Hot Dogs

In racking my head about what to write about for a blog, I came up with a summer job I had while in college.

I worked in a hot dog factory. Yep. Where they make hot dogs.

Guess what? I'll eat a hot dog in a second and not think twice about it.

There's a great many misnomers about what's actually in a hot dog. Stories of rats and hoofs and beaks are not at all true in my experience. While I didn't actually make the hot dogs myself since I worked maintenance, I did witness that while hot dogs aren't necessarily made from the best cuts of meat, it did not at all look disgusting or gross. The rest of what's in a hot dog are some filler, like a corn meal and spices. That's really it.

When first cooked (packaged hot dogs are not "raw" - they merely need reheating) they are very tasty and we were allowed to eat as many as we liked in a day, since they made like 100,000 each day.

There was a USDA inspector on the premises full time and the place shut down after lunch for about two hours of complete factory cleaning.

So, this 4th of July, when someone offers you a frank. Go for it. Tell them I said its okay.