Tube Steak Boogie

You will often see published recipes and photos of my BBQ and grilling accomplishments here on the LITGM blog. Most are somewhat complex and involve a lot of time to prepare but I love to do it. Then there are times when simple and cheap provide surprisingly delicious results.

On Sunday night we chose oversize hot dogs wrapped in bacon. I prefer jumbo dogs with bacon wrapped loosely so some of the dog is able to get a good char. Here’s a photo of my Sunday Wiener that I could tweet about to female strangers if I gave a crap about twitter. Or female strangers.


Saturday while grocery shopping I noted a brand in the local grocery I had never tried before. These are Franks, not Wieners, more on that later. Red Hot Chicago makes the perfect Frank for me. It is way to long for the conventional bun and thick enough to stand up to grilling. So I bought the Turano Bakery soft sub rolls, which fit this John Holmes impersonator perfectly with plenty of room for condiments.

I decided not to photograph and publish my prepared dog on a bun for fear of ridicule. Now I wish I had. Let’s just say I like slivered onions, pepper jack cheese, jalapeno slices. And ketchup.

There. I said it. I like ketchup on my hot dog. So sue me.

After poking around on the internets I found that the maker of Red Hot Chicago uses a recipe similar to Vienna Beef Hot Dogs. But I discovered these Red Hot Chicago franks to be far superior in flavor and texture.

As it turns out Red Hot Chicago’s family recipe is due in part to an ancestor that worked for Vienna Beef decades ago. In fact, a lawsuit has been filed by the Vienna Beef people. This tells me that RHC must be biting well into the Vienna Beef market share.

While researching hot dogs I found that Red Hot Chicago has another meaning. Check THIS out.

Chicagoans are typically very provincial to a fault. They stick to tradition when it comes to local tastes and flavors. Frango Mints and deep dish pizza come to mind. Oddly, the family who owns the Lou Malnatti’s Deep Dish Pizza chain have a similar background. Lou Malnatti (now deceased) once worked for Uno’s, the inventor of deep dish pizza. But I have never heard of any lawsuit between them. The two pies are similar but I prefer Gino’s East to both of those.

Vienna Beef Hot Dogs are considered to be a local treasure in Chicago due to smart marketing over the decades.

Personally I do not care much for the sacred “Chicago Style Hot Dog”. Here is a link that describes this local treasure and also the dicks that treat it with such reverence. These guys who operate the site, oddly enough, live in Madison WI.

As far as hot dogs are concerned I have tasted others from across the country. I’ve had Nathan’s and Hebrew National from New York. They are among the best. When in Manhattan on business I have had the Sabrett brand served from street carts. Ball Park Brand Hot Dogs are way, way down on my list as well as Bar-S, which they sell locally for $1 per pack, It’s just awful crap. There's also Scott Peterson brand from Chicago. They are also very good. I have yet to taste Johnsonville’s Stadium Franks but knowing their brats I am sure their hot dogs are good too. But I have never seen them at the local grocer. Cook’s Illustrated rated them very high.

Now I am sold on Red Hot Chicago's Jumbo Frank and will definitely make them again.

In the mid 80’s I worked at an ad agency that had the Oscar Mayer account and personally worked on the business. This is when I learned that a Frankfurter, or Frank is made mainly with beef while Wieners are made of pork, at least they once were. If you examine the packages of most wieners they now cut the pork with turkey and chicken extenders, so I avoid wieners. But they all seem to be lumped into the category of Hot Dog. OM hot dogs rank very low on my taste list.

I visited the Oscar Mayer Madison H.Q many times. I once rewarded with a tour of a hot dog plant. After dressing up in sanitary boots, a long white coat and hardhat, the marketing guy walked us down what they called a ‘wiener tunnel’. This long machine began where workers dumped a grayish mass of slurry into a hopper. The tunnel went on for about a block where the dogs were cooked, smoked encased and packaged all in one process. Slurry goes in one end and fully packaged product out the other. When the tour was over the marketing guy asked us if we were impressed. My co-workers nodded yes. Noting that I was not nodding he asked me why I wasn’t impressed.

I told him I would be impressed when live hogs entered the hopper and packaged product exited on the other end. He grinned. We both know they use everything but the oink when making a wiener.


As a sidebar, we were once involved in a ‘Blue Sky’ marketing session at HQ tossing out crazy marketing ideas. I recalled my youth, when the Wienermobile would always appear at supermarket grand openings. The midget handed out whistles and coupons. I openly recalled my youthful experience, asked why they stopped using the Wienermobile and suggested they bring it back. They told me the Wienermobiles were stored in a Madison warehouse and in bad shape. In addition, the midget was old. I argued back that that iconic motor vehicle was way too good to be stuck in a warehouse and should be brought back. The Chief Marketing Officer looked at me and sneered. “The Wienermobile will never be back, that was the old days and we are moving on.”

Well, guess what eventually happened?