A Chicago style hot dog should be garnished with just about everything -- tomato, pickle, sweet relish, onion, hot pepper, mustard, celery salt -- everything that is with the exception of catchup. On a Chicago-style hot dog that's definitely taboo.
Current diplomacy may also have a curious ingredient twist.
It's hard to believe but yesterday's NY Times actually had two articles on hot dog diplomacy: Ambassador Hot Dog and A New Iran Overture, With Hot Dogs .
No kidding...
Last Friday, the State Department sent a cable to its embassies and consulates around the world notifying them that “they may invite representatives from the government of Iran” to their Independence Day celebrations — annual receptions that typically feature hot dogs, red-white-and-blue bunting and some perfunctory remarks about the founding fathers.
Administration officials characterized the move as another in a series of American overtures to Iran. The United States has not had relations with Iran since the American Embassy in Tehran was seized by protesters in 1979; the country’s diplomats have not been formally invited to American events since then.
“It is another way of saying we are not putting barriers in the way of communicating,” said one administration official. “It is another way of signaling that there is an opportunity that should not be wasted.”
But they are going to have to make sure that the hot dogs contain no pork because Muslims and Jews share a similar taboo against it. Perhaps, they will have to serve a kosher dog, like the Vienna brand (pictured above), and that could involve still more diplomacy.
Who knows, someone might then point out that all-beef hot dogs contribute to deforestation of the Amazon and picket Obama when he attends the climate change meetings in Copenhagen next December.
Guess there's more to a hot dog than I thought.
1 comment:
What about serving vegan hot-dogs? I'm sure that will be really unusual :D
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