America’s best hot dog
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What do D.C. hot dog customers say makes the perfect hot dog?
Today Explained, Sean Roms from here in Washington, D.C., outside the National Building Museum where I'm actually standing next to the most popular hot dog cart in the city. It's called Scheister's. And we're here today because it's the summer and hot dog is a classic summer food. Americans eat something like 20 billion hot dogs a year, but we wanted to figure out what the best hot dog is. So we're going to ask some customers.
Good bun is like number one. Also, don't cheap it out on like the beef.
I don't eat meat, so I'd have to go with a delicious vegan dog.
I generally go for the sauerkraut and mustard.
I would want to see ketchup.
Just ketchup?
No, ketchup and mustard. So the ideal is ketchup, mustard, relish, sauerkraut. So to me, a hot dog is about the experience with the people.
It's about the friends we made along the way. Exactly. We're going to ask celebrity chef Jose Andres, who recently tried to figure out what the best hot dog is, for his opinion on Today Explained from Fox.
Oh, my God. You look like... Today Explained. It makes me want a hot dog real bad.
Jose Andres, internationally beloved chef, humanitarian, men's World Cup champion fan, and author of the new book, Spain My Way, eat, drink, and cook like a Spaniard. And Spain is where his hot dog journey begins.
Okay, I had a hot dog in Spain when I was younger. We called them perritos calientes. Perrito will be little dog. and caliente hot. And in my early life, I remember I loved them with ketchup. And you could argue that the hot dog is the perfect way to say how old are you, because it seems in the early days of your life, you prefer it with the sweeter ketchup. And as you grow older, you prefer it with a more deep, harsh mustard. But your question is, do you remember your first hot dog in America? And the answer is, yeah. 1990, and I arrived in New York sailing in a tall ship in the Spanish Navy. Four masts, 300 crew members. sailing across the Atlantic Ocean for six months. True adventure, sailing in the open ocean, port to port.
And I arrived on a glorious day. under the Barasano Bridge, Lady Liberty, Ellis Island, and we docked on the west side, very close to 30th Street. Back in the day, we would get $60 per port that the Navy would pay every sailor. $60. And I remember walking that 30th Street, just coming off the boat, and see my first hot dog cart, maybe arriving 8th or 9th Avenue. And I'm there and it's like 99 cents, I think I remember were the price at the time. And I'm like, shit, I can buy 60 hot dogs. They asked me, what do you want? And I say, I want everything. When you don't know the answer, you just ask for everything. And they put everything on the hot dog and was this, that sauerkraut like an onion, like in a tomato thing and the mustard.
And they had this relish of cucumber. I put everything there. And I remember I had like three or four. This is the days I was beautifully skinny, taller than the trees, blonde hair and blue eyes, which I don't know what purpose serves to explain you my favorite hot dog, but what I'm only trying to tell you, I fall in love with the hot dog and I think the hot dog fall in love with me.
America stole the hot dog from Germany, drew inspiration from Germany. What makes it, you think, such an enduring American standard?
Well, I don't think America stole anything from anything. Hot dogs, without a doubt, are part of the creation of America as a country in a moment that everybody, you know, working hard, working long hours. new country, new ways, very open. America has been for me always a very creative country. Like you go to any American restaurant, American chefs, my God, I was always fascinated how they can mix any sauce or any ingredient from anywhere and make a dish. And the dish is amazing. Why?
How did José Andrés first discover hot dogs and why do they matter to him?
Because in America, this freedom that America gave to the Native Americans were here, but anybody that came from a nation of immigrants, the freedom that everybody had to be bringing who they were, but also be free to try new things and mix new things is what the melting pot of America has become one of the very unique places in the world for culinary, where nobody was afraid of, obviously, maintaining tradition, but also to say, you know, if we mix A with B with C, actually it works.
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