Hot Diggity

Yesterday, I fixed pigs-in-a-blanket for supper.  You know, wieners wrapped up in dough, and baked in the oven.  I take a short cut, using canned crescent roll dough, but Levi and Victoria love them anyway, as most kids do.  They like to help make them, too, almost as much as they like to eat them.  Hot dogs are not on the menu at our house very often, though.

When I was growing up, we never had hot dogs for a meal at home, because Dad didn't consider hot dogs to be real food.  Oh, they were fine for a picnic or at a carnival, but we just never ate hot dogs at home.

I grew up in Fairbury, home of the Fairbury Brand hot dogs that have been hawked at the Nebraska Cornhusker football games for so many years.  I doubt if Dad knew that our school's hot lunch program served up hot dogs, in some form, at least once a week.  I heard that Roode's, the company that produced the bright red wieners, donated the hot dogs to the Fairbury schools, or at least provided them at a greatly discounted price.  I was married and living in Michigan before I learned that most wieners are pink or tan in color, instead of red like those Fairbury Brand dogs.

I remember one momentous occasion, when Mom and my brother, Dan, were traveling to Oregon with Grandpa and Grandma Wegner, for a National Rural Letter Carriers' convention.  While they were gone, Dad decided to take Laura, who was nine, and me (16) to Sidney, Iowa, to a huge rodeo.  We left Fairbury first thing in the morning, and drove for two or three hours to get to the rodeo site, only to find that no other spectators were there yet.  We had arrived too early.  We walked around the grounds, watching the cowboys unload the horses from their trailers, and found one hot dog stand that was open, so that's where we had lunch.  It's the only time I ever remember Dad buying hot dogs for us!  We enjoyed the rodeo and the entertainment, Jerry Lee Lewis, who was the real reason Dad wanted to go to that rodeo.  On the way home, we stopped in Beatrice at a roadside stand to buy some muskmelon and other produce, so I suppose that made up for the hot dogs.

These days, nearly all wieners come in packages of eight, just like the buns we buy to go with them.  But, not so many years ago, wieners were always sold in packages of ten.  Since the wieners didn't match up with the buns, my brother often enjoyed a "cold dog" straight from the package before we headed to the park for a picnic.  (Shhh---don't tell Dad!)

Today, most hot dogs are more nutritious than those we ate years ago--or, at least, we like to think so.  We can buy all-beef wieners, or chicken or turkey dogs, instead of the mystery-meat wieners that used to be more common, but most wieners are still high in fat, salt, and nitrates.  I won't even dwell on the dye that must be used to make those Fairbury Brand wieners red.  When it comes to hot dogs, most people don't think about nutrition at all; if it tastes good, it must be good food.

So, boiled, grilled, or cooked on a stick over an open fire, served in a bun with ketchup or mustard, or wrapped in a delicious, doughy blanket, hot dogs remain a favorite summertime food.

I almost forget to mention that other wiener recipe that most kids love.  Beanie Wienie, anyone?