Recently I was out running errands with a friend. When time came for a lunch break, she suggested Der Wienerschnitzel. I can’t remember the last time I’d been to a Der Wienerschnitzel! I ordered a few mustard dogs with pickle and she ordered mini corndogs. My first thought was how, back when I was a kid, corndogs always gave me indigestion. Recalling that now, I’m somewhat puzzled.
I’ve always loved hot dogs. If you know me and are familiar with my physique—more to the point, my waistline—you know there aren’t many foods I dislike. Once in a while I entertain a fleeting thought of whether a food is “good for me.” But, as I just said, the thought is fleeting. And hot dogs definitely fall into the category of not good for you. Some people (you know who you are) bemoan the fact that hot dogs are made from the leftovers of the animal. They say, “Read the label!”
O
kay, no. I’m not reading the label. I’ve accepted the fact that hot dogs are made from nostrils and sphincters and shoe laces. I accept that. I can live with it because hot dogs are delicious. And there’s no way I can go to a major league baseball game and not have a hot dog. Or two. And even if two hot dogs go for fifteen-hundred bucks at a game, it’s a ball game! Gotta have ‘em! I know the song requires that I buy me some peanuts and Crackerjack, and I do (because of the song’s edict), but it’s just not a ballgame without a hot dog.
I’ll admit to you here that there have been times when I have eaten three hot dogs at a sitting. So why is it that corndogs didn’t sit well with me? When you think about it, it’s a near-perfect meal—meat and corn (meal) all served up on a stick! For a kid, especially, it seems like a no-brainer. But most of the time, following a corndog (or more), I got indigestion.
And this goes all the way back to the first time I ate a corndog. It was an 
especially magical time. Not only was it the aforementioned perfect blending of meat and cornmeal and then deep fried and served on that ingenious stick, it was at the annual fair in our town. Every Labor Day weekend, the carnival and fair was held adjacent to the civic center. My friends raised animals (future hot dogs) and entered them into the competitions. The midway was a whirling cacophony of sound and lights. Wading through the crush of people, one was inundated with barkers inviting you to win a three-cent toy for each ten-cent try you made. And the food was—
Oh, wait.
The food.
I wonder if…
I mean, besides my first corndog there were brats, hamburgers and burritos. Barbeque chicken. Of course cotton candy and three-foot liquorish whips. Ice cream. French fries. Churros. Snow cones. Onion rings. Pork rinds. Pizza. Funnel cake. Popcorn. Kettle corn. Carmel corn. Corn on the Cob. Corn dropped in the dirt. Cheese corn. Giant pickles. Cupcakes. Waffle fries. Icees. Pulled Pork sandwiches. Fried fish sandwiches. Tacos. Jalapeño poppers. Tater tots. Ice cream sundaes. Candy apples.
And that was the 1960’s! Now days you can have all of that and/or get it deep fried. They’ll deep fry anything and everything. There’s deep fried Oreos, spam, Kool-Aid… How in the name of all that’s carnivaly do you deep fry Kool-Aid?! There’s deep fried chicken skins, Doritos, cookie dough, pickle chips, pecan pie on a stick… deep fried! You can even get a deep fried Slim Fast bar! WTF?!
They even deep fry coffee and sticks of butter and—
Oh.
Okay… So maybe it wasn’t just the corndog that gave me indigestion…
