With Independence Day looming, there’s a good chance you’re loading up on hot dogs right now.
Easy to cook, simple to assemble, and of questionable victual composition, hot dogs are as American as a Norman Rockwell painting of an apple pie.
The magic of the hot dog, of course, is that it’s a blank canvas. The plain tube steak is a platform for all kinds of innovation. Much like America itself, the hot dog is an idea that you can pick up and run with, that can be reimagined by different cultures and culinary styles.
Why We Wrote This
To celebrate July Fourth, our correspondent set off on a culinary tour of the American grilling staple, Texas style. The Lone Star State is home to a hot dog landscape as diverse as any region of the country.
Before this analogy extends from sea to shining sea, we must stop in Texas, because the Lone Star State is home to a hot dog landscape that’s rich, juicy, and in some cases, excessively dressed.
First, one must clarify the differences between sausages and the subgenre that is hot dogs. Gregg Meyer – co-owner of Meyer’s Elgin Smokehouse, an institution in the town that, since 1995, has been the “Sausage Capital of Texas” – is happy to help.
“When it started off, it was probably pretty close to the same thing,” he says. Over the years, however, market forces pushed the humble hot dog away from the more flavorful, but less profitable, sausage.
Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor
Thankfully, Texas long ago found a way to keep the two connected in what is known as the sausage wrap. Available at sports arenas across the state, though coming with a heavier hit to the wallet, a sausage wrap does not contain multitudes. It’s a sausage wrapped in a flour tortilla. It can also be wrapped in a slice of bread.
One could call it a Texas twist on the hot dog, though Mr. Meyer doesn’t. “People have been doing that with sausage forever,” he says. “I grew up with that.”
The sausage wrap barely scratches the surface of a state where immigration and the food scene have walked hand in hand for centuries. Czech and German immigrants taught Texas how to make high-quality sausage that can stand as a meal on its own. Mexican immigrants, meanwhile, showed the state what the plain hot dog can be paired with.
The answer, it seems, is pretty much everything.
In a nondescript food-truck park in north Austin, T-Loc’s asks you to be patient while waiting for your Sonoran hot dog. Combining a bacon-wrapped hot dog, pinto beans, diced and sautéed onions, diced tomatoes, mayonnaise, mustard, and jalapeño sauce is not something to be rushed. Especially not for a perfectionist like Miguel Kaiser.
“When you put the hot dog together, tip to tip, every bite has to be the same,” says Mr. Kaiser, co-owner of T-Loc’s.
Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor
Mr. Kaiser brought the loaded hot dog, a popular street food in the Mexican province of Sonora, to Austin from his native Tucson, Arizona. Having trained at culinary school and as part of a French brigade in higher-end restaurants and resorts, he decided that he wanted to bring this specific street food to a wider audience. Eleven years later, T-Loc’s is still going strong.
“It looks overwhelming,” says Mr. Kaiser, “but I think when you get into it, it kind of balances out.”
Indeed, the Sonoran hot dog looks intimidating. Served on a thick bolillo bun that Mr. Kaiser imports from Arizona, the ensemble looks like it might collapse through the table, then the Earth’s mantle, and just keep going. It’s difficult to get your jaws around the whole thing, but the meal isn’t as heavy as it appears. There is an impressive structural integrity even with all the toppings. While it’s likely impossible to not make a mess while eating it, it does come with napkins, and a tangy aftertaste that’s cut by the mayo.
The menu also features a chili cheese dog and the Yaqui dog, which includes the name of an Indigenous Sonoran tribe, that adds carne asada for an extra 50 cents.
Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor
For an even more adventurous hot dog, one can drive south to San Antonio. At El Chunky, bacon-wrapped beef sausages are topped with combinations of nacho cheese, chorizo, grilled pineapple, Doritos, and cheese Ruffles.
The Texas hot dog landscape is diverse to the point it stretches the definition of the hot dog. Kolaches, a Czech pastry typically filled with fruit, have become both sweet and savory in the Lone Star State.
The Czech Stop, a bakery in the small town of West, sells about two dozen kinds of kolaches. One of the most popular is the sausage and cheese, says Jose Perez, the store’s assistant manager. The jalapeño sausage and cheese is a favorite as well for the thousands of drivers who pull off Interstate 35 every week for this taste of Czech cuisine. (If you’re so inclined, you can purchase a Czech-language T-shirt with your kolache.)
Housed in a gas station, the bakery has become something of a Texas landmark. One customer visited because of a TikTok recommendation. On one late-June morning, a trio of visitors posed for a photo outside the store.
Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor
If you do stop by, ask that your sausage and cheese kolache be warmed up first. The taste of sweet, flaky bread combined with melted cheese and juicy sausage is not to be missed.
“It feels like every weekend is a holiday here,” says Mr. Perez, noting the kolache line can stretch around a half-dozen aisles of gas station snacks and souvenirs.
The rise of meat-filled kolaches – known as klobásníks in Czech – is likely a Texas influence, he thinks. But a larger question looms. Are sausage kolaches hot dogs at all?
A yes or no answer is too reductive, Mr. Perez believes.
“A lot of people compare them to a pig in a blanket, like a hot dog,” he says. “I would say yes, but there’s a difference.”
To be sure, the hot dog welcomes all kinds of differences – especially in Texas.
