Hot Dogs To Become Slightly Less Deadly, Maybe
How to solve the deadly danger that lurks every time you eat a hot dog — namely, the possibility of choking on a tube that's the same size as most human airways? The man who gave the world the popcorn chicken thinks that he has the answer! Gene Gagliardi has patented a device that will cut strategically placed slits into hot dogs — the incisions break up the dog into smaller, less fatal pieces upon mastication. (Well, less immediately fatal anyway — there's still the whole matter of the dog's nutritional value to deal with.) Also, Gagliardi is claiming that the cuts actually enhance the taste! "All the slits that open up, the flavors get in there, the condiments get in there," he said, and I am wondering if the reporter on the other end of the line of that quote had to stifle a "that's what she said" joke in response.
Pretty sure there's a mitzvah in Deuteronomy legislating against this very thing.
Here's an idea: how about we teach our lil' Vienna Sausages how to eat slower, take smaller bites and chew their food? I realize that perhaps this is hard to do with one hand on the Wii remote and yeah, that weiner tastes soooooo good (especially with extra ketchup!) that it must be inhaled… but come on.
Good luck doing that with a toddler.
Right? Doesn't mastication break everything up into smaller, less fatal pieces?
About face: maybe they could just make hot dogs hollow, like Lifesavers, and we could fill the insides with condiments?
@Lux: touche, but maybe toddlers shouldn't be moving up to the Hebrew Nationals just yet, until they have a full set of molars?
Or any choking risk food at all, perhaps. Which is…oh wait. Most solid food.
You don't put ketchup on a hot dog!
Yes you do. And relish. And then you eat it. With relish.
@john: maaaaan, you're being so Chicago.
(Ms. Y. gives me the thousand-yard stare when I make the attempt… I'm otherwise banned from doing it. I've learned to enjoy it without.)
@Lux: I know, right? Maybe we should just get used to a life of Smoothies.
One couldn't simply use a knife to cut slits in a hot dog? Must we have a bespoke device for everything in this, our modern world?
Thank you
jolie, I'd like you to meet the Fingerhut Catalog's Kitchen Gadgets & Tools department.
http://tinyurl.com/388ml8z
@Art: I actually love that because I have an obsession with odd catalogues. So thank you!
So instead of choking on the hot dog, I will instead choke on the toothpicks which are sticking out of these things. Great.
Asterisk-shaped meat products? I've long held that processed foodstuffs could be the key to teaching children grammar.
Actually it does somehow increase the flavor. There is a little backwater town called Jamestown NY (you know, where that "let's give everyone AIDS" guy was) and they have this place called AJ's. They use the cheapest hot dogs possible but have this machine that puts these grooves into em that make the dogs taste insanely good. All food should be grooved.
I have eaten at AJs. Must object to the brown sauce they slather on hotdogs, but my malted was lovely.
I also like how they steam heat the cheese onto the dog. Its the little touches.
This will make it so much easier for my, erm, friend to make their Velveeta stuffed hotdogs.
Double Down my ass
There are about 5 deaths a year and almost all are children under 3.
i have a feeling that miles may develop an unhealthy obsession with this device. it's just a feeling.
This post is a bit misleading, methinks. The Times article on this piece — http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/health/25choke.html — spoke of Gagliardi's device as being used on hot dogs premarket, not as an at home device. Granted, those who think parents should just cut hot dogs themselves probably won't find that compelling–but it's worth noting that a lot of parents a) don't know that hot dogs are a choking risk and b) don't know the exact size to cut, or c) think that they can prevent choking just by being present.
But hey, enough of that. Those lazy two year olds should learn to chew better, amiright?
The pieces that I have recently read about hot dog safety (because this has been a thing this year!) have been about making them less fatal for adults, not children.
(And yeah, I thought it was implied that this was a factory-appropriate device.)
How Kobayashi makes it through each day, I'll never understand.
That's fair–I only saw the Times piece, which was specifically about children.
And I don't want children choking! (Adults, on the other hand…meh.)
Ha!
I'm cutting myself now, to bring out the flavor.
Well, hot dogs are only any good when diced and thrown into baked mac & cheese. Problem solved!
I'm three chapters into the new Amis book. If this magnificent summer he describes doesn't include a hot dog entrepreneur named Gene Gagliardi, I will demand a refund, heh.
Mmmm. Meat churros.
What about the BUN, Einstein?
Fuck that. I don't eat hot dogs because they're safe, I deep throat hot dogs in a single gulp to feel ALIVE.
I use it for practice.
"I'm cooking them in my own little oven."
- Divine, Pink Flamingos.
@HG
My airway is bigger than that.
Maybe I should take my picture down.
Years ago, when I worked in an elementary school I performed the Heimlich Maneuver three times. First for a Tootsie-Pop, second-a tator tot, and lastly-a hot dog.
Hey Mr. Bell "invented" the taco (well, he received a patent for a mold that allowed those things that "Mexicans" eat to be deep fried and turned into a "shell") and then started selling that exotic new thing to people in L.A. The rest is history. Buy some stock in this hot-dog slicer company now!! To see the trajectory of income for the future firm and for a history of the taco in Mexico and the United States read Pilcher's number in Gastonomica: http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/gfc.2008.8.1.26?journalCode=gfc
tomato, tomahto it's still pig anus.
that's DELICIOUS pig anus to you.
Even the all-beef hotdogs?
yes.
I googled "Korean: Pig: Pork: House of Poo", but alas, I come up dry heaves. (Maybe I should've left out the colon part?)
So, CIRCUMCISE all hot dogs, problem solved.
Somehow "Throw a grooved, cut-up hot dog down my hallway" just doesn't have the same je ne sais quoi.