FRANKFURTER can be found just below Frankenstein in the dictionary. It can also be found immediately beneath contempt in Ralph Nader's vast lexicon of villains. To Nader, the ABM and the smart bomb are scarcely more lethal than a chain of processed sausages. Hot dogs, insists the consumer advocate, are "among America's deadliest missiles." New York City's Consumer Affairs Commissioner Bess Myerson agrees: "After I found out what was in hot dogs, I stopped eating them." This people's entrée, this frank companion of alfresco meals and ball games—can it really be a finger-shaped monster? So it appears.
When a German-born restaurateur named Charles Feltman first popularized the frankfurter on a roll 100 years ago, the Coney Island Chamber of Commerce refused to endorse the sobriquet "hot dog." They thought it might evoke notions of processed mongrel. Today the public has less fanciful worries. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, since 1937 the frankfurter has gone from 19% fat and 19.6% protein to 28% fat and only 11.7% protein. (The rest is water, salt, spices and preservatives.) This deterioration is yet another of technology's ambiguous gifts.
Not long ago, for example, it was difficult to pulverize poultry cheaply; now hot-dog manufacturers enthusiastically chicken out, cramming up to 15% of their sausages with bird parts. Poultry is one of the more appetizing ingredients. Federal law allows hot dogs to contain such animal features as esophagi, ears, lips and snouts. In the words of Robert Benchley: "Ain't it offal?" And even these ingredients do not exhaust the bad news. Hot dogs are brimming with additives, including sodium nitrite, sodium acid pyrophosphate and glucona delta lactone. Without such chemicals, the hot dog would lose its pink blush and turn the color of unwashed sneakers. The wiener may also contain "binders," like dried milk, cereal or starchy vegetable flour. According to Consumers Union, there can also be occasional insect parts and rodent hairs. Moreover, frankfurters are no longer a bargain. There is little honest protein in even the purest of all-beef kosher franks. Discarding fat, water, etc., what protein remains comes to more than $10 per pound. For that you can get truffles. Or 4 Ibs. of filet mignon. Or 8 Ibs. of hamburger.
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For all its critics, the hot dog, like any other American institution, does have its loyal defenders. "If I were an Oscar Mayer wiener," insists the jingle, "everyone would be in love with me." Edwin Anderson, president of the Zion Foods Corp., salutes the frankfurter with a serious mien. "Hot dogs," he maintains, "are still the American's favorite meat food. Let's compare apples with apples. The hot dog is a ready-to-eat product and should be compared with other similar products rather than with hamburger, which loses 30% to 40% of its weight in cooking." Adds Michael Levine of Continental Seasoning: "There are fewer chemicals in franks than in most of your cereals, mustard, mayonnaise or oleomargarine." Their logic does not stand grilling. Franks present should only be compared with franks past. As for mustard, it goes on those dubious wieners, adding its adulterates to theirs.