The All Beef, Natural Casing Hot Dog
Everybody has their own preferences in hot dogs, and there’s a hot dog to suit every preference – whether you like all beef franks, or beef/pork, chicken, turkey, skinless or in a natural casing.
They are all out there.
My personal preference? All beef, natural casing.
The history of the hot dog? It’s been hashed and rehashed on every internet food site in existence it seems. In one sentence? Frankfurt – Vienna (Wien) – Coney Island – Chicago World’s Fair – St. Louis Exhibition – etc. You want the dirty details? Wikipedia covers it in depth.
The hot dog gets a bad rap, when it comes to ‘what’s in a hot dog.’ Buy from a premium company like Sabrett, you’re going to get quality beef or pork trimmings, fat, and seasonings, in a natural casing (small intestines of sheep), or “skinless”, in which a the meat is placed into a cellulose “form,” cooked, and the form peeled off before packaging.
There are a lot of videos on YouTube which explain the process. This one demonstrates how skinless dogs are made:
Hot dog, and meat processing plants in general, are tightly regulated and regularly inspected by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture). A plant of any appreciable size has an inspector on site full time, to make sure the food we buy in the stores is very safe.
The Sabrett factories are fully certified USDA plants. The plants are located in the Bronx, NY, so you know the Sabrett dogs you’re buying on the street in NYC are ultra-fresh!