The Old Coot is a hotdog connoisseur.
By Merlin Lessler
I went into a national chain grocery store to get some hot
dogs the other day. I like hot dogs; they were a food staple when I was a kid.
We’d hike into the woods outside our neighborhood with WW-II Army surplus
knapsacks on our backs, metal canteens hanging from our belts, high-cut boots
on our feet and decked out in jeans (which we called dungarees in those days)
and white T-shirts, the only color available. They were undershirts after all,
and back then, white was the mandated color for underclothes.
We hiked for 15 minutes, a steep climb up South Mountain,
came to a level spot on the first of three unpaved roads that crossed the face
of the hill and collapsed to the ground. We were one-quarter of the way to the
top; it was 9 o’clock in the morning and, “Time for lunch!” We gathered leaves,
made a pile, set it on fire, found a stick, speared a hot dog and stuck it in
the flames, quickly turning it from pretty pink to charred black. A slice of
bread served as a hot dog bun and mustard from a jar we’d smuggled from the
house combined to craft a gourmet meal.
It was with that memory in mind that I strolled up to the
packaged meat cooler to grab some hot dogs to take home and blacken. That’s
where my trip down nostalgia lane screeched to a sudden halt. I couldn’t figure
out what to buy, what might taste like those hot dogs of my youth. There were
too many choices. All-beef franks, skinless franks, chicken, pork, turkey dogs.
Every combination thereof. Plus: long dogs, plumping dogs, short dogs, skinny
dogs, bun size dogs. Dogs, dogs, dogs.
It’s like that in every aisle. Too many choices! Talk about
complicating your life. Even staples, like milk, eggs and cereal are
complicated. A quart of milk was all we had in my day. No consternation at the
milk cooler. Not today: Quarts, gallons and half gallons are the first layer of
choices. Then comes the fat content: whole milk, 1%, 2%, no fat, skim. Does it
really make that much difference? Probably not. Egg choices are just as bad:
medium eggs (which is another way of saying small eggs), large eggs, extra
large and jumbo. Eggs from hen house chickens, free range chickens or cage free
chickens. White eggs, brown eggs, green eggs (though not at the supermarket) and
other colors too. Which is best? I wouldn’t dare answer; it’s kind of like
stepping into the middle of an argument between Republicans and Democrats or
Sunnis and Shiites. No middle ground. Then there are the “sort-of-eggs”: egg
whites, eggbeaters, egg mates and smart cups. It makes my head spin. Want a box
of regular Cheerios? Good luck. The cereal aisle is 80 feet long and 6 feet
high. More variations of the two or three cereal grains than an old coot can
comprehend.
We’ve become food paranoid, and yes, quite finicky. But, in
spite of the challenge I did finally did make a hot dog buying decision. I used
the old coot method and bought the cheapest ones. It really doesn’t matter when
you burn them to a crisp.
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