I chart my travels in hot dog stands. Whether I’m grabbing a Seattle-style hot dog (cream cheese and grilled onions) while strolling around Pike Place Market, balancing a West Virginia-style link (slaw, meat sauce, mustard, and onions) on my lap at a drive-in, or embarking on a tour of Capitol Region dogs (a four-inch frank with onions and meat sauce) in New York, grabbing lunch at institutions like these has become an essential part of my travels. That’s because these hot dog stands don’t merely offer a tasty lunch—they are an enduring American tradition that can tell you something about a place and its history, and the people who live there today.
From Arizona’s bacon-wrapped hot dogs to Chicago’s dragged-through-the-garden style (that’s mustard, onions, relish, tomatoes, sport peppers, a pickle, and celery salt for the uninitiated), regional toppings abound across the country. What a stand serves on its dogs, or even what the links are made of, can point to something more. Take Coney dogs, which aren’t just sausages dressed in mustard, onions, and meat sauce—they also allow us to trace Greek and Macedonian migration in this country. Immigrants from these countries popularized the Coney style, and while it’s most associated with Michigan, it’s also found in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Cincinnati, Ohio; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and other places where they settled. In Detroit, you can sample two nearly identical versions at Lafayette Coney Island and American Coney Island, side-by-side joints that two Greek brothers started. Meanwhile, across Central New York, from Rochester to Syracuse, you can sample a white hot at joints like Dogtown in Rochester and Heid’s of Liverpool. Made with pork and veal (and sometimes beef) for a lightly colored, delicately flavored sausage, the white hot nods to the area’s German heritage; it’s great with a squiggle of mustard.
