by Dennis Krivda

Created on: July 16, 2010   Last Updated: July 27, 2010

Barely anything says summertime in America the way hot dogs do. What could possibly conjure summertime more than sitting in a ballpark, watching our favorite team (whether it's our kid's Little League team or the Boston Red Sox), and scarfing down a hot dog or two between the fourth and fifth inning? Really, it gets no better than that! Clearly, hot dogs are the quintessential American food. Only in America would a six-foot parrot shoot hot dogs from a bazooka into the crowd enjoying a Pirates game at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

Some folks even wax philosophic whenever they consider their love affair with wieners. Their eyes glaze over while they imagine munching on a frank, and they speak of childhood memories, of comfort food, of old flames, of carnivals and boardwalks, of old bicycles and of...and of...holy heck! We're talking about hot dogs here! Forget the misty-eyed memories of Coney Island and your your first crush! Let's cut to the chase already. What's the best hot dog in America?

Hot dogs come in a variety of flavors, sizes, and incarnations (literally.) And every region of the US has local producers that churn out thousands of the tubular treats for the hungry hordes. For the purpose of this discussion, though, we've narrowed the contesting hot dogs to the standard sized, any ingredient, hot dogs available across the nation. Generally, we're talking about beef franks here, but chicken, turkey, pork, veggy, or even mystery meat tube steaks qualified for this taste comparison as long as they were available from Maine to Monterey, and from Miami to Minnesota. Also, we're not talking about the different ways of dressing up a hot dog. Rather, our panel simply conducted a blind taste comparison of seven hot dogs, boiled, sliced, and served naked on a plate.

The brands in question were: Armour Hot Dogs; Ball Park Beef Franks; Nathan's Original Beef Franks; Oscar Mayer Wieners; Sabrett's Beef Franks; Healthy Choice Beef Franks; and Hebrew National Beef Franks.

None of the people who participated in the blind comparison work (or have ever worked) for any of the companies that produce the hot dogs. We conducted the test simply to satisfy our own curiosity about the differences between different American wieners. Our conclusions included a few surprises.

So, how did America's various hot dogs rank?

Based on nothing but flavor and texture, we found that Nathan's Original Beef Franks delivered the most intense flavor and the gratifying snap that we enjoy when

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