This week we begin a spotlight series on regional brands.
Hoffy is a brand name known to Los Angelenos for over 75 years. Chances are, if you’ve eaten a natural casing hot dog at a restaurant in L.A., it came from Hoffy.
The world-famous Pink’s uses a specially formulated dog from Hoffy, for example, and Hoffy sells a “Hollywood Original” hot dog in a grocery pack.
The Hollywood Original is the first Hoffy product we tried this week. An all-beef, oversized dog ( 5 in a 12oz package), the dog comes in a natural lamb casing.
Hot dogs in natural casing, tho making up only about 5% of the US grocery store sales, are a favorite among true hot dog lovers. Being packed in a casing, (as opposed to the regular mass consumption hot dogs in the US, which are referred to as “skinless”), the natural casing offers resistance when you bite into the sausage. Consumers call this “snap”, which is derived in the sausage trade from the rough translation of the German work “knack”.
(The German noun Knackwurst—which, in English is sometimes corrupted as knockwurst—comes from the German words knacken (“to crack”) or knackig (“crisp”). This refers to the swelling of the sausage during cooking, so that the skin becomes pressurized and balloon-like, and tends to “pop,” often exploding the juices, when bitten into.)
In addition to beef and water, the Hoffy Hollywood original has a bit of corn syrup, flavorings, and paprika, and comes in at a very low 2 carbs per dog, if you’re prone to watching carbs. This is a fairly traditional “hot dog” recipe.
Today, of course, “hot dogs” (franks, wieners) can be found with a myriad of ingredients and/or meats. Turkey dogs, chicken dogs, all pork, all beef, vegetarian. At home, on a rare occasion, we cram casings full of a variety of seafood and herbs, great for summer grilling.
Having consumed 10,634,127 hot dogs in my life (est.), I think the Hoffy Hollywood Original is a superb dog, which will appeal to most consumers.
I’m a hot dog “purist” and keep my condiments to a minimum, on last nite’s pups, I went for yellow mustard, diced onion, and dill pickle chips.
A peculiarity in the Burgerdogboy household, while I insist on premium hot dogs, my taste in buns runs to the least expensive in the store at any one time. So rarely am I paying more than a buck for a pack of buns.
The oversized Hoffy fills the standard bun (and more) as seen below.
With an all beef recipe, mild flavor, and great “snap”, Hoffy Hollywood Original will become a dog of choice at our household, and they should be in yours, as well.
(Ed. note: Hoffy products sampled were furnished by the manufacturer).
I am curious as to the Special formula that said Pinks hot dogs have that diffrenciate from the original Hoffy hot dog recipe. How much of a difference is there really? I have never eaten at Pinks, so I would not know. Perhaps some of you more familiar people can chime in and give some insight?
While I can’t say positively, usually this is a reference to a vendor like Pinks requiring a specific spice mix, grind, quatity per pound or similar.