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Europeans have customarily treated the wiener as a shaggy hot-dog story, absurdly amusing but not to be consumed too often or too seriously. It is quite possible that Whole Earth sensibilities, newly sophisticated palates and consumerism may yet do in the little sausage whose manufacturers arrogantly refuse to beef it up — or pork it out. In that case, the great American hot dog will be only a memory. And, perhaps, many of the cherished institutions that seemed to go with it.
Eventually, history judges a country as much by its cuisine as by its politics. As Lin Yutang rhetorically inquired: "What is patriotism but the love of the good things we ate in our childhood?"
Stefan Kanfer