction from the New York Journal. Well, this is step two. Yeah, this is part two. Yeah. His name was Tad Dorgan, great name. And he says, and this story is by all accounts not true, but he says in 1900, I was at a baseball game at the old polo grounds in New York City. And there was a vendor saying, get your doxen sausages while they're red hot. And he said he got an mental image of an actual doxen dog in a bun. He thought, well, that's cute. And so he made a cartoon of it and drew that and called it hot dogs because he supposedly didn't know how to spell doxen. And that is the apocryphal story that a lot of people you will

see online have printed this stuff. But by all accounts, that is not true at all. Yeah. Because in the 1800s, 20 years before that at Yale University, these students, little John Hodgman's, were calling them these push carts, dog wagons. One was called the Kennel Club. And they, and it was even in print. The word hot dog was found in 1895 in the Yale record. A good five years before Ted Dorgan's story takes place, right? So yeah, Ted Dorgan, big fat liar, Yale students, apparently the ones who coined the term hot dog. And there's this idea that they were, it was a play on the hot doxen probably, but there also seems to be some evidence that it was a kind of a sly nod to the idea that there was potentially dog meat in these

sausages because they were made by immigrants after all. And this was Yale. So there was a certain amount of xenophobia, even though they were enjoying these delicious hot dogs. And so the Yale students said, we're going to call these hot dogs because who knows, maybe there's dog meat in them. Right. That is part three or four. I guess so. I would say two B. Okay. And then, you know, of course, people are like, well, did they really eat dog in Germany? And apparently at times in Germany, when things would get really bad, there are verified reports that they would eat dog meat. And then a very bad slang term for German immigrants sometimes were dog eaters back in the day. And that probably did contribute to the name somewhat. But there is nothing on record

or any truth whatsoever to hot dogs actually being made from dog. No, there was never like a trend or anything like that. It just seems to have been an unhappy coincidence between Germany going through some hard times around the time that hot dogs were introduced to the larger public in America by German immigrants. In the doxen looking like a hot dog. Yes. So all those things kind of came together to form in Yale students heads the idea of hot dogs. No Ted Dorgan Yale students. Yeah. And apparently early on hot dogs were like people love them. But like you said, there was xenophobia. So there was also the notion that what is in this from the beginning, what kind of mystery meat could be in there? Are they dirty? Should we eat these? Upton Sinclair

certainly didn't help later on with his book The Jungle. But apparently that's why Nathan Huntforker of Nathan's Famous early on would have signs that say like no horse meat. Yeah, that was another accusation. He made his employees wear white smocks early on. That was their early uniform was because it made him look he thought like more clean or more like a doctor even. Right. And he also build his hot dogs is kosher style, which was not the same as kosher. It was just kind of a playoff on this idea that kosher meat was much cleaner because it was slaughtered and raised and slaughtered and packaged under the eagle eye of a kosher inspector. And so therefore it had far less adulterants or contaminants in it. And so he kind of build

his hot dogs as kosher style to kind of also further that idea that he had very clean meat, clean hot dogs. Right. Yeah. But you can get kosher style. You can. Yeah. I feel like if we haven't done a whole episode on kosher, I'm surprised, but we should definitely do one on that. But yeah, there are much stricter guidelines associated with it. And you're never going to find pork in a kosher hot dog. It's either going to be beef or it could be poultry, but never pork because that ain't kosher. But yeah, it's separate. Like Hebrew National has very famously kosher hot dogs. And people feel like they just kind of taste differently, but I think that's just because they're different brands, you know? Yeah. When you say something like, let's,

we should do something on kosher one day that immediately all I can think of is like, sure, I'd love to get a bunch of stuff wrong. Right. Exactly. That just seems like one of those that we would mess up in some way. Man, do you remember our episode on the Pope? I don't think we've ever gotten more pushback for an episode than that one. I wiped that one for my memory bank. That's probably the best. Yeah. It was worse than soccer, I think. I guess we should talk about a few of the famous kinds of hot dogs. You got your Chicago dog, got the poppy seed roll, got yellow mustard relish chopped onion pickles, tomato slices, little celery salt, got that Michigan Coney. Yeah. The Mexican dog that you can get in Los

Angeles is wrapped in bacon. Yeah. The Sonoran dog. Which they might deep fry? Yes. It looks lovely in a picture, but yeah, I mean, it's a lot. They put cream on it. It does look pretty good. Love it, Creme. There's one, I didn't realize this, but Atlanta does kind of have its own version of a hot dog. Did you know that? I saw this from Dave. Is that a thing? It is. Now that I think about it, I never realized that it was an Atlanta thing, but it's a Southern thing, an Atlanta thing that put coleslaw, usually kind of sweet, very mayo heavy or mayo forward coleslaw on a dog. I love a slaw dog. That is delicious. But apparently I suspect it may have come from the scrambled dog. I found this on mental floss.

There's something called the scrambled dog from Englewood Pharmacy in Columbus, Georgia, and it's all kinds of messed up. It's cut up into pieces, bathed in a bowl of chili, with pickles on top, oyster crackers, cheese, and then coleslaw. I suspect somebody from Atlanta went down to Columbus and said, this would be great if it was just coleslaw and the hot dog, and then that's where the Atlanta version of the hot dog came from. Wait, what else was on there? Chili, pickles, oyster crackers, cheese, and then coleslaw. Some people even put ketchup on it, which I just can't even begin to imagine that. Yeah, that's almost a Chuck special, but I just don't dig the pickles. But a perfect hot dog to

me is the bun, the dog, mayonnaise baby, and then put on the chili and then coleslaw, and then cheese, and then coleslaw on top of that. And I can just have one of those because that's a lot of stuff. Yeah, that's quite a bit. But I now want to make a pilgrimage to Englewood pharmacy and try their scramble dog. So recently, a few weeks ago in real time, an article came out on the news wire from a study at the University of Michigan that says, a hot dog will shorten your life by 36 minutes. One single hot dog? Yeah, it was big, big news because everyone was like, what, 36 minutes? They did a big study on all kinds of foods and quantified literally how many minutes they will add or subtract from your life. And they came up with 27 minutes just for just a naked hot dog,

but 36 minutes, I think, with a hot dog with some trimmings on a bun. And that was the study. It was out of Michigan. They know they're hot dogs. I did some math and it's not a big deal. Like if you're eating 20 hot dogs a year. Yeah, it still sounds like a big deal. It's not because if you do the math like 20 times, it's like you're talking like eight or 10 hours a year. And if that's like 10 years, you're talking 80 to 100 hours of your life. Okay, so I just did a little bit of math. And if I eat 40 hot dogs a year, that's a day I shave off of my life, 24 hours every year. So I think we're gonna scale back the hot dog take in. But let's say you do that for over a 30 year period. You're talking about like a month of your life. Wouldn't you rather eat hot

dogs and kick off a month sooner? No, because when I eat those hot dogs, I always feel guilty. They're usually cold out of the package. I'm just chomping them down to like eat something. No. From now on, I vow before you and every stuff you should know listener that if I eat a hot dog, it's going to be a damn good hot dog, like a scrambled dog or a slaw dog or something that's worth losing 36 minutes of my life over. Thank you, University of Michigan. Now I'm just picturing you like in the dark in the middle of the night, like just cramming a raw hot dog in your mouth. You forgot naked except for my whitey tidies. But is our hot dogs bad for you? Obviously a lot of sodium.

I mean, it's like any kind of processed meat. It's not great for you, but in moderation, you're okay. Yes. Unless you're a vegetarian or vegan and you now have no hair attached to your head because you pulled it all out listening to this episode. Correct. You got anything else about hot dogs? Oh boy, nothing else, but I really, I think I actually do have some hot dogs upstairs. Well, go shape 36 minutes off of your life and see if you enjoyed it. I get those organic turkey dogs though for my kid. Yeah, they're not really organic. I'll bet they say uncured and organic and they're not. I'll bet. Look, it says celery powder on there and that's what it's just a scam, Chuck. You're being scammed. I know. How do they taste though? Are they good?

Well, they're great. I don't mind a turkey dog. I think they taste good. Oh yeah. No, that's what I usually eat too are turkey dogs for sure. No, I meant the organic part or being uncured. That's what I meant. Okay. No, I think I'll be for the worst of all. I do. Okay. I think they taste weird and I don't think a hot dog should be made of all beef. I think it either has to be a turkey dog or it should have pork in it. Okay. But I don't eat pork, so I just eat the turkey dogs. Hey, I respect your point of view. Okay. Well, since Chuck said he respects my point of view, that is going to roll us nicely into listener mail. I'm going to read parts of two males, listener males. This is from both Liz McKellar and Jason

Marcella. After our Statue of Liberty episode, we were talking about going up there to that the crown. And they were both like, if you want to have an experience straight from hell, do so. Okay. Does not sound like any kind of fun at all. I'll read some of Jason's here. He said, I was one of the, quote, lucky ones who did that death march back in the late 80s when my family toured New York City. It was so horrible. I still remember it so vividly. You wait in line for the ferry from Manhattan, then to get to the on, you got to wait in line to get into the base. Eventually, you're waiting in all these lines. You get to the elevator and make it to the top of the base. This is where the smart people stopped their tour. The rest of us cattle started the

miserable climb up a narrow spiral staircase that rises through Liberty's body. Her body is essentially hollow and it looks cool for the first two minutes. The stairs are steep single file. You can't see where they end. And there are mere inches between you and the people in front and back of you. There's no air conditioning. So you are essentially inside a giant easy bake oven for an hour or so. The payoff for all that climbing. You walk across inside her crown and see that the windows are smaller than a sheet of paper. And you don't even have time to look through them because the crush of people behind you is constantly in motion. And soon you were going back down the stairs. Oh man. That is from Jason. Liz also says this. The show complimented the

stuff you miss in history class episode on Emma Lazarus. Go listen to that. But Liz says she's been to the Statue of Liberty twice. And the second time they got tickets to go in the crown and said this. I do not recommend doing this in winter because you need a heavy coat out on the walking area. But it still ends up being hot. So you've got that coat. Oh you get to carry it around? Well I guess so. But then you've got this huge coat. It's like that New York City problem like everywhere you go in the winter. Once you get in the crown it is tiny and hot even in the winter. Very little room and there's a park range of there keeping everybody moving. They do keep some of those little windows open at all times for air circulation and have a stand-up fan.

But it did no good. And Liz actually said I didn't have you know you can't stop. So she said I managed to get some decent photos by sheer luck because I was just kind of clicking and walking. But the pictures actually turned out really great. There were some really cool artistic photos like looking up through the body and in the crown itself. And that's just pointing out that to say that sometimes just dashing off quick photos you can get some really great images if you're not overthinking it. So that was the point of these two listener males? That was the point of the end of that second part of the one listener male. Gotcha. And that's it. I'm just encouraging amateur photography basically. Go out there and snap stuff. Don't overthink it. I got you.

And so Liz and Jason both say don't do it. Okay. That's great. Thanks Liz. Thanks Jason for setting everybody straight. I may have ended up trying it one day and I'm glad that I never will now. Exactly. If you want to get in touch with us like Liz or Jason did, you can. You can send us an email and we will be eternally grateful. Send it to stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me

in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a

believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.