- April 19, 2024
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I was recently called incompetent by a man who fundamentally rejects my taste in hot dogs.
Here’s the gist. In a recent story I wrote about Jim Bradley, “the hot dog man” who’s collected $40,000 for charity, I mentioned he sells Nathan’s franks. Before papers even cooled off the presses, though, a letter came in from an appalled reader who playfully but firmly set me straight.
“No hot dog aficionado worth his mustard would ever confuse a Nathan’s weeny wiener with the succulency of a Sabrett hot dog,” Victor Washkevich wrote — furiously, I imagined, from a laptop stationed in the front seat of a custom-built Oscar Mayer Wienermobile in his driveway.
I wrote back that the city’s resident hot dog historian, Bradley, had explained that he used to sell Sabrett but switched to Nathan’s since they were skinless and made by the same parent company.
Then — bam! — another letter arrives, this time from Bill Golding, who disagreed about the shared ownership. “This false reporting makes one wonder what else you may publish that is not true,” he wrote.
It was when he called me “incompetent” that I knew we were playing prison rules. In this hot dog-eat-hot dog world of Palm Coast journalism — be advised — it’s never safe to let your guard down.
“This means hot dog war, Golding,” I growled at my computer screen, pointing and raving like I was a pro wrestler promoting his next match. “When I’m done with you, they’ll be singing the Hebrew National anthem at your funeral — oh yeah!”
To both readers’ credit, a follow-up to Bradley confirmed that he does, in fact, sell Sabrett. But this was no cut-and-dry case. Little did I know that investigations would sweep me into a conspiracy so vast I was sure it went straight to the top.
According to a New York Times article from 2005, Marathon Enterprises, of East Rutherford, N.J., manufactures Sabrett hot dogs, as well as most of the fare found at Manhattan’s most popular frank joints: Gray’s Papaya, Katz Delicatessen, even in most carts. And until the early 2000s, the story said, Marathon made Nathan’s, too.
That’s basically what Bradley said: that Nathan’s started with Sabrett provisions then went solo after gaining popularity.
I was hoping a call to Marathon corporate headquarters would confirm this, but word back from President Boyd G. Adelman did otherwise. He said the two companies were never one, and that was final.
I then deduced from his pithy matter-of-factness that, clearly, he was hiding something.
It wasn’t until National Hot Dog & Sausage Council President Janet Riley, who calls herself the “Queen of Wien,” ignored my correspondence, though, that my suspicions were validated.
I had stumbled into the kind of cover-up you usually only see in movies — Riley’s silence confirmed it. This was Sauerkrautgate. I was Dustin Hoffman in “All the President’s Foot-longs,” and I had to break the scandal — but how?
I could write to Congress, but who was I kidding? They had to be in on it.
I could dive straight into the belly of the bratwurst, work undercover until I became Marathon Enterprises’ CEO and was told all of the company’s secrets.
Or I could picket the meat coolers at Publix.
I could do any of those things. But let’s face it: They would take time and energy, and my Netflix queue simply isn’t going to watch itself.
So instead, I’ll concede. Maybe Golding was right, after all. But I don’t think this debate was really ever about plain old, processed tube steaks. Maybe it was more the clash of two opposing world views, two sensibilities that will forever be at odds, if only to maintain some form of philosophical balance.
The Sabrett adherents. Nathan’s apostles. It’s a story as tragic and romantic as the battle between Montague and Capulet.
Will Golding and I ever sit across the table from one another to break Ballpark? Maybe. But I think the point I’m really trying to make here is, well, frankfurters are funny.
They look funny. Any anger that can possible stem from them is funny. It’s socially acceptable to call them wieners — which, without question, is hilarious.
Are they a hot-button social issue? Absolutely. Is their investigation worth the time investment? Every second. But maybe, just maybe, my parents were right all along. They used to always tell me, “Mikey, if there are three topics it’s always better to avoid in public, it’s these:
Politics.
Religion.
And, for the love of all things holy, leave hot dogs out of it!”
