No ketchup/catsup on (hot) dogs!!!

I couldn’t help but get my chuckle when I stumbled this week on the Facebook page that Vienna Beef uses to advertise its meat products.

Evidence of a 'crime?' Photo provided by Vienna Beef

The staged photo purports to be a hot dog vendor in the act of being arrested for committing the “unspeakable offense” of slathering a hot dog with ketchup.

WHICH, OF COURSE, led to a lengthy and spirited debate over one of the ultimate issues of triviality that people use in an attempt to verify the legitimacy of their Chicago-ness.

Ketchup on the hot dog. Or more like it, a lack of ketchup. As in only a total rube would think to use the icky sweet condiment when eating a sausage. What next – you’re going to argue in favor of those thin crust slices of pizza that New Yawkers think are special because they can be folded in half while you eat them? Don't even get me started on the notion of sauerkraut-smothered hot dogs!

Now before we go any further, I’ll clarify that I personally would never put ketchup on a hot dog. But then again, I don’t put ketchup on anything I eat.

I wasn’t kidding about the “icky sweet” comment. I think anybody who puts ketchup on anything is obliterating the natural flavor of their food. What’s the point of eating a hot dog if you need to smother it in ketchup.

NOW HAVING SAID that, I also think that people have a right to eat whatever they want to. If they want to ruin their hot dog with ketchup, that’s their choice.

Just don’t expect me to argue on your behalf that there’s nothing wrong with your use of ketchup. The “American Way” with all its freedom of expression may defend to the death your right to use ketchup on a hot dog.

But it also defends the right of myself and everybody else who realizes mustard, particularly a sharp spicy one, is truly the only basic condiment of choice to ridicule your ketchup practices to the death.

You use ketchup at your own risk to your culinary reputation. Don’t argue with me otherwise – you brought it on yourself! You’re ridiculed solely because of your own doing.

SERIOUSLY, THOUGH, I have to admit to the Facebook-oriented debate taking place on this “issue” is kind of scary. At least to the degree to which certain types of people are taking this seriously.

Aren’t there issues much more serious for us to worry about? If anything, I’d be more concerned about the actual content of the “meat” used in putting together hot dogs – just how disgusting is something sold under the “Oscar Mayer” brand name.

And is anything sold under a brand name implying kosher status with a Star of David logo attached truly any more pure a meat product than something sold in the supermarket aisle at a discount price?

Instead, we’re worked up over ketchup. Or maybe “catsup,” as some people persist in wanting to spell the condiment.

NOW I KNOW people who insist on using ketchup who claim it’s the way they’ve always eaten a hot dog going back to childhood. In fact, the Facebook debate included one person defending the use of ketchup as being reminiscent of the grammar school cafeteria when the ‘hot’ lunch was a hot dog with ketchup and mustard.

Personally, I’d think that’s more of an argument against ketchup – there were a lot of disgusting things we ate as kids because we didn’t know better.

Just like my own memories of school lunch included the pizza slices that, to be even then, seemed flavorless with its crumbs of sausage and ketchupy-like sauce – and were a large part of the reason why as a kid I didn’t care for pizza from anywhere. It took the introduction of Due’s later in life to make me realize something significant was missing.

Now for those of you dismissing this argument as trivial, I’ll admit it is. I promise we’ll get back to serious issues in coming days. Although “serious” could easily delve down to the proper composition of an Italian beef sandwich – where I like onions added and think some people go way too overboard with the giardiniera -- and I agree with a one-time editor of mine who insisted that the gyro was made from the worst cuts of meat.

  -30-

How fancy is too fancy for a hot dog?

I couldn’t help but be amused to learn of a new study that proclaims Portillo’s, the Chicago-area-based joint specializing in hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches, to be the nation’s favorite restaurant.

Would this 'stand' have been worthy of honor?

As in TripAdviser, a website catering to tourists who wouldn’t have a clue where to go outside of their home communities, said the chain of Portillo’s restaurants are the best in the country when it comes to Fast Casual – as in food nice enough to be more than fast food, but not so elite you have to get all dressed up in order to eat there.

IT SEEMS SOMEBODY is trying to push the idea that Portillo’s is the ultimate experience in hot dogs, and that one has to have their take on a sausage dragged through the garden before they can truly know what the Chicago hot dog experience is.

This amuses me because I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find that just about everybody with any experience in consuming a “Chicago-style” hot dog could rattle off a whole slew of places that they would prefer, rather than making the trip to whatever Portillo’s franchise happens to be closest to their particular neighborhood or suburb.

While there’s nothing wrong with Portillo’s, I just think there are many other places that are better.

Particularly when one considers the cost of a Portillo’s dog ($2.65 each, fries and drink extra). It ain’t cheap. In fact, I definitely feel like we’re being asked to pay premium prices for the Portillo’s décor – which is meant to display various memorabilia with a Chicago atmosphere.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE we’re visiting a Chicago-inspired theme park. Whereas I’d argue that a true Chicago experience would include a visit to an actual neighborhood hot dog stand – which likely would be so tiny that these tourism-based websites would never find it.

Not that it would be a bad thing. If anything, it’s the obscure neighborhood joints that offer up the best experiences, and the larger places somehow manage to lose something in the process of business growth.

It makes me wonder if Portillo’s itself, which originated in suburban Villa Park and displays a photograph of the original “dog house” motif hot dog stand in every one of their stores, may have actually deserved the accolades way back when.

Proclaims Portillo's the best 'fast casual' restaurant

Now, it’s just a generic chain restaurant. And a highly-priced one, at that.

I STILL RECALL the last time I went to a Portillo’s. I had the barbecue ribs meal – and paid close to $25 for it. Not exactly eating on a budget.

As for a hot dog, I don’t feel compelled to seek out my local Portillo’s joint whenever I feel the need for one. Because for me, the whole concept of a hot dog and fries is that it’s supposed to be a cheap meal.

A couple of “dogs,” fries and a coke for about $5 sounds about right (I'm sure people of my parents' generation could remember a time when the cost would have been closer to $1) – with the understanding that eating too many meals like that isn’t doing my overall health any benefits.

Anyway, my own personal favorite of hog dog stands is actually the Boz’ Hot Dogs scattered throughout the southern end of Chicago metro. I particularly like the way they use cucumber slices, rather than pickle spears – a personal quirk that some may not enjoy as much as I do.

I’M ALSO ONE whose memory still salivates at the notion of Gold Coast Dogs. I’d probably eat hot dogs more often if I could still get a char dog or two with everything (and everything does NOT include ketchup, which they had enough sense to realize).

Would Boz ever make the list?

So the idea of Portillo’s as the best Fast Casual restaurant in the country? I doubt it. Because any place serving a hot dog of any quality whatsoever would probably never be deemed worthy of any type of “best” list.

Now if you really want to talk off-beat foodstuffs, consider the “chocolate cake shake” that Portillo’s offers up.

At 850 calories in their small-sized shake, it most definitely is not something to eat if one wants to be in good standing with “Weight Watchers,” but is something unique-enough to make the occasional trip to Portillo’s worth one’s while.

  -30-

July 4 about more than a weenie roast

Call it one of my biggest pet peeves – the people who think of the holiday we celebrate Wednesday as the “Fourth of July,” and who think the term “Independence Day” is nothing more than that ridiculous film from some two-plus decades ago.

For the holiday that celebrates the events of some 242 years ago on this date is supposed to celebrate the events upon which the one-time English colonies of North America declared themselves an independent nation.

OF COURSE, I’M sure many people think that’s “boring!” and nothing more than ancient history. They prefer to think of this as the day we’ll dig out the barbecue grills, roast a few hot dogs and watch an explosive spectacle in the skies as we go out to our local park in the evening for a fireworks display.

That, and we find a way to turn this into an extended weekend – taking time off from work to make for an unofficial vacation.

If anything, the Independence Day holiday of 2018 will be unique because the actual “day off” comes on a Wednesday. We can actually pick if we want it to be the end of an extended weekend, or the beginning.

Or, for some incredibly lazy types, it will be a double weekend. A whole slew of time off – because why try to work when so many of your colleagues have disappeared.

I DOUBT MANY people will be giving history much thought. Which really is a shame.

Because at a time when our nation and our society is split so seriously, what I think we most are in need of is a history lesson. If anything, I think our “commander in chief” could most use such a lesson – since his sense of ego is such that I think at times he truly has no comprehension of what his campaign slogan truly means. Either that, or his sense of history comes entirely from those “Schoolhouse Rock” cartoons of the 1970s.

I’ll be honest; I don’t know exactly how I’m spending the day on Wednesday. A part of me thinks it would be useful to spend the day in historic meditation. Pondering the many sacrifices that generations past have made to create a nation and a society that so many from around the globe are eager to be a part of, while trying to calm the family dogs down as they endure an evening of explosives.

Instead, it could turn out to be little more than an over-glorified weenie roast, with me getting all outraged over my other pet peeve – people who persist in slathering their hot dogs in ketchup. Now that’s a truly un-American concept!

  -30-

Baseball back in Chicago, and Sout’ Side plays off a Springpatch delicacy

I know there are the hard-core fanatics who think that going to a ballgame and getting something to eat means ordering nothing more than a bag of peanuts and/or a hot dog. If they really want to splurge, maybe they’ll go for a polish sausage.

A capital take on the 'horseshoe'

Which is why I found it amusing when Major League Baseball conducted a food festival earlier this month in New York, where each of the 30 ball clubs felt compelled to feature what they consider to be a unique item their concessionaires sell at the ballpark.

FOR THE CUBS, the featured food was a hot dog. As in served “Chicago-style” with tomatoes, that glow-in-the-dark pickle relish and sport peppers (and absolutely NO ketchup!!!). Which might offend some sensibilities that the Cubs would try to claim such a common food item as their very own.

But the White Sox may be the ball club that came up with something unique.

As in their featured foot item was the “South Side horseshoe,” a sandwich that is considered a variation of that dining “delight” unique to the Illinois capital city of Springfield.

Personally, I have to admit that during the seven years I worked and lived in Springfield, I only once ate a horseshoe. I didn’t think it much of a big deal. In fact, I think it a sign of the lack of a capital cuisine that THIS is considered the unique dining experience (that and chili, which the locals insist on spelling “chilli” sold at “chilli parlors” that Chicagoans most likely would think of as dives).

White Sox offering up a fancier take on the horseshoe

SO TO SEE that the White Sox are adding to their food menu (albeit only at the concessions stands that service the private boxes – the riff-raff sitting in the allegedly cheap seats won’t have easy access) a horseshoe variation makes me want to chuckle.

Particularly since my comprehension of the White Sox version of the sandwich is that it will have Italian sausage and giardiniera, in addition to the French fries and beer sauce that a Springfield-type horseshoe would have.

I suspect that many a Springpatch-type will look at the White Sox’ take on the horseshoe and dismiss it as high falutin’, and way too overly fancy. Others might think it is tampering with the capital’s attempt at culture and cuisine.

Cubs offer a high-priced hot dog

So will be White Sox be selling a “real” horseshoe at the ballpark this season – beginning a week from Thursday when they have their home opener against the Detroit Tigers?

LIKE I SAID previously, I had a horseshoe once when I lived in Springfield, and what I had was turkey on toasted bread with the fries piled on top and the cheesy beer sauce poured on thick. Hamburger or ham are popular alternatives to turkey.

I know of people who think horseshoes are something special who contend that it’s the beer sauce that makes all the difference between a delicacy and an unhealthy pile of slop.

In the case of the White Sox, they’re supposedly using Modelo-brand beer to create their sauce for the sandwich. Whether that makes a difference, I don’t know. But because Modelo is the “official import beer of the Chicago White Sox,” the ballclub feels compelled to promote it.

Old-school red hots at the ballpark

All I know is it will be amusing if the Springfield horseshoe actually catches on at White Sox games. Or if it winds up being dismissed as yet more evidence of the unsophistication of the Illinois capital city.

FOR I’M SURE it will wind up being more adventurous than the Cubs offering up hot dogs. Even if they use the real Vienna beef brand of wieners, I don’t doubt that the Cubs’ take on a hot dog with everything (“dragged through the garden,” so to speak) will wind up coming off as second-rate to the hot dog one can buy at any corner stand.

Particularly when one compares the dollar or so for a hot dog in the real world, compared to the $6 one will have to pay at Wrigley Field.

One-time star now a sandwich

But ballpark food caters to a captive audience, and we wind up paying the high prices for everything (in my case, $9 for a Minnie Miñoso-branded “Cuban Comet” sandwich) in order to experience the thrill of a competitive ballclub trying to do proud by our city.

Anyway, baseball is back for this season (the White Sox start out in Kansas City, while the Cubs ‘do’ Miami), and I’m bound to try to get out to a few games this season. Sitting down by the foul pole in those cheap – by modern standards – seats, where maybe we can compare the merits of a Sox-style horseshoe.

  -30-

EXTRA: Where’s the news?!?

What we saw in the news box

I almost feel like Clara Peller ought to come crawling out of the woodwork to do commercials for the Chicago Tribune – she could be the one bellowing at copies of  the anemic Chicago Sun-Times “Where’s the news?!”

For that would be particularly appropriate on Tuesday, when the “front” page of the newspaper had the “The King’s got a Whopper…” headline along with a giant photo of that ridiculous looking monarch who touts Burger King “food.”

The front page buried behind it

WHEN I FIRST saw that front page, I first thought there was some sort of scandalous story concerning the fast-food chain’s products. Perhaps lame jokes about Chipotle’s mediocre food products were going to become passe, and a new target of gags had come forth.

Then, I saw that the front was actually a four-page wraparound of the REAL newspaper, and that it was totally covered in a Burger King ad – touting the fact that the chain was going to start selling hot dogs.

Lame hot dogs covered in ketchup that have the appearance of those overpriced dogs sold at movie theater concessions stands. Not something I’m the least bit ever anxious to eat.

 

It certainly made the Tribune's front page of stories about mosque hostility, a suburban school district's boundary issues and Donald Trump's latest nonsense (about the Ricketts family) seem downright substantive by comparison.

I REMEMBER THE time when front page advertising was considered truly garish – something for tacky buffoons to engage in because they didn’t have any news product worth promoting.

You'll get a better hot dog here. All photographs by Gregory Tejeda

Now, we have the idea of the advertising being the primary product on the front – and also on Page Three of the actual newspaper, which was another full-page ad touting those Burger King hot dogs.

Somehow, I sense a flop of magnificent proportions coming upon us – while I realize there are people with a palate weak enough to think something like Domino’s pizza is actually a quality product, I just can’t envision anything from a Burger King appealing to anybody beyond the age of six.

With the Sun-Times so solidly touting this new product, how much does its eventual demise take them down?

AND WHILE I realize that the Sun-Times probably charged a significant amount for this four-page advertising wraparound plus a full-page ad in the newspaper proper, this doesn’t exactly make the newspaper the equivalent of a high-priced call girl.

 

Proper hot dog condiments

The Bright One comes across more as a cheap floozy who suckered a drunk into overpaying for said services.

Let’s just hope the newspaper is satisfied with their cash flow – as short-lived as it will be.

And somewhere, Clara Peller is rolling over in her grave – even she wouldn’t get involved in an advertisement this tacky!

  -30-

Is it really history? Or just the past’s trivial garbage cluttering our present?

As a person who spent his college years studying history, I am familiar with the arguments made about what exactly is appropriate for academic study.

'Wisconsin Steel' kept many Chicagoans employed

Did we focus way too much of the past study on the antics of now-dead white guys? Did we miss out on the stories of regular people of the past – particularly those of a more-intense melanin content level in their skin complexions?

My grandfather cleaned up well after week in steel mill

OR ARE THOSE people who make such an argument going so far to try to legitimize their own stories that they’re bringing up trivial points – rather than letting us know what was truly significant in our past.

Now I don’t doubt that some people use historic study not so much to comprehend who we as a society were, but to try to legitimize what they want to believe – and downplay people whom they’d prefer not to have to acknowledge at all.

My own thoughts about history are to say that none of my elementary or high school history courses taught me a thing of significance. And the sad part is that many allegedly-educated people don’t take much in the way of history courses beyond that academic level.

History? Or not?

All of this came to my mind this weekend because of my touristy-type behavior. I spent part of Saturday wandering about Chicago with camera in hand, collecting stock photos I can use to illustrate my writings here about various aspects of the Second City.

 

I EVEN MADE a stop at a museum – the Chicago History Museum up in Lincoln Park.

I have been there many times before, and have my memories of grade school field trips burned into my brain. Those dioramas of old Chicago scenes and the various artifacts that survived the Chicago Fire of 1871 – I will never forget the sight of those charred cookies found in the rubble that somehow were preserved.

But I couldn’t help but notice many new exhibits and artifacts on display that I suspect would never have made the cut at the museum of the past.

I never wrote on a typewriter that nice!

 

My own favorite was the sight of letters from the old Wisconsin Steel Works sign on the factory that used to exist at 106^th Street and Torrence Avenue in the South Deering neighborhood.

A PLANT I heard about many times growing up because it is where my maternal grandfather, Michael Vargas, got a job upon coming to this country from Mexico as a young man and wound up working there until he hit retirement age.

Somehow, I doubt the museum of old would have been too obsessed telling me about Fort Dearborn and the “massacre” to have spent much time telling me about the Southeast Side steel mills that were a significant part of my family’s lives (both of my grandfathers worked in them) and many other Chicagoans.

And as for that exhibit about the ’68 Democratic Convention and the protesters – hippie posters next to a light-blue police helmet? It would have been ignored in the past, unless someone felt compelled to try to write history to erase the phrase “police riot” from its description.

Would modern-day reporter-types 'get it'

Personally, I was intrigued by the exhibit the museum now has about ordinary objects and how even they tell stories about who we once were.

WHY ELSE WOULD I have had the chance to see a telephone booth (no sign of Clark Kent approaching needing to change his clothes) or a typewriter put prominently on display?

Although I can already hear the rants and rages of the alleged historic purists saying there’s nothing important about a phone booth – although I’ll admit to still finding myself engaging in an old reporter-type habit of looking for a public payphone anywhere I go.

Just in case news breaks out and I have to call my editor – while first calling the receptionist “sweetheart” – to report the details.

 

I also have to wonder what they thought of the sight of the exhibit about food and "Chicago-style" hot dogs -- allowing people to turn a giant wiener into their own personal favorite concoction.

Let's really upset the history 'purists'

BEING IN SUCH a touristy mood perhaps made it all the more appropriate that I also included a walk to, and through, Millennium Park – which I have to confess that until Saturday, I had never actually visited.

I got to see those pictures of people who periodically spit fountains of water, while also checking out the new ice rink that appears too clean and pristine for Chicago, lacking the grit and makeshift nature of the old ice rink that occupied the Block 37 space by the Daley Center all those years.

Then, I did the ultimate geek tourist move – I took a photograph of myself off the reflection of the Cloud Gate sculpture. More commonly referred to as “the Bean.” At this rate, it will be soon that I’ll be espousing the merits of the Chicago Cubbies like all the other touristy-types who don’t have the nerve to set foot on the Sout’ Side.

 

Historic artifact? Or moment of silliness

I was far from alone in having such a picture taken. People from all parts of the world who happened to be in Chicago on Saturday were doing the same.

WHICH MAKES ME wonder. Will that photographic image itself become a historical artifact that will show future generations what people would do upon visiting Chicago?

Or is it just trivial evidence that I had nothing better to do Saturday afternoon?

  -30-

EXTRA: Hot dog varieties more memorable than ballplayer careers?

The one-time proprietor of Hot Doug’s is continuing his trend of crafting varieties of sausages for sale at Wrigley Field, and marketing them by naming them after 1970s-era Chicago Cubs ballplayers.

Not that the Cubs were all that great during that decade. They contended for a few months in 1977, but otherwise usually fought it out for “bragging rights” with the White Sox for which team would play worse.

BUT FOR THOSE people now approaching or just surpassing 50, these were the Cubs of childhood yore. Ernie Banks was gone, and Ryne Sandberg hadn’t come along yet.

The new varieties pay tribute to one-time pitcher Bill Bonham (an atomic pork sausage with cherry marmalade and smoked gouda cheese), Pete LaCock (rib-eye steak sausage with horseradish cream and blue cheese) and Champ Summers (Polish sausage with Goose Island beer mustard and fried onions).

Which makes me think that the hot dogs will be more memorable than the quality of play any of those people showed while wearing the baby blue of the Chicago Cubs.

Unless you get excited over the fact that one-time first baseman LaCock was the son of Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall, or that he hit his only grand-slam home run off St. Louis Cardinals star pitcher Bob Gibson?

PERSONALY, I FELT compelled to write this mini-commentary because it gave me the chance to wade through old baseball card images from my own childhood. Nothing else.

Because at $9 per hot dog, I don’t feel compelled to rush out to Wrigley to try one. It must be a Cubs-fan thing.

Because I don’t think any White Sox fan would feel compelled to make a trip to U.S. Cellular Field if there were overpriced hot dogs named for Jorge Orta, Harry Chappas or Francisco Barrios.

 

Even though the Sout' Side brand of baseball was just as intriguing during that decade.

  -30-

A good thing Heinz gets back into mustard – would we want company known for catsup in top hot dog town?

When I read reports about how Kraft Heinz has plans to move one of its corporate offices into Chicago proper, I couldn’t help but think about the company’s efforts to bolster the amount of yellow mustard it manufactures.



Will she be favorite hot dog condiment?

Would we really want to be the home base of a company known for catsup – in light of the fact that many of us Chicagoans find that condiment so repulsive on our take on hot dogs?

FOR THE RECORD, Heinz has long manufactured mustard. But they focused their efforts on making the condiment for sale to food service buyers. You could put Heinz mustard on your food at the local diner or at the ballpark.

But try going to the grocery store, and you’d find shelves filled with French’s mustard; along with various brands of gourmet mustard for those who look down on anything colored yellow.

That is until this year, when Kraft Heinz decided to start selling its mustard products for retail. I’m sure many of us have seen the television commercials where Heinz catsup brings along Heinz mustard, making the previously-available brand all jealous to the point where she blows her stack (and yellow goop gets squirted all over the place).

Now, the Chicago Tribune reports that Kraft Heinz will move one of its corporate headquarters from the suburb of Northfield to Chicago proper – specifically at the Aon Center, 200 E. Randolph St.

CORPORATE EMPLOYEES WILL have a wonderful view of the Millennium Park that I’m sure will make the Chicago office the desirable place of employment (who in their right mind would rather work in an office in Pittsburgh?) within the corporate structure.

As far as Chicago’s public persona is concerned, this is a good thing.

Because while I don’t deny that Chicagoans consume catsup (way too much, I personally find that condiment repulsive and don’t put it on anything I eat), I wouldn’t want it to become one of those products that Rahm Emanuel sees the need to include whenever he makes a bet with another mayor whenever one of our professional sports franchises plays against another for some sort of championship.

Now if we can claim in those bets that we’re putting up Chicago-style hot dogs coated in part with Heinz mustard, that would make it all the more appropriate.



A personal favorite

AND IF IT adds to the corporate image that Chicago likes to offer (being able to attract top companies from around the globe, as opposed to rinky-dink companies that move to places like Indiana), then the city benefits in more ways than one.

It’s just a shame that the city’s leadership can’t be as concerned with bolstering the neighborhood public image as it is that of downtown. But that’s a problem that goes back generations before Emanuel came to office.

So back to mustard, since there will now be a major brand that will have a Chicago association, just as we now claim that the only legitimate hot dog is one of the Vienna Beef brand (although personally, I prefer the hot dogs made by the Bobak Sausage Co. on Archer Avenue).

Although I’m not a total snob on the hot dog question.

FOR AS OFTEN as I have a hot dog minus catsup that contains all the ingredients that turn two wieners into a meal, there also are times when I’m just as likely to give a hot dog some onions (usually raw) and a squirt of mustard.

For those nights when a hot dog just won't cut it

Now, by using the Heinz brand, I can claim to have a truly Chicago “experience” even when I’m doing nothing more than munching on something to tide my appetite when I don’t have time for a full meal.

Like a Chicago-style pan pizza (which I actually had for dinner Wednesday night). As for whether the thin-crust pizza is a more legitimate culinary experience, that is a debate for a future commentary.

  -30-

We in Chicago ought to applaud the idea of “mustard-only” hot dog vendor

If either of our professional ball clubs had any sense, they’d figure out a way to make Charley Marcuse a part of their ballpark atmosphere.

He’s not capable of pitching 200 innings, playing a stellar shortstop or depositing fly balls into the outfield seats on a regular basis. He wouldn’t help the on-field activity.

BUT HIS HIRING would make a statement totally in character with the ethos of our home city – or at least the way we’d like to think of ourselves.

Marcuse is a hot dog vendor. Or at least he was until this week. Since 1999, he has worked concessions at Detroit Tigers baseball games. He’s one of those guys roaming through the stands with a metal box – selling you overpriced hot dogs to munch on while you watch a ballgame.

His particular schtick that made him stand out was as the “Singing” vendor. He’d sing out his cry for people to buy hot dogs as though he were parodying an operatic singer.

But that’s not why he ought to come to Chicago. In fact, I suspect if he did set foot inside a Chicago ballpark, he’d come across as being more annoying than Ronnie Wickers, the “Woo Woo” man in the stands at Wrigley Field.

WHAT MAKES MARCUSE stand out in my mind that he believes hot dogs are meant to be served with mustard. He is known for letting people who ask for ketchup on their ballpark hotdog just how little he thinks of them.

In fact, it seems that attitude is what caused Sportservice (which handles concessions at Detroit’s Comerica Park) to let Marcuse go. Friday’s Tigers game against the Kansas City Royals was the first since 1999 where he wasn’t present.

The Detroit News reported that “general employee conduct” was the reason Marcuse was given for losing his job. Although speculation is that it was his “no ketchup” attitude – which some fans have said on various Internet sites was so over the top that he came across as intimidating to fans.

Which reminds me of the one-time “Andy the Clown” who used to roam the stands at old Comiskey Park – using his loud, piercing voice to be able to shout cheers over the din of the ballpark crowd. Some fans hated having to be the one sitting near where he stood because he could be that loud.

OTHERS FOUND HIM to be part of the atmosphere of the old ballpark that never carried over to the structure now known as U.S. Cellular Field.

Now in writing this commentary, I don’t seriously expect Marcuse to relocate his life from Michigan to the greater Chicago area just to take a job as a hot dog vendor.

Hot dog lovers to an extreme in L.A.

But the whole idea of someone willing to take a stand for the lack of ketchup (which I personally don’t put on anything I eat) is something I wouldn’t mind seeing promoted. Even though I realize that the vendors at our own ballparks don’t offer ketchup (you have to go to one of the stands underneath the seats if you want it).

A no-ketchup vendor who’s proud of it would be a kick – even if it were just to last for a day.

BESIDES, IT'S ONE of the quirks of Michigan that Marcuse has actually developed his own brand of mustard that can be bought in assorted stores and served in some area restaurants.

Perhaps a Chicago stint could help him expand his market. At the very least, it would appease those people who get all worked up over the genuine “Chicago dog.”

Although I’ve always found a hot dog with mustard and onion to be an adequate edible item.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: For anybody who thinks crusading against ketchup on a hot dog is silly, keep in mind that it makes more sense than anybody who can't envision the Wrigley Field baseball experience without an Old Style-brand beer.
 

A bi-partisan hot dog? Or just me!

Who, in their  right mind, wants to politicize hot dogs? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

I never realized until Thursday that I have been eating politically bipartisan hot dogs all these years.

I came to this realization when I happened to be walking along Randolph Street and I noticed the America’s Dog storefront located just east of State Street.

NOW I HAVE never eaten an America’s Dog wiener, not even on Thursday. In fact, I doubt I would have paid any attention to the place – had it not been for the Election Day-themed storefront window.

They are among the many types of businesses that are trying to sell products by claiming our choices reflect our political beliefs. How many people have gone out of their way to purchase a 7-Eleven cup of coffee of either a “blue” or a “red” color – so that anybody who happens to see us holding the cup will get an instant message?

Not so much what our political partisanship is, but that we’re dorky enough to want to reflect our politics with our choice of a coffee cup!

Personally, I usually ignore places that want me to reflect my political choices with my superficial purchases – which is what I would describe the America’s Dog franchise as doing.

FOR TO READ the windows informed me that Democrats prefer certain condiments on their hot dogs, while Republicans pick completely different items.

The mustard that I usually put on a hot dog? That makes me a Democrat.

But those onions I also add on after running a couple of lines of mustard form the squirt bottle? Pure Republican!

Although maybe I get a “pass” on account of the fact that they seem to highlight grilled onions (which I enjoy occasionally), even though I usually prefer raw onions chopped into tiny pieces.

MY BREATH MAY stink afterward, but the flavor it adds to the hot dog (provided the wiener in question isn’t some cheap generic brand) is worthwhile!

So am I just one of those wishy-washy people who can’t make up their mind? Call me a culinary independent – if you will.

But I couldn’t help but notice one aspect of their partisan condiment breakdown. It seems that those people who put ketchup and pickle relish (and not the good kind of relish, but that mushy, pasty stuff that you get in a jar at the supermarket) are pure 100 percent Republican.

Ketchup and relish made the GOP list for condiment choices.

PERSONALLY, I THINK the only people who should be excused for eating a hot dog with ketchup and relish on it are those who are under 6 years old – they’re too young to know any better (although their parents ought to be subjected to 100 hours of being locked in a room with the television perpetually tuned to campaign advertising).

That’s a kiddie hot dog (albeit one that I wouldn’t have eaten at that age)!

So does that mean that people who would eat it are nothing more than child-like in their Republican-leaning ideological ramblings?

All that talk of “personal responsibility” that often comes across as they don’t want business interests to be held responsible for their screw-ups isn’t so much mean-spirited, as much as it is just people who don’t know any better politically?!?

PERHAPS WE SHOULD pity the kind of people who seriously think that Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., has been a responsible public official during his two years in Congress?

Nah! They’re the kind of people who would probably try to make us eat ketchup-laded hot dogs, which strikes my culinary sensibility as being the equivalent of that nonsense-talk we’ve heard from certain GOP officials who persist in speaking about rape in less-than-sensitive ways,.

Which ultimately is the reason why I kept walking past America’s Dog, and ultimately stopped off for a quick mid-day bite to eat at the Gold Coast Dogs on Wabash Avenue. It’s nowhere near the taste sensation that it was at the original location just north of the river on Clark Street.

But a “char dog” with everything has a certain kick to it that ought to rise above partisan politics.

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