Who’s winning (and losing) hot dog summer

A Chicago hot dog with pickles, tomatoes, and tons of yellow mustard

Behold: the food that has the grip over our entire summer. | Barry Brecheisen/Eater Chicago

15,000 generations of humanity, yet we have evolved not at all, bound like animals to the laws of physics, shamed before the universe. And in all of history only one man has stood to say that he will dictate what is and is not possible in this world. He does not do it for glory. He does it for his people. He does it for his country. He does it for FREEdom. And the gods shine down on us now. And the gods shine down on us still, because of him alone — because of him alone — the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July champion of the world, Joooooeeeeeeey Chestnut!

This is how emcee George Shea introduced competitive eater Joey Chestnut at the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island. After a sudden lightning delay, the champ downed 62 hot dogs to notch his 16th win at the competition, choking down fistfuls of hot dogs in front of a backdrop advertising sponsor Pepcid. The contest — which marks a sort of solstice in hot dog season, running roughly from the first sausage to hit the grill on Memorial Day through the last beach bonfires and camp cookouts of fall — proved underwhelming, as Chestnut was more than a dozen dogs short of the world record, 76, which he set two years ago. It was up to Miki Sudo to provide the day’s excitement as she defended her title in a nail-biting women’s division. You wouldn’t know the performances fell flat by Shea’s rhapsodic introduction, a speech that conjured Tom Waits’s “Step Right Up.” If I can manage half his poetry in this newsletter, I’ll have earned myself a dog.

Better make that a Dodger Dog. Despite Shea’s work as co-founder of Major League Eating to make overeating into its own competitive sport worthy of ESPN coverage, like many fans I think of hot dogs as an integral part of another sport: baseball. I’d even argue the number of Fenway Franks or Wrigley Dogs or even Pizza Dawwgs from opening day to postseason offers a better measure of a summer well spent than 162 wins and losses. Plus, the more hot dogs fans eat, the better their teams perform, according to data from the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC), so stuffing your face is really the duty of every true fan.

As we pass the annual zenith of hot dog consumption, it seems like time to check in on how the ballpark frank season is shaping up too: Even with fans’ support, it’s a weirdy. Major League Baseball’s new pitch clock has been threatening stadium beer sales by speeding up games, forcing stadiums to send out hot dog vendors earlier and extend beer sales past the seventh inning to make up for the lost revenue. Don’t tell that to Blue Jays fans, who are taking on Chestnut by downing record numbers of hot dogs during Toronto’s periodic Loonie Dogs nights, when franks go for a Canadian buck; given the absurd cost of hot dogs at some stadiums, which ranges from $3 all the way up to $8, dollar dog nights seem like a particularly good idea this season of economic anxiety — unless you’re Phillies fans, who use the discount as an excuse for a food fight.

Meanwhile, in another sign of our unhinged eating habits, with help from the Culinary Institute of America, Pepsi used Independence Day to premiere Colachup, a condiment that combines a cola reduction with smoked tomatoes, spices, onion, and ketchup. The limited-run topping was only available at four baseball stadiums: Chase Field in Phoenix, Yankee Stadium in New York, Target Field in Minneapolis, and Comerica Park in Detroit (read into those locations what you will about the target audience for this stunt). The buzzkills over at the NHDSC were too busy to notice, taking the holiday as an opportunity to remind everyone that ketchup is for children and adults should slather their dogs with mustard, relish, onions, cheese, or chili. To which I say, you’re killin’ me, Smalls! — Nick Mancall-Bitel, editor

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